Life Coaching with Christine Hassler · Christine Hassler

CC: Why We Fawn & People Please with Dr. Ingrid Clayton

·49 min·3 clips
resolves, oftentimes they had no resource. They had no one there to help them, right? That's such a salve to
Christine Hassler opens by naming fawning as a trauma response. She says it has been one of her own trauma responses and that it still shows up a little. She links the idea to empaths and to the skill of reading a room. The nunchi example gives the conversation a clean way in, showing how social attunement can slide into survival. Christine describes people as strong fauners and chameleons when they learn to track everyone else first. She keeps coming back to the line between awareness and self-abandonment. Dr. Ingrid Clayton joins to help break the pattern down. The conversation stays close and direct while the guest adds context. Christine then shifts to what happens after the work has already been done. A conversation with her husband about a recurring trigger becomes the starting point. She asks when someone can free themselves from the story of wounding. She names the comfort zone that can keep a person returning to the triggered place. She says healing matters, and so does the choice to stop living inside the old response. She is careful not to turn that into spiritual bypassing. Instead, she talks about rolling up your sleeves without reliving trauma on repeat. IFS comes into the frame as a way to speak to the protective part that stands in front of the exiled part. Christine describes the inner conversation as one that says, got it now. She also talks about rewiring neural networks and staying aware of the choice point. The episode closes with appreciation for Ingrid Clayton, her book Fawning, and the places people can find her online. Christine notes that Ingrid is not taking new clients and cannot offer referrals, but she invites people to connect through her website, Instagram, and Substack.

As heard by us

A clear look at fawning as a trauma response and a choice point.

The conversation treats fawning as a trauma response and as a sharp, quiet skill for reading a room. Christine Hassler frames that idea through nunchi, the art of gauging the mood around you and adjusting to it, which gives the discussion more bite than a standard…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you keep reading the room before you read yourself, this one gets at why.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
Listen to the show on