[00:00:00] Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. I am your host, Nina Badzin. I have been writing about friendship for over 10 years, podcasting about it for about four and a half years. I started this podcast in the summer of 2021.

I hope as a listener, whether you are newer to the show or you have been here a long time, that you also find yourself learning a lot about yourself as a friend, about the people in your life the kind of friends they are or aren’t, and what you want out of your friendships. We want different things at different ages and stages of life.

Today’s episode brings together so many things I know listeners are thinking about. I have licensed psychotherapist, Meg Josephson, who is the author of the outstanding book called, are you mad at me? Is there a more perfect title?

Meg Josephson in her private practice specializes in trauma-informed care through a compassion focused lens. She holds a master of social work from [00:01:00] Columbia University and she is a certified meditation teacher through the Nalanda Institute. She really brings a lot of that mindfulness into her work helping people heal from a lifetime of people pleasing, really. I mean, there’s more to it, but you gotta read the book. this interview is fantastic. I’m so excited for you to hear it. But I also think that you should read the book if you are somebody who feels that you are always worried that people are mad at you or you’re worrying a lot what people think of you.

So it’s not just about people being mad at you, it’s do people think I am nice enough, good enough? You know, did the right thing. In the book, Meg explains that people pleasing is not a personality trait. It’s a genius survival mechanism known as fawning and she will describe fawning for us more in the episode.

But just to give you a quick idea, that is the instinct that is often learned in childhood to become more appealing to a perceived threat so that you could feel safe. It’s not an inherently a bad thing. For a lot of people it was a necessary survival skill. It can be protective, but for [00:02:00] adults who don’t really need that anymore and are still living in a constant state of hyper vigilance, it is unnecessary at this point, and it also is what leads to anxiety and exhaustion, and resentment and burnout, and just overly focusing on what other people think.

Meg’s work is about how to help you stop living in that constant state of fear that people are upset with you or that you’re not good enough

If you are someone who, whenever there is even the slightest hint of a behavior change in a friend, you assume that they’re upset with you even though you haven’t done anything. Or even if you have done a little something, but it’s not that big of a deal and people make mistakes and you just cannot move beyond it.

This episode is for you. And this episode is for you if you always felt like you had to be good, perfect the best in order to stay safe in order to be in everyone’s good graces or if you felt like being in everyone’s good graces was the only way to feel safe and okay as a kid, as an adult. I think that [00:03:00] covers a lot of people. This is for a lot of you. I hope that you get as much out of it as I did.

Nina: Hello Meg. Welcome to Dear Nina.

Meg: Thank you for having me.

Nina: Before we dive in, I would like to read something to you from your book, but this is really the listeners. you know it ’cause you wrote it, but this is for the listeners to be where I am ’cause I’m ahead of them if they haven’t read the book.

And this is from page 1 77, I both hate and love to break it to you. You can’t control other people’s perceptions of you. Even when you’re working overtime in an attempt to control how you’re being perceived, the other person is still seeing you through the lens of their own inner world, and by trying to gain control of others’ perceptions, you are losing something in the process.

Your sense of self, your precious energy, your peace of mind. Even if you were to do everything perfectly for everyone and cater to their exact personality preferences, you still wouldn’t have control over how they perceive you. With fawning, your mind thinks it has control over how people are perceiving you, but this is a false sense of control.

The truth is that [00:04:00] others’ perceptions were never in your control. People will judge you, misunderstand you, and hold perceptions of you that you don’t agree with. That’s okay.

That paragraph, I mean, and the whole book is like that, by the way. The whole book. I stop and go, oh my gosh. It’s like she’s talking to me. so I’m gonna just transition immediately to ask you what made you write this book?

Meg: I’ll start with where that feeling originates with me because that to me is really what I was hoping this book is achieving is it speaks, puts a language to a feeling that so many of us have, but feel very alone in, are you mad at me? Am I in trouble? Do I do something wrong?

Am I bad? And that feeling of worry and shame, and for me I grew up in a home that had a lot of addiction and rage and volatility and worrying if people were mad at me, specifically my dad was, really protective. I definitely coped by being just the perfect good kid so that he wouldn’t be upset with me.

it was just something I could [00:05:00] control or I thought I could control in an environment that otherwise felt quite out of my control. to me that feeling was there from a very young age. But then when I got older and I was now an adult and working, that feeling was still there. Uh, it was just manifesting in different ways.

So now I was worried that I’d be fired and my boss said, can you chat? Or, my friend must be mad at me because, they didn’t put a exclamation point or they didn’t text me back right away. that feeling was, still there just had changed forms, and then it became a therapist eventually opened my own private practice just saw how prevalent that feeling was in others as well.

And it might sound silly at that point, it really was surprising to me how many other people were feeling this. I really thought, not that I was unique in that, but I was comforted and surprised to see how many people worry about these things, when I became a therapist. really when I started to blend all those things together, my own personal story, client narrative [00:06:00] research and thought there isn’t really a book that talks about this, through the angle of fawning especially. that’s where it began.

Nina: in that quote in particular, what speaks to me is the double headed monster that you really tackle in the book of people pleasing the fawning, which we’re gonna define a little more in a moment, and this false sense of control too. I mean, they’re connected.

You can’t separate them, but it’s like, oh, if I just say the right thing, do the right thing, act in the right way, then they will think this thing of me, which will be positive, I will be seen

Meg: Yeah. And to a child that’s so soothing when, you know, we are quite powerless as children. And so if we are in an environment that’s very unpredictable, focusing on perception, focusing on what we can do to be seen as good or perfect, Feels very soothing. But then we carry that because it worked for a lot of us, how brilliant that we knew how to do that. We carry that into adulthood, in a way that’s not as helpful or necessary. It [00:07:00] becomes more maladaptive. so that’s really the adult manifestation in

Nina: That makes sense. Okay. Can you define fawning? ’cause like now I’m so familiar with it from reading the book, but for listeners who haven’t even maybe heard that term before.

Meg: Yes. So the Fawn response is a, term that was coined in 2013 by a psychologist named Pete Walker. So it’s quite new in terms of language, but it’s been around like we’ve been doing it for a long time. so our body has four responses to a threat that we, have language for, fight or flight.

Those are the first two, which I think a lot of us are familiar with, freeze. And the fourth one is fawn. So when our body’s detecting some sort of threat, whether that threat is real, so there’s a line in front of us or an abuser or someone’s, screaming at us, or the threat is perceived. So. Our friend didn’t text us back, or our, partners being a little cold after work and we’re like, are you mad at me?

There’s something wrong that’s a perceived threat. It feels threatening, but we may be fine. [00:08:00] when we’re in their fond response, it doesn’t matter if it’s real or perceived, it feels the same, that’s for all threats. But when we are in the fawn response, we appease the threat. We try to be liked by it, satisfy it, impress it, we lean into the threat instead of away from it.

So that we can feel safe again. What the phone response really says is, I can’t feel safe until I know you like me. My safety comes from pleasing you. I can’t be good until I know we’re good. and so that’s really what differentiates it from the other threat responses. It’s, it’s leaning into it as opposed to fleeing in some way.

Sometimes we need it, which we can talk about. Whether it’s to survive in society, to get a paycheck, to appease our boss, whatever it may be. but when we’re doing it all the time, it’s a threat response. We’re only supposed to be in it for a few minutes. when we’re doing it all the time, when we’re actually safe, like with a loving partner, with a best friend that we’ve had since childhood, that’s when it becomes so tiring leads to burnout, resentment, anxiety, and all those things.

Nina: I wanna [00:09:00] understand what a person is doing differently and, I’m just gonna say in a more healthy way when they don’t get a text back from their friend. So let’s say there’s two ways you can react to that. you text your friend, someone you text with pretty regularly, and then it’s just silence.

One kind of person might be like, she’s busy. Just assume whatever. She’s busy. This person normally texts me back pretty quickly, so they must be busy. The other response would be, they’re mad at me.

I kind of thought they were acting a little weird the other day. I guess they really are mad at me. It’s like confirming, maybe a fear you already had. What is happening in the person’s head? In both scenarios.

Meg: let’s start with the anxious fawn response version, which is it skews towards self blame. Did I do something wrong? What’s wrong with me? Maybe, maybe it’s this joke didn’t land last night at the party, and so now they’re like, they hate me.

And we start to pick ourselves apart in part because that’s the only thing in our control is to look at ourselves in some ways. that’s what we can [00:10:00] point to, but the thread is hypervigilance. We have this hypervigilance of what do they think of me? We’re scanning our environment, the text, the relationship, the body language.

And that’s a huge core part of the Fawn response. We’re scanning our external environment and in doing so, we completely lose connection with what’s happening internally. So we’re immediately assuming we did something wrong. They’re, they don’t like us, there’s abandonment happening. worst case scenario thinking.

And then of course, they probably text back 30 minutes later and we’re like, okay, we’re good. No, we’re nevermind. It’s okay. whereas someone who is perhaps more regulated in their nervous system at, that moment, they’re not thinking about it, they’re going about their day just as easefully as the other person is of people have lives, people have other relationships and jobs, and maybe this person is stressed or going through a breakup or is in a new relationship. There’s all these factors. we have so many things that we’re all juggling. that person is thinking it’s not personal.[00:11:00]

And that is a really important piece of the phone response is we tend to take everything quite personally. Sometimes, There’s validity to that and we self-reflect to think about how we can improve. And other times we’re searching for information to affirm the belief that something is inherently wrong with us.

Nina: And why it can be difficult in friendships. I just wanna say from my point of view, and you mentioned it in the book too, because really what I’m always dealing with in the show is like helping people make friendship easier. Just not to make it harder than it needs to be. The desire to make sure you’re okay.

Make sure people aren’t mad at you. It requires a lot of your friend, and I don’t think people always realize that, right? You are asking a lot of other people to always make you feel that you’re like in everyone’s good graces. It’s tiresome.

Meg: It’s totally tiresome. It really puts a strain on the relationship for the person on the receiving end of it. of course, sometimes if we’re concerned about something and hey, wanted to, check in with you. Are we doing okay? Even that [00:12:00] is so different than are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong? And that we can speak about the difference between, reassurance seeking and validation and how to

Nina: Let’s do that. ’cause I think people, we need help. Yeah.

Meg: what can make it so tiring is when reassurance seeking is habitual. it’s a constant cycle. And so what you’re asking from the friend. Is for them to reassure you, make you feel better, soothe you. sometimes that’s what friendship is, but when that’s happening all the time, it is so, so, so tiring.

The person is giving a lot. The thing that’s not happening is you’re actually not getting to the root feeling. This is reassurance seeking. If you’re saying, are you mad at me? Do you still love me? Do you think I’m pretty? That’s yes or no answers. And so the other person might say, no, I’m not mad at you. Yes, I still love you. And then maybe we feel good for a second. Okay. Good. But then it comes back

Nina: It took a bandaid.

Meg: 10 minutes later, or an hour later, whenever it is, because we’re not actually getting to the root emotion beneath it, which is [00:13:00] anxiety, fear of being left behind, insecurity, whatever may be beneath the surface for us.

Reassurance validation. When we’re looking for validation, the way I kind of differentiate it in the book is validation is really slowing down with that emotion. let’s say in this scenario, your friend didn’t text you back and so you’re feeling, anxious. You wanna say, are you mad at me. In that situation slow down, put your phone down. Okay,

Nina: That’s always the answer by the, that’s always the first answer.

Meg: Step one, , put the damn phone down. What’s happening here? What triggered this? What are you feeling? Maybe you’re feeling anxious. Are you feeling insecure about something you said yesterday? And that’s, coming up for you, just being with whatever that is.

Soothing yourself for a second, taking a few deep breaths, whatever it may be, if you decide you want to have a conversation with that person, which you might not, you might say to yourself, that passed. I’m actually okay. I, calmed myself down. I’m good. If you decide, I actually do wanna have a conversation with that person, the difference [00:14:00] between reassurance and validation. Validation is, you’re saying to the other person, Hey, I’ve been noticing I’m really overthinking this thing from yesterday. I don’t need you to reassure me, but I just wanted to, talk about it. I wanted to see how you were feeling.

I wanted to share how I was feeling. You’re having a conversation about the emotion. and the other person might give you validation and it might include some reassurance. Oh my gosh. No, don’t worry about that at all. , it’s an opening to what both people are feeling, and you’re slowing down and it requires the other person to do less because you’re both carrying the weight of the conversation. That’s sort of how I, how I view the difference between those two things.

Nina: it’s tricky and I think sometimes, it would be helpful if all of us could first assume the best. First assume that sometimes, okay, we do say weird things sometimes and maybe the other person even thought, oh, that was kind of a weird thing to say, and then moves on with their day. I had something this morning,

It was so timely with this episode. I wrote a text to a friend. I saw that [00:15:00] her dog died, and I’ve known this friend a long time. I’ve known her dog a long time. I am known to be not a dog person. I grew up with dogs. People always assume, oh, she must be scared of dogs. No, I am not scared of dogs.

I grew up with two greyhounds at all times. My parents adopted greyhounds from the racetrack. And I just did not enjoy them. They weren’t warm and cuddly. They shed everywhere. Mom, sorry. I know this makes you upset when you hear me say that. And it makes me feel like, like I’m an unloving person. Meanwhile, I did have four children.

Like I do know how to care for living beings. I’m just not a dog person. Anyway. I love my friend and I actually did like her dog. I wrote her a text that said, something like, I saw that your dog died. I named the dog. I said, you know, I’m not a dog person, but I really loved, your dog. And I did, and then, and I did like a broken heart.

Then I felt bad the whole rest of the morning. Like, why did I need to say I’m not a dog person That felt so unnecessary. Why couldn’t I just said, I’m so sorry. The reason this felt appropriate with this episode with you, I was so proud of myself and I want you to pat me on the back. I almost followed that up 20 minutes later. ’cause I was perseverating on it. [00:16:00] I didn’t mean to say I’m not a dog person. That was so, like, I was gonna explain that to, and then I thought, you know what, why do I need to, she, my ear may not have noted it. She, if she noted it, she was probably like, that wasn’t necessary and then moved on

Meg: And then moved

Nina: She sad her dog died. Like she doesn’t care how I said

Meg: Yeah, meanwhile she’s probably getting a lot of texts, loving texts from people, and just appreciated the soft touch from you. huge pat on the back for, first of all, having awareness of it. That’s the thing, having awareness, catching yourself, catching the urge, the urge is still gonna be there.

And sometimes it’s worth pursuing. Most of the time it’s not. but it’s being able to soothe ourselves. Through the discomfort of someone maybe misunderstanding misjudging us in some way. Most of the time people are not thinking about us as much as we think they’re thinking about us. and even if they do notice it or something, like you said, we’re just, people are moving on with their [00:17:00] day,

Nina: Can you, talk about the study in the book that really measured how little people are

Meg: Oh, the t-shirt

Nina: Yes. I think that that would be helpful for the people.

Meg: there was a study where there was a group that they wore embarrassing t-shirts out in public, I don’t know what the T-shirts were, but they were embarrassing enough for it to be like, that’s the variable in the study.

And they had to guess or estimate how many people noticed them or how they were being perceived. The amount of people that noticed them out in public was significantly less. They overestimated so much how many people were paying attention to ’em, , looking at them or noticing their existence.

We’re in our own worlds. We are focused on our own lives, on our own relationships. for people in the f taking things personally was often really protective. If my parent’s in a bad mood, that’s my fault. I need to do something. I need to fix this. That was protective to be so hyper aware for that parent example.

but when we’re [00:18:00] doing it in adulthood, when we’re, it’s not as necessary, it kind of distorts how we’re seeing the world. We’re seeing it through this hyper-focused lens that everyone’s paying attention to us, everyone’s noticing and evaluating us, but that’s really because we are to ourselves. We are noticing ourselves in that way. We are judging ourselves in that way, and even if people are judging you in that way, okay,

Nina: That’s the hard part, right? Like yes. The, the So what? living with it. Just living with it on one hand people aren’t thinking about us as much as we think. On the other hand, and this is something I, I wanted to bring up, I had a friend who explained to me the, how she grew up in and it wasn’t, abusive or some of the issues that we’ve covered a little bit.

In terms of needing to have that fawn response, to to actually stay safe and know like what the mood was in the house. It was that her parents were always gossiping about other people and very critical of other people. So it could make you think, I could see how if you were raised like that, you would grow up to think [00:19:00] Everyone’s talking about me, everyone’s noticing every little time. I didn’t wear the right thing, say the right thing How would you grow up otherwise?

Meg: That’s a huge, huge one. my parents were the same, would gossip a lot. And that was kind of their way of connecting, to one another was through gossip and judgment. as a therapist, I witnessed this as well, that how we think people are thinking about us is often a reflection of how our parents talked about other people.

Nina: That’s not discussed that much. I think that’s a really original idea. I’m not saying we’re the first two people to ever talk about it. You’re the first person to put it in your book, but it’s not talked about that often. you’ll hear more about the abuse piece of it Which of course would make you grow up to react to adults the same way you did when you were a kid. But yeah, this too, being on the listening end of so much criticism about other people. Even if it wasn’t about you

Meg: Totally.

Nina: still take it in. And by the way, I just wanna say, ’cause my, my parents did not do that. everybody had, there issues. And I didn’t grow up perfectly, no one did. And certainly my kids aren’t growing up perfectly. But they did not do that. My mom is the queen of [00:20:00] saying nothing. About anybody. Like you can’t even get her to sometimes I’m even like, mom, what’d you think

Meg: yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Nina: She will not. It’s an art form. She is.

Meg: Respect. Yeah. Yeah, totally. we take that in and so then often we will also pick ourselves apart in that way because if we’re perfect, there’s nothing to criticize. And so we hyper fixate on what we can do perfectly. And I need to say this grief text perfectly, and I need to say this joke perfectly because if, we’re maximizing approval, we’re minimizing rejection, we’re maximizing approval. If we’re hyper-focusing on what we’re doing and how we’re saying it.

Nina: I do find that I. just to be personal. ’cause I I can only really talk about myself, even though I didn’t grow up in an abusive home or grow up in a home where people were gossiping. I still have this people pleasing response, but not with everyone, only with certain people. And I think I have it with people I find hard to please.

And instead of, I’ve gotten better as I’ve gotten older. I’ve. evolved, used to be much worse, the dancing monkey to make sure, [00:21:00] these couple of people aren’t mad at me and it would make me overexplain. but it’s interesting.

I find that I could turn it off with some people and some people I felt I had to turn it on, on my one possibility I think is, I grew up feeling like I had to be good. I couldn’t not ’cause people would yell at me, but that people would be overwhelmed if I added anything to the plate.

Meg: Well, this is what’s important is and I talk about this, where it doesn’t need to be, abusive for you to learn to fawn. But it can also just be existing in society, especially as a woman needing to be seen as good and agreeable because as children, how we are loved and approved of within our home.

How loved we are and approved of, that’s our world. that’s everything to a child. I talk about this, the complexity even in, you know, my home

there were definitely extreme moments of volatility, but there was also loving moments as well. And I also have sweet memories too, and [00:22:00] that was really confusing. And when I first went to therapy to process a lot of what happened because I was like, well, it wasn’t all bad and I thought it had to be all bad

for it to matter or for it to be worth processing and acknowledging. And it can be true that you felt loved and you have a great family and it can be true that you learned you have to be good all the time. Both things can be true. They don’t negate each other

Nina: That’s like a very healing thing to say to a person. So I appreciate that and I hope listeners are also taking that in, listeners who feel that they’re sometimes stuck in this pattern of always worrying, people are mad at them, feeling like they have to, apologize or be perfect or all these things, even if they had a pretty ho hum upbringing. People need to hear that. Thank you.

So something I’m seeing a lot on social media that I agree with is people who say everybody wants a village and no one wants to be a villager. This whole thing.

Meg: Mm-hmm.

Nina: And then at the same time, with everything in your book and, and what we’re discussing [00:23:00] here. It can be hard to find that balance of you wanna be a good friend, you wanna be there for people which is necessary. I’m the first person, a message that if anyone listens to all my episodes, the message they are getting is you do have to show up.

you do have to be inconvenienced. You cannot never be inconvenienced and then expect that you have the village. That said, you could see where it can go too far and it’s hard to. How are you helping with people with that, knowing the difference between people pleasing and just being part of a community and having to show up?

Meg: I really appreciate this conversation because I think we are so black or white in how we talk about these things. It’s like boundaries. You don’t owe anyone anything and protect your peace. And we are overcompensating and then we are isolated from community and we we’re not good friends anymore.

And so it’s, it is such a balance and I think people that are drawn to healing, people pleasing, have probably, found their identity in, being helpful and in being overly [00:24:00] helpful. I think it’s really important to understand that my lens is in healing the FA response. It’s so that we can actually have closer relationships.

because what happens with the Fawn response is when we are wanting to be seen as perfect and good, no one’s actually really getting to know us. We’re showing them the best version of ourselves. We’re always saying yes, we’re always doing the quote right thing, but it often can lack this emotional intimacy because we’re always being good I talk about the kind of the difference between being nice versus compassionate. So nice might be like always saying, yes, no worries if not. And yes, always giving, but when that is happening again and again, and we’re silencing our needs all the time, that can lead to resentment in our relationships.

And so maybe on the inside we’re like having fake arguments with them or I can’t believe this, but then on the outside we’re like, yeah, totally. Is that being a villager? Is that being a good friend? If you are talking about them behind their [00:25:00] back or you’re, you’re actually really upset with them, but you’re not able to have an honest conversation. Versus compassionate, yes, giving, showing up for your friends postpartum and when they’re grieving a parent, and all of these things that life brings.

And it’s also being connected to ourselves at the same time. So it’s understanding our needs and our emotions and being able to have uncomfortable, honest conversations with the people close to us in our lives. And the reason why that’s compassionate is because we’re then able to be a good friend long term because resentment festers.

And so maybe we are so resentful in a relationship because we’re constantly saying yes and we wanna say no, or We’re dishonoring our time or whatever it may be, to an extreme. We can’t do that forever. we’re gonna burn out in that relationship and then maybe we start to distance ourselves or whatever.

Versus being compassionate, being honest, being a clear direct communicator. We [00:26:00] are able to show up long term because we’re able to be ourselves and show up for them at the same time. And so that to me is the, is the true balance. To me, healing the fawn response moves towards being a villager and wanting a village.

It moves towards having community because we’re able to really be our true selves in that community, and isn’t that what community is, is being able to do that. So that’s how I view it.

Nina: It takes practice. I think that’s what it comes down to. Like you have to practice being there for people and not being over the top about it. I’m just using layman’s term I agree that it doesn’t have to be so black and white.

Meg: In terms of how to find that line, a few things I find helpful. Number one, notice resentment. Notice when resentment starts to come up. Yes. Sometimes if we’re just like exhausted and we’re, oh, I really don’t wanna do this, but it’s just, that’s just what a good friend does, and you just have to push through that.

But if there’s resentment coming from saying [00:27:00] Yes when you don’t need to be saying yes. You’re going, like you’re saying so over the top in a way that no one’s expecting of you. Like, don’t be a hero. No one’s expecting you to show up every single day. You’re doing the most when no one needs that from you.

That’s a sign if you start to have those fake arguments in your head or whatever it may be. And then pausing also and asking yourself. Do I need to be doing this? Why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I’m trying to prove myself in some way? Or am I doing this because I actually want to?

This just feels good to be there for that person. what’s also really true is we can’t do that for everyone in the world. And so this is a really important distinction is I think doing this sort of work really forces us to reflect on. What relationships mean the most to me? I know for me it’s really parsed through.

I’m a definitely like a quality over quantity person. I’m someone that’s always had just like a close handful of really good friends because I want to be able to drop [00:28:00] everything for those people. And I know that if I’m trying to do that for everyone, I’m gonna be a really bad friend to everyone. And so I would so much rather have a close core group and also a broader community, of course, but just to be really, really known by those few people so that I can really show up for them. we can’t do that for everyone, but I think when we’re in this chronic fawn response, we think we have to. We can’t. it’s a balance.

Nina: And learning to tolerate disappointing people. Sometimes, people will be disappointed. It’s hard to take that in sometimes. Like that quote I read of yours. It’s not just people’s opinions in terms of whether they like you or not, it’s, they may genuinely be disappointed and you may genuinely have disappointed them and living with it hard.

Meg: Hard. It is hard. I, I was gonna bring up that quote again because it brought me back to that of, this isn’t to say, no one’s mad at you. Everyone loves you. that’s not to say that It’s actually saying it’s actually [00:29:00] okay and normal to not be liked by everyone.

Do you like everyone? Probably not. So it’s okay if some people don’t like you as well. for people that are in the fawn response, that feels like such a big deal because conflict feels so big. So we avoid conflict a lot, but it can actually just be fine. we just don’t have much in common.

We’re not friends, it’s not a big deal. It’s, fine. It’s a neutral thing, so it’s not that we’re lying to ourselves saying, no one’s ever mad at you. We’re never taking accountability. We’re never self-reflecting. it’s actually being honest with ourselves. Sometimes people will be mad at us.

Sometimes people will be upset with us. Sometimes that requires self-reflection and accountability and other times there’s nothing to be done and it’s, soothing ourselves through the discomfort of that as opposed to contorting ourselves and trying to control how the other person is perceiving us.

But it’s very hard and it’s very much a practice.

Nina: That is so beautifully said. I love how you summarize that. Well, one of the practices you [00:30:00] have, ’cause we keep like telling people they need to practice and I think we all do, is the nicer technique and I would love for you to describe that.

Meg: Yeah, a big part of my clinical work is rooted in mindfulness and I integrate a lot of Buddhist based psychology as well. mindfulness in general has just been such a huge part of my trauma healing, and I use it a lot clinically, but also a lot personally as well. And so nicer as a mindfulness technique to guide you through some steps in processing discomfort being with emotions and thoughts that are unpleasant or hard to be with. nicer stands for n notice. Notice what that emotion is, or even just notice that something has shifted, that some anxiety has come up.

Let’s say that your friend invited you to go out tonight or to have a late dinner and you are really tired from a long week at work, so, you say, thank you so much for the invite. I’m actually feeling so tired. I’m gonna go to bed early [00:31:00] tonight and I will see you this weekend because you’re seeing them later. so you say no, but then you immediately feel this guilt or you start overthinking, oh my gosh, maybe they’re upset with me. Maybe I should have just pushed through.

Maybe I should be a villager and go, to absolutely everything. And so this guilt starts to come up. the nicer technique invites us to first notice. Notice that guilt, notice that something has changed. You said no, now you’re feeling guilty. That’s it. You’re just acknowledging that experience and then I invite it to stay.

So normally, I think for many of us, when we feel an uncomfortable emotion, our instinct is to shove it away. I shouldn’t be feeling this, what’s wrong with me, or pick up our phone and scroll so that we don’t have to feel that. ?

Nina: It’s where all the addictions, I think probably come from is anything but inviting it to stay.

Meg: totally. Yeah. And it makes sense like we’re hardwired to resist discomfort in many ways, so the true practice is increasing our tolerance for it, and slowly and safely is very important. And then c having [00:32:00] curiosity about it, what triggered this? Okay, well, I said no and I felt really good about that, but then a few minutes later, some guilt. Crept in because I feel like I need to say yes to everything. What if she replaces me with her other good friend? What if I’m no longer relevant in her life? or I fall behind and my closeness to her. Okay. I’m having curiosity about that. how is this feel in my body? What sensations are going along with this? My palms are sweating. I have this sick, feeling in my stomach. Okay. Curiosity, e embrace. this is also hard for people, which is having just some gentle compassion for that part.

These emotions are trying to protect us in many ways. This guilt is probably trying to protect you from being abandoned or being rejected by your friend. so embracing this part of ourselves, this emotion, this is, okay, I’m safe.

It’s okay that you’re here. It’s like we’re wrapping this, this emotion in a blanket. Soothing ourselves. Is it taking a few deep breaths? the last step is R, which is return to what’s real and true right [00:33:00] now. So we just went through this guilt. This guilt maybe took us to future scenarios or to what we were saying in the past.

It’s so important with mindfulness to end with what’s actually happening. What’s actually true in this moment? My body is breathing. I hear these sounds in the room. My feet are on the ground. by doing that, we’re, processing the guilt, we’re allowing it to be there. But we’re also, coming back to what’s actually true because I think for many of us that relate to this question of, are you mad at me?

We can go through it a million times and then kind of get stuck in this loop. So to, finish with the present was here is a really important step, so that’s nicer.

Nina: It’s so helpful. I mean, you guys, people, you have to read the book, everybody. I mean, that, very helpful to hear in this episode, but I want everybody to read the book. The final, thing I wanna talk about is I’m, I’m thinking now about my own kids. The social media stuff, concerns me a lot [00:34:00] I’m just thinking about.

Meg: Yeah.

Nina: I at least had a good chunk of life, without that kind of validation seeking.

Now, of course, I’m a podcaster. I’ve been a writer for a long time, and I’m out there with the validation seeking probably just as much as anybody, but I at least had a life without it. Gosh. For the kids, Everyone’s kids and, and ourselves. Okay. So adults now too.

We’re all in it. Have you seen in your work, are people able to separate that world of validation, needing and people pleasing. How does it just talk to

Meg: I’m so glad you brought that in. It’s honestly one of my favorite angles to talk about with the Fawn response because while I do think this response has been around for a long time, I think there’s a modernized element to it. I talk about this really briefly in the book, but I almost wanted to do a whole chapter on it, but it felt like it felt like a diversion in

Nina: I think it could be your next

Meg: Yeah.

Nina:  No, for real?

Meg: Are you mad at me?

Nina: Or do you like me? so it’s almost like a different twist. And Are you mad at me? Your next book is do you love me? Do you like me? I mean, we’re just gonna outline

Meg: this proposal right now.

Nina: [00:35:00] Yes.

Meg: So with social media, I think this, are you mad at me? Thinking is especially prevalent now because we have so many ways to connect. Because of that, we have a lot of ways to feel forgotten. So it’s why did they see my Instagram story but didn’t respond to my text, and why did they only thumbs up my message and not heart it?

Or why did they like someone else’s thing but not mine?

Nina: This is all over TikTok and people fight with me. I’ll get in comments and ’cause people will be in there and say like, strangers support me and your friends. Don’t you hear that a lot? Some people just like to use social media very passively. Most regular people do.

Meg: oh yeah. this is such a perfect, what we were saying before, we’re so busy, we’re just picking up our phones I think many people are just watching. They’re not engaging with

Nina: Yeah, I think the expectation that everyone’s gonna like our social media stuff and support it is so out of whack. As if your friend was a lawyer. Are you in the courtroom being like, good job. You did such a good job. [00:36:00] Nobody asked you to be someone who posts a lot.

Meg: I’m in such agreement with that. as someone who does content creation for sharing their work, I would never expect my friends to be liking and engaging with everything I’m posting because That would be a lot

Nina: It’s a lot

Meg: of, if even I’m only posting one to two times a week, but that’s still a lot I’m never checking. That’s not how I feel supported by friends I would rather them support me in other ways,

Nina: Most people are out there who post about this really say, you’re a fake friend. Your real friends are liking your stuff. And I’m always like, guys, stop it. You’re,

Meg: Yeah. It’s such an important piece because with social media, we have all these ways to feel validated.

What’s happening physiologically, in what we were just talking about. So you post something and you’re, anticipating the dopamine of all your friends liking it plus strangers, or you go viral or whatever the like fantasy is, and then it doesn’t happen and you feel this disappointment. You, feel let down because you are anticipating dopamine that you did not [00:37:00] receive.

And so then maybe it triggers, are you mad at me? What’s wrong with me? Maybe we look at her post again and pick ourselves apart. I should have put this photo in the first carousel and then the other one. Or we’re, we’re picking it apart. My captions were too big. What I’ve heard,

Nina: I’m so cringe.

Meg: I’m so g cringy. What’s wrong with me? and of course, like we’re talking about, people are just consuming quite passively in the five minutes that they have in between calls or whatever. As opposed to before social media, we didn’t have that. It was you, call someone, you write them an email and those were the only sources of validation that we are receiving.

I think that social media is adding this extra layer of, are you mad at me thinking? Because, uh, we have the option to receive that validation. And so it can trigger these feelings of rejection or abandonment when they’re not really true or real. we live in a digital world. We exist in this.

I think it’s really about learning how to be in relationship to it. But I think it starts with first just acknowledging, the dynamic that we [00:38:00] have in that relationship to social media.

Nina: And to relate it to something we were talking about earlier, the fear might be true and you might have to live with it. Meaning that your friends don’t like your stuff. it doesn’t connect with them. They do find it annoying. I, I’m sure some of mine find mine annoying, they’re not your audience necessarily. And then move on.

Meg: Exactly. And then it’s, it’s the same process of, instead of how can I make my next post be better? How can I make my next thing appeal to this person that didn’t like it? Instead, how can I soothe myself through the discomfort of someone maybe not liking or connecting or resonating with what I’m sharing?

how could I soothe myself through the discomfort of getting 10 likes on my last post? Don’t delete it. Let yourself be in that discomfort. It’s hard. But it’s temporary. It’s fleeting. That discomfort is already on its way out. put your phone down, move on with your day. decenter it a bit.

and you’ll survive that discomfort. And every time you move through that discomfort and acknowledge [00:39:00] yourself, oh my gosh, that was so hard and I did it. You’re building yourself trust to do it again. You’re showing yourself that you can be uncomfortable and safe at the same time. What a life skill. It’s so important.

Nina: That’s beautiful. and to end on a note of hope, are you seeing the reaction to your book, the reaction to your own social media posts and your actual work in the clinical sense? Are you seeing people improve? are you seeing people really be able to

Meg: yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, clinically in the most profound way. ‘ Those are people I’m actually speaking with on a regular basis. So that’s, just the most fulfilling thing ever. I’ve been receiving lots of sweet messages from the book and I think just making people feel.

Uh, less alone, first of all, like you’re not alone in feeling and worrying about these things. But also it’s not that we’re trying to fix or change ourselves, it’s actually allowing space for these emotions and feelings to exist and knowing how to be with them, changing our reaction to [00:40:00] it as opposed to changing it.

I hope and think that that’s been what’s empowering to people, because it’s like less to do. It’s not my hope is it’s not a book that’s like lecturing you on what to do. It’s actually liberating you on, you can do it right now. it’s just, it’s having that awareness as the foundation.

Nina: it does exactly that. Meg, thank you so much for being here today with me. This was such a huge treat for me, both selfishly and as just a gift to my listeners too, to be able to have this, you know, one-on-one through me. So

Meg: Well, thank you for having me, so appreciate it.

Nina: All right, and listeners come back next week. When our friendships are going well, we tend to be calmer and just happier all around.