You know about people pleasing. You've heard about the fawn response. You might even recognise it in yourself: the self-silencing, the conflict avoidance, the version of you that keeps the peace while something quietly fumes underneath.

And yet, you still said nothing in that meeting last week.

This episode is about the gap between understanding yourself and actually changing — and it's one of my favourite conversations to date.

My guest is Meg Josephson, psychotherapist and NYT bestselling author of Are You Mad at Me? Rather than explaining the fawn response from a theoretical distance, we do something harder. We take real scenarios apart together, a coach and a therapist, both with skin in this game. We get inside the moments that cost high achievers the most — the freeze that happens in a meeting, the conflict you've been circling for months, the 2am replay — and we pull them apart from two very different angles.

We get into why people pleasing isn't a personality flaw, but a nervous system response learned long before you had the corner office. Why the higher you've climbed, the more sophisticated your self-silencing becomes. And why — this is the bit that stopped me — conflict doesn't have to mean rupture.

If you've ever walked out of a conversation frustrated with yourself for going quiet, this one is for you.

In this episode: The fawn response and why it shows up in high achievers. The link between conflict avoidance and childhood. What's actually happening in your body when you freeze. Practical, somatic tools for staying in the room when everything in you wants to bolt. The difference between reassurance-seeking and validation. And why knowing isn't the same as changing.

Join us. *You might need a note pad – she's that good.

Links:

Meg Josephson's website & book

Meg on Instagram

Mandy on Instagram