Being Nice

The fawn response and the courage to disrupt the peace.

I’ve been more aware of the fawn response lately.

Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn.

Fawning is a survival response built around appeasement. Keep the peace. Stay agreeable. Read the room. Make sure everyone else is okay. Don’t become the problem.

I see it all the time, mostly in women.

I’ve lived it plenty.

Sometimes it looks like people-pleasing or over-explaining. Sometimes it looks like laughing at something that doesn’t feel funny. Staying quiet when someone is being talked about in a way that doesn’t feel good. Nodding along because speaking up might create tension.

Sometimes it looks like protecting the person who crossed a boundary rather than the person whose boundary was crossed.

A woman gets protective. She gets clear. Maybe she gets a little fierce.

Her reaction becomes the problem.

She’s too sensitive. Too intense. She could have said it nicer. What’s her problem?

The better question is: Did I overstep? Did they overstep?

Sometimes the dance is actually pretty simple.

I overstepped. You told me I overstepped. I didn’t like how it felt to be confronted with myself. I made your boundary the problem.

That isn’t accountability and niceness isn’t kindness.

Niceness is a survival strategy that keeps us participating in dynamics we know aren’t healthy because belonging feels safer than disrupting the norm.

Gossip is a great example.

There is absolutely a difference between processing a difficult relationship with someone we trust and creating a pattern of talking shit about people when they aren’t in the room.

Most of us can feel the difference.

And most of us know someone who does this regularly.

The question becomes: How do I respond?

Maybe I say, “I don’t feel comfortable talking about them when they aren’t here.”

Maybe I gently redirect the conversation.

Maybe I ask, “Have you talked to them about this?”

Maybe I simply walk away with or without an explanation.

Maybe we start honestly naming what we see to the people who do this consistently.

I’ve been in this situation a couple times recently and staying present while this is happening feels horrible, even if I don’t say one word.

It’s allowing the behavior with our silence.

All of these many layers of conditioning invite a lot of learning.

When someone sets a boundary, can we resist the urge to immediately defend ourselves and get curious instead?

Did I cross a line?

Is there something here for me to own?

Am I uncomfortable because they were unkind or because they stopped accommodating me?

This is part of coming out of the fawn response.

We begin to learn that discomfort does not always mean danger.

Someone being disappointed in us or angry does not mean we did anything wrong.

Someone setting a boundary with us does not make them cruel.

Boundaries are actually incredibly truthful and loving.

Belonging that requires us to abandon our integrity isn’t the kind of belonging I’m interested in anymore.

I don’t want to be nice at the expense of being true.

I want to be kind.

I want to be accountable.

I want to be willing to look at my part in the dance.

Love isn’t keeping the peace.

It’s refusing to participate in what creates harm.