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Overcome People Pleasing and Understand the Fawn Trauma Response with Psychotherapist Katie Mc Kenna

Season #1 Episode #18

Welcome to the Women of Worth Podcast with Claire Fealy! 

In today's special 2 part episode, I am joined by Katie Mc Kenna to get deep about our childhoods. In Part 1, we dive into the four responses, Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn, and how you can balance them to get rid of people-pleasing. We want you to know that you don’t have to be anyone but YOURSELF!

But, this isn’t just my podcast. I would never be where I am today without you! So, settle in, grab a nice cup of tea, and welcome to another episode of OUR podcast.

Fight , Flight, Freeze, and Fawn [4:00]

  • Freeze is the first response to danger. We become still and quiet and assess the danger. [5:30]
  • Flight is the second response where you disengage or retreat from the danger. [5:55]
  • The third response, fight, ensures that we have good boundaries and can stand up for ourselves. [6:20]
  • The Fawn response is when a person responds to threat by trying to be pleasing or helpful to stall the attacker. [6:35]
  • We keep the past alive in our mind so vividly that we can get stuck in that state of survival and dysregulation.[7:40]
  • These responses are not bad unless we become stuck in one of them. [8:30]

How to Become Unstuck [12:00]

  • We will all make mistakes as parents [13:30]
  • I took accountability for my part of the issue- that’s the repair. [15:00] 
  • Part of the healing journey is grieving those losses- it’s okay to be sad. Feel it and release it. [17:00]
  • Our most basic need as humans is to be heard, seen, and valued. That comes before anything else. [23:20]
  • The first step to change is always awareness. [24:30]
  • We have 2 fundamental needs as children: attachment and authenticity. [27:00]
  • When our emotional intelligence is restricted we often don’t know what we really want and consequently struggle with making decisions. [29:20]

Abandonment  [31:00]

  • All behavior is to meet a need. [35:30]
  • Does it always have to go back to childhood? [37:00]


Work with Claire:

https://claire-fealy.mykajabi.com/
https://claire-fealy.mykajabi.com/Magnetic-Confidence-Movement