THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 214

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:01.538)
Well, Dr. Nima, welcome to the Accrescent Podcast.

Dr. Nima (00:04.57)
I am so glad to be here and I’ve just known you for four minutes and I love you already. You just have such an amazing energy about you, which makes me excited about this conversation that’s about to happen.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:16.49)
Yeah, we were already shaking a bacon before we even hit record. So I think this is going to be really, really fun. So I’ve already done a little of my own just insight and research into your work and how you got to where you’re at. But I do think it’s so fun for the audience before we get into like the real meat and potatoes of the conversation, just to hear a little bit of your origin story. You were a chiropractor. What brought you to what you’re doing today?

Dr. Nima (00:19.624)
I love that.

Dr. Nima (00:36.935)
Yeah.

Dr. Nima (00:41.51)
Well, two things. brought me into to what the work that I do now is the first thing is the frustration as to seeing patients with chronic issues and seeing that the structural corrections, anything that I throw at them wasn’t making a difference. And my ego hated that. So I really wanted to offer something that actually produced results. Number one, combined with my own

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:01.87)
you

Dr. Nima (01:11.752)
personal inner work journey that was always trying to come up with the root cause of why I was dealing with so much kind of entrepreneurial anxiety and relationship conflict. And I was trying to get to the bottom of why, no matter how much money I made, no matter how successful I became, how many followers, how many people validated me and said, Dr. Nima, your magic, your hands are magic, you’re amazing.

that nothing on the outside would ever resolve this feeling of like not good enoughness and kind of like anxiety around that. So the combination of the two of my inner work journey of finding the root cause of that, of that insecurity, let’s call it insecurity of this sense of inadequacy, no matter what I would accomplish externally combined

like the discoveries of that combined with the fact that every patient that was coming to see me was actually dealing with an emotional or…

I would say trauma, know, a wounding at the other, on the other side of some sort of attachment issue. So for example, I just spoke with a woman today and she said, she said, I’ve been dealing with gut issues, you know, forever. said, I said, when did they start? said, when I was 20 years old. And I said, well, what happened when you were 20? And she said,

Well, I had my first sexual experience and I said, was it a good sexual experience or did you feel pressured? She goes, yeah, I feel pressured. I felt pressured at the time and I literally blacked out. She didn’t know what it was, but it’s called a dorsal vagal shutdown, which is when your nervous system goes into complete collapse. And she was like, woken up in a stretcher and, you know, going to the hospital and she’s like, what the heck just happened? And ever since that conflict, that attachment, that rupture,

Dr. Nima (03:21.476)
of the attachment, she’s been dealing with gut issues. So I was always curious as to the overlap between emotional wounding, relational rupture and your health. And it was like, had to go through several failed relationships after a divorce until I reached my final one last, my last relationship, which I didn’t understand was a codependent trauma bond.

that became physically violent. I became physically violent. There was emotional abuse. I became reactive to it and it was like the biggest wake up call and I was like, all right, how did I get here? How do I make sure this never happens again? And if I can do one and two, can I create a secure relationship? And if I can, check, check, check, done all of the above. I have a family now.

And my karma needs to be my dharma. I need to teach what I most needed. My messes become my message. And now I teach people a community, a global community of people who are committed to breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma so they can be healthy, heal from chronic illnesses, and heal relational conflicts so that they can have healed families and break the cycle for the next generation. So that’s the background.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (04:34.932)
Yeah, I love that even in your chiropractic work you were already seeing this pattern of

I mean, really just trauma in whatever way that was showing up. I’ve never worked, I mean, this is the heart of what I do, but I’ve never worked with someone experiencing cancer or chronic illness who didn’t have some unmetabolized trauma, if not multiple things. And so I love that you, you know, I came into it from the emotional side. You came into it from the body based side and being able though to see those patterns and step outside of maybe your initial scope.

Dr. Nima (04:54.555)
Yeah, of course.

Dr. Nima (05:03.505)
Correct.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:10.188)
and go hang on, there’s pieces of the puzzle we might be missing here.

Dr. Nima (05:13.479)
100 % you nailed it. I mean, all I did was just go upstream. Because if I’m dealing with a physical ailment, the physiology is your body’s last ditch effort to awaken you to a truth that you’re not expressing for whatever reason, because it wasn’t safe to tell the truth as a child. Your truth needed to be withheld. So what happens is this withholding of your authentic self because of

your environment, there is a breakdown in the cells and the tissues of the body that happen. So most times you’ll wait for a diagnosis and then it becomes your wake up call. So some people need a diagnosis for that. For me, my wake up call was getting physically violent in a relationship. For some people, it is a financial collapse or a sense of purpose or a relationship breakdown, whatever it is.

It’s a wake up call, sometimes it’s a diagnosis, that wake up call to go, okay, so who am I? Who is it that I am? Who am I really seeing its identity work? Who am I? Why do I believe what I do? Why do I make the choices that I make? And as you go up back upstream and you ask these questions, you realize ever since you’re a child,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (06:15.798)
Yeah.

Dr. Nima (06:35.558)
You’re given an identity, you’re told what’s right and wrong, and you’re living by these black and white unconscious rules that are sometimes arbitrary to fit into a society and to belong. And slowly, if that sense of belonging results in betraying ourselves, then we need physiological breakdown, like a diagnosis.

to wake us up to get truthful. And that’s a very controversial take, but I’m absolutely certain that most illnesses are caused by repressed emotions. And I’ve created a methodology that’s both cognitive and somatic that helps release it so that people can connect to their authentic truth.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (07:25.086)
I have to go here because we’re here already, but two things I’ll add to this. So one is I’m getting my PhD in depth psychology. So it’s all about the unconscious and tending the unconscious. Exactly.

Dr. Nima (07:36.658)
Carl Jung, Gotta love Jung, yeah. It’s all shadow work.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (07:42.289)
my gosh, completely. so two things. One, my whole dissertation is going to be really answering, seeking to answer this question. If cancer was the psyche communicating, what is cancer here to communicate about what is going on in the psyche? But the same question could be applied to chronic illness. If this illness is here communicating something in my psyche, in my unconscious, in my soul,

Dr. Nima (07:58.502)
Wow.

Dr. Nima (08:06.747)
Amazing.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:08.268)
what might that be? And to that end, I have seen, I bet you have too, such clear patterns with each diagnosis.

Dr. Nima (08:14.108)
Totally. Well, you know, it’s really interesting because cancer, something is either eating away at you, you know, whether it is kind of like a malignant tumor or it’s growing on you. Right? So if you’re wanting to ant, I love the, I love the prompt because it, it sends you down a rabbit hole that

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:30.018)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nima (08:38.864)
forces you to ask the question, well, what’s eating at me? What’s been eating at me? Or what’s been growing on me? And if you ask those questions, usually these are the answer is relational. It’s something relational. It’s something that’s not spoken within a relational dynamic, because there is a lack of emotional safety. Right? So as you you’re dealing with the end stages of these conflicts, right, so then you’re kind of like

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:44.748)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:59.511)
Yeah.

Dr. Nima (09:06.088)
like a detective asking these questions to get them to reflect. I’ve done, you know, I’ve been doing that all along. So it’s so amazing that we’re connecting. I think we’re going to be best friends. Did we just become best friends? And what I invite you to really look at, especially with your clients or anybody who’s listening, is that when we dig deep, life is relational.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (09:16.81)
I hope so.

Dr. Nima (09:33.049)
So it’s through these relationship dynamics with the fight, flight, freeze, and the fawn response where these ruptures have happened, where there’s unfinished business from past unresolved wounding in relational dynamics, because we haven’t learned the art of rupture and repair. So I’ve gone upstream and I’ve discovered is the one skill that I want to teach my son.

that I never learned, that wasn’t taught to me, that will help become healthier, so my body is healthy, that relationships are healthier, that mentally, physically everything is the skill of being able to rupture and repair in a dynamic. Because if you can rupture and repair and you trust yourself with that, then you can tell the truth in a relationship dynamic and hold nothing between you.

so that nothing eats away at you or grows on you. You don’t have to wait for a diagnosis to learn all these skills. So this is the skill that I believe that if you learn that skill, it’s like a of like a domino effect. Every other skill in life becomes easier because you’re just being able to take off the mask and tell the truth.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:33.838)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:47.349)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, it’s just a foundational, it’s a foundational principle that everything else can be built on completely. Before we started recording, you were saying, I smiled because a question I ask almost every single cancer patient I work with is,

Dr. Nima (10:55.591)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (11:05.718)
I often see cancer as setting the boundaries we couldn’t set. And you said this in different terms in the chronic illness you work with that there’s almost always a boundary issue.

Dr. Nima (11:13.809)
Yeah.

See, if you are not skilled in setting boundaries, because, well, like in my case, as a child being a Persian, but no Persian under Persian mother understands boundaries, she just tramples over them, right? And there’s always enmeshment patterns, boundaries of between, know, emotional boundaries between you and another person, there’s enmeshment. And so when you don’t know how to say no, because there’s a,

emotional cost or you’re gonna not, you’re gonna love is gonna be withdrawn. You’re taught to suppress your boundaries. And so your boundaries become your symptoms become the boundaries when you’re not able to. I have the best example. After I got divorced, started, you know, dating as you do. And this lovely woman, young woman named Sarah, we were dating and she’s so lovely. I just have such amazing feelings towards her forever. She’s awesome.

And I really wanted to impress her. So I said, listen, I’m gonna take you to my favorite Indian restaurant. And she’s like, okay. And so I take her and I said, do you feel okay with me ordering for you? And she said, sure. So I order for her and I get her all my favorite stuff, the butter chicken, the garlic naan, all that stuff. And then we’re eating and so she’s eating. like, how is it? She’s like, it’s really good, right?

So the next day after we had a lovely day, the next day I call her and I’m like, how are you? She goes, I’m really sick. I’m like, what is it? She goes, well, I’m vegan and gluten, I’m gluten intolerant and vegan. And I’m like, and she’s like, I’m super sick after what we ate yesterday. And I was just like, what? Why didn’t you tell me? And so because…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (13:04.863)
Yeah.

Dr. Nima (13:10.104)
She didn’t want to, because she was excited, she might have liked me or whatever, and she didn’t want to disappoint me because I was so excited. So she withheld her truth. And as a result, she said yes when her body was clearly a no. So the illness became the boundary when she wasn’t able to do it. And that’s probably one of the most extreme examples I can give you, but we’re all on a spectrum, aren’t we?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (13:27.005)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (13:37.089)
Yeah, well and also an immediate example where like the physical illness comes in so quickly, two things, there’s like a million things I want to say. I’m so excited about this. One is, and I agree it’s controversial, I’ve literally had people on social media come at me and say, you’re victim shaming people who have cancer.

Dr. Nima (13:46.376)
Please do, I’m here for it.

Dr. Nima (13:55.985)
I got your back. Victim blaming. I get accused of that all the time. When you do shadow work, prepare to, when you do the depth psychology and shadow work and you expose these parts of us, you’re going to be accused of victim blaming and victim shaming. So I got your back sister.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:11.469)
Yeah. Yeah.

To that end, I’ve thought so often about so much illness, especially chronic illness and cancer is related to inflammation. If we were to just really, really, really simplify it, chronic inflammation. Now that inflammation can be coming from physiological root causes, emotional, mental, spiritual root causes, but why does my chronic inflammation manifest as hypothyroidism where theirs manifests as MS?

where I believe, and I believe it’s just a theory, that’s where I think the emotional component comes in is there already was an erosion in those areas because of my emotional turbulence and that’s why that inflammation hit that area.

Dr. Nima (14:55.91)
Are you ready to go deeper with this? Okay, thyroid, voice. What are you not speaking? And when you’re withholding, you said it, you nailed it. When you’re withholding your truth, it’s like, I wanna say it, but I can’t, cause I’m afraid of the reaction. There’s a constriction that happens, constriction in your body around that area. Okay? Hello?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (15:21.295)
Totally, from the fascia, from the nervous system, from the muscle.

Dr. Nima (15:23.3)
Hello, hello, inflammation. Inflammation is constriction or you’re holding your gut or you had sexual trauma and now you’re constricting in that area. You know, I see pictures of people, know, family photos and then people who are like crossing their arms over their, you know, their nether regions. And it’s like, what are you hiding? You know, there’s this constriction. So the question you want to ask is where have I been constricting? Constricting my voice.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (15:44.033)
Yeah.

Dr. Nima (15:53.127)
I’ve been not listening to my gut instinct, stomach issues, heart issues, stomach here, that there’s reproductive system. So inflammation is caused by constriction. So if I’m constricting a part of my body because I’m guarded, because I’m protecting myself from an attack, from vulnerability because of a past event,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (15:56.419)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:16.995)
Bracing, yeah.

Dr. Nima (16:21.244)
then that will manifest physiologically. this is welcome to the mind body connection. So you’re, you’re on the right track, sister. I got your back.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:23.733)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, one of the first things I love to, at some point, we’re always, I always go metaphorical with the disease and the symptoms and the way it’s expressing. Meaning, you know, whether it’s cancer and how that’s expressing or, you know, mast cell activation where it’s like, so your immune system is labeling everything as a threat.

Dr. Nima (16:38.62)
Way to go.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:49.079)
Am I unconsciously labeling everything as a threat? So I love to get metaphorical with the disease and there’s so much insight that comes up from that.

Dr. Nima (16:58.204)
Well, the best example that I can give of this is, you know, there’s fight flight, like trauma responses. There’s fight and flight. is what, you know, if you had to fight to survive as a child, then you’re a fighter flight. had to run. Then there’s also freeze, which is running or fighting is dangerous. So just kind of like freezing, is also a trauma response. But one of them that they don’t talk about, nobody really talks about is called fawning.

And fawning is when you are signaling a yes, but your body says no. It’s like when I’m playing monster with my son, he’s turning five and Saturday. And so when, when mom’s at a girl’s night and I’m like playing with them and I’m chasing around, he’ll turn around and come after me and he goes, I love you. I love you. But I could see the activation in his nervous system. But what the Fawn response says is that if I can charm my predator,

then that’s gonna save my life, right? And so a lot of this, a lot of what’s going on with sexual fawning, when you’re with somebody in higher power position, maybe getting you a film role or getting you some sort of a job promotion and you’re in this position where your body says no, but you signal a yes, that’s sexual fawning, right? So this happens quite a bit, right? So it’s…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (17:59.491)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:18.844)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nima (18:24.368)
It’s a very nuanced topic, but fawning, what happens is you will outwardly say yes, but your body is constricting. And that constriction is inflammation, number one. And number two, it builds resentment. So you can’t fawn, people please, without betraying yourself. And then deep down, there is a responsive…

self abandonment and a responsive resentment that happens towards not only the person that you’re fawning against, but also yourself. So I’ve never met somebody with a chronic illness who wasn’t a chronic fawner where the immune system attacks itself because how dare you betray yourself type of scenario. So I love the metaphors. So it all comes down to

learning the skill of expressing your authentic truth and risking displeasing somebody. This is the skill, right? So I’ve had people with chronic illness. One lady, she was like, I don’t know if I want, you know, I’m scared to start your program of working with you. Why? Well, because I have Crohn’s disease and they have,

you know, I’m waiting to see if I’m gonna get an ostomy bag. And I said, listen, instead of waiting, take action and do the work and let’s heal and learn how to set boundaries and let’s see what happens. So she jumps in and does the work and heals all of her guilt and shame for how she showed up in her last relationship, because she wanted to leave, okay? And this is gonna be very relevant for a lot of your audience. If you are in a relationship dynamic where

You know it’s not healthy, but you’re afraid to leave because you’re going to end up being the bad guy if you leave. So you stay, then you and you’re going to betray yourself. So you choose resentment over the guilt. So the resentment that you choose over the guilt then eats away at you. And that’s what was happening to her. And so she worked through all of that and then sent me this message afterwards is I’m so happy I’ve gone into remission.

Dr. Nima (20:40.592)
I love myself, I’ve healed, I’m able to set boundaries. So once she’s learned those skills, the body doesn’t have to, you know, the body doesn’t have to become the boundary. The body speaks for you and you don’t speak for yourself.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:51.811)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Can you give us some more examples of maybe more extreme examples of fawning, but also those everyday examples? Because I think to your point, so many of us and myself included, and I’ll share my fawn trauma, but I think so many of us are fawning in very, very covert, subtle ways that we don’t even realize it’s happening.

Dr. Nima (21:15.848)
100%. You don’t even realize it because it’s number one, it’s reflexive. Because if you just think, it’s just manners, right? For example, in my culture, Persian culture, there is this concept called taruf. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, right? You’re from LA, for God sakes. They’re everywhere over there. taruf is a cultural self abandonment for the sake of being polite and having manners.

And it’s just like I come over to your home and I’m thirsty and you offer me water, but I say, no, no, no, no, thank you because I don’t want to seem rude or entitled. Right. And so in our effort to not seem entitled, say, it, you know, fawning is it spans so many things. It’s like, it’s huge. You’ll notice that whenever I speak around this, people message me and say, I don’t even know who I am if I’m not fawning.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:14.337)
Yeah, they don’t have a template for how to be anything else.

Dr. Nima (22:14.631)
Right? It’s people pleasing. It’s saying yes when you meet no. It’s not setting boundaries. It’s not, it’s making yourself available when you’re tired. It’s saying yes to helping someone move when you have a back injury. It is smiling on the outside, but constricting on the inside. Like anybody who works in hospitality, if you’re a waiter, if you work in hospitality or you work with children or you are a parent for children, then

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:43.727)
you

Dr. Nima (22:44.797)
then it calls for fawning, right? Because you’re smiling absolutely or you work customer service and you’re dealing with abusive people, but you’re smiling around them because it’s an act of self-betrayal to keep a job. So anytime you are in a power dynamic, when you have somebody on a pedestal, whether it’s a boss, whether it’s coworkers, manager, management, customers, clients sometimes,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:12.431)
spouse.

Dr. Nima (23:12.541)
real estate agents will do this a lot. You are unconsciously fawning, which is a self betrayal. It’s a body constricting and saying no and a performance, right? And also there’s a form of that with charming people. When you come up to people and you’re like, my God, and you totally compliment them because you want them to like you, it’s fawning. It’s, I mean, so many real life examples. mean,

it permeates every part to the point where most people fawn and they don’t even know it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:49.295)
I’ll tell you where it still sometimes shows up for me is like, not so much I’ve gotten so much better at it, but they bring you your wrong dish. And you’re at the restaurant and you’re like, I’ll just.

Dr. Nima (24:01.509)
Okay, it’s It’s fine.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:03.139)
I’ll just eat it anyways. And I’ve gotten so much better at being like, you know, if this was another, if this was someone else, a loved one, I’d be like, no, no, no, let’s get them the right dish. Or if I’m, you know, if I’m like a big one, this is where I still have to work on it is like, if I’m somewhere getting quoted on a mechanic oil change for my car or whatever, and I know they’re ripping me off, I will just kind of acquiesce and go along with it.

Dr. Nima (24:08.08)
what I ordered.

Dr. Nima (24:12.467)
but for you, wouldn’t advocate for you.

Dr. Nima (24:29.011)
They rip off the blonde girl. Hey, she’s blonde girl. Let’s just rip her off. She wouldn’t know. She’ll just take advantage of her. She won’t know any better. She’s just a dumb blonde.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:32.695)
You just take advantage of her. She’s dumb and uneducated. She doesn’t know anything. And I’ll just go, I just want this to be done as soon as possible. So fuck it. You can take advantage of me.

Dr. Nima (24:42.183)
Right? Okay, sure, whatever. Because you’re trying to avoid the confrontation. So any time you are finding yourself trying to avoid conflict and just saying yes and nodding when your body says no, you are literally betraying yourself and there’s a cost. The cost is a resentment. And over time, especially if you’re in a relationship dynamic,

with a loved one where you might be fawning, you might be in sexual fawning for like 20 years saying yes when you were no, there’s a cost. And so that will be, that’s why I love that you ask your clients that question because it’s like, all right, so where have you broken your boundary? And if they were honest, they’d be like, well, I’ve been saying yes to being in this relationship for 10 years, 20 years.

And well, of course there’s a cost and the cost will be your health.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:39.544)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So how does fawning tie in with attachment styles and maybe even more particularly anxious avoidant attachment styles?

Dr. Nima (25:47.206)
Yeah, yeah. Well, why do we fawn? It comes in the question, why do we fawn? We fawn to protect ourselves from a perceived predator. Now, the predator in biology might not be might be a tiger or whatever, or a predator, let’s say Stockholm syndrome, you know, there’s somebody robs a bank. And, you know, you start to like that they’re, they’re, they’re hostages, right? And so

in order to try to garner your survival, you’re gonna start to flirt or you fall in love with the captors, right? That’s the extreme version of fawning. It’s Stockholm syndrome is when you, you know, fall in love with your captors, right? But in anxious attachment and in kind of like day to day relational dynamics is let’s say, you know, you’re dating some guy, Lee, Lee Ann, and

You really like him. He makes a lot of money. He’s got status. He’s even got, you know, contacts that would be really, really useful in your business to help your business grow. And he’s six foot four. He’s super duper good looking, emotionally intelligent, wealthy, and he’s like really great in bed.

And he’s got a six pack, okay? Like, Leanne, you’re like, where do I sign up? Now, if he’s got all of those things, you perceive him to be more empowered than you. You see yourself and perceive yourself as an underdog in a moment of conflict, potential conflict, where something has come up that’s bothering you about him.

you might have this fear of losing him. So in that case, like that example of Sarah who took me out on a, you know, who I took out on a date, the reason why she fawned was because she was fearful of me not being pleased, me being displeased. So to her, she was the anxious attached, I was the avoidant. Right? So you’re going to fawn

Dr. Nima (28:09.925)
If you’re an anxious attached and you are afraid of them leaving, and if you’re avoidant, you’re going to fawn and say, sure, I’ll hang out when you really need space to kind of process and be around yourself. One example, guy that I was working with, he went to Europe to do the Camino and he brought his fiance with him.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:23.449)
Hmm.

Dr. Nima (28:38.249)
and he was in a lot of pain and he, was for her 50th birthday and he had surgery. He was kind of contemplating surgery on his hip and he didn’t want to disappoint her. Instead of speaking up and saying, you know what, my hips really bothering me. I just, I’m gonna bow out of this trip. I’m gonna bow out of this trip. He ends up going and slowly resenting her.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:58.115)
This will be harmful to me if I do this.

Dr. Nima (29:08.369)
and his hips started flaring up and he was out within three days. And then he got angry with her and said, that’s it, I’m leaving. I never wanted to come anyway. And then left and it was like, he was fawning until he reached a certain point where his body gave out. Again, another physiological example. And then he said, screw this, I can’t marry you. And then he basically broke the relationship up and she was devastated. And so when he reached out to me,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:35.32)
Yeah.

Dr. Nima (29:37.438)
This is where he was. He’s like, I’m in my 60s. I don’t want, you know, I just left an amazing person and I don’t want to spend the last quarter of my life alone. What’s going on? And so as we started working through, he realized he was fawning with her and he called it out and he just, you know, that along with the masculine communication, feminine communication, will we integrate the parts of us that really want to fawn and people please?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:54.188)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nima (30:06.471)
and then speak up for them using really, really emotionally safe language with masculine and feminine communication. There’s a way to communicate with a woman if you’re a man that has her feeling safe and open, to open. And there’s a way that a woman can communicate her feelings and needs and desires with a man that causes him to lean in and want to serve rather than feel like it’s nagging and repel.

So I had to learn all of this stuff. So as he started learning that, he repolarized the relationship. They ended up getting married. And because he started to trust himself that he was gonna speak up when he needed to. Because in my marriage, you know, when I need some space, I’m like, babe, I’m gonna need some space. I’m gonna go golfing or I’m gonna go skiing. we have this real great understanding when each other needs space, we don’t fawn or people please. So.

you know where the other person stands. But fauners and people pleasers, being in a relationship with them is very difficult because there’s a covert manipulation involved and you don’t really know where you stand with them. So it’s very difficult to have an authentic relationship with somebody who’s a fauner and a people pleaser.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:24.277)
And actually one that’s trusting. Sometimes I’ll tell people all the time, like it’s more loving to be honest. Your honesty, even if it prickles, actually makes people feel safer because they don’t have to do that whole mental gymnastics of, well, is she just saying she wants this and actually doesn’t? Is he really interested in this? But da da da da. Like that doesn’t create, that doesn’t make you feel safe even in an unconscious level.

Dr. Nima (31:45.257)
Exactly.

Dr. Nima (31:49.768)
Yeah, there’s something really great about knowing where you stand with somebody and knowing that if there’s a problem, you’re going to bring it up. Right? That way we don’t have to walk on eggshells around one another. It’s this understanding. I want everybody who’s listening to experience this type of relationship called a secure relationship where you trust that the other person’s going to speak up.

when something’s bothering them and do it in a very respectful way. And they have, they have a, there’s a safety for you to express. I mean, this sounds like revolutionary for most people because we don’t learn attachment, high level attachment skills, but that’s possible. And I’m here to tell you that you’re not able to have a healthy life if you don’t have that capability to have that voicing what’s on your heart.

Because we’re energetic beings and the emotional, our emotions are the end result of our experiences. So everything we do, we do so that we can manage our emotional energy and feel safety, connection, love. And when we don’t have elegant boundaries and we’re not trigger-proof, which means responsible for what activates us and…

responsible for the way that we share it, we then have to walk on eggshells around one another. We have to guess what the other person’s feeling. We have to scan and monitor what they’re feeling and be hypervigilant and call, know, empaths, which are like hypervigilant trauma responses when you’re only kind of, you know, orienting to what other people are thinking and feeling and completely abandoning yourself.

It’s a rewiring of our fundamental relationship with our emotional body and ourselves so that we can have healthy relationships with others. And that’s where our physiology starts to move back into balance and homeostasis.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:56.547)
Yeah, I should have asked this at the very start, but I’m curious if you, what are some of the childhood dynamics or traumas that you see contribute to a Fawn response developing?

Dr. Nima (34:08.18)
Yeah. Well, it’s in it as a child.

we have these two primary needs as children is to attach, to be attached, to belong, and to express our authentic self, right? But if you were a child and your expression of your emotions, your big emotions, your anger, sadness, whatever, was met with resistance, shaming, dismissing, denying your reality,

What happens is you start to develop a relationship with your own emotions, which is abandonment of self. My sadness is not accepted. My anger is not acceptable. So every emotional expression, we then turn and have has a binding of shame over it. And so we then are raised to not trust ourselves. Or when we have a rupture, when there’s an argument or a

problem, we didn’t have parents that came and taught us how to regulate ourselves. So we then, you know, taught us, became our co-regulators. So then we developed this relationship with our emotions, which is suppression, denial, judgment, blame and shame. We judge ourselves, we abandon ourselves, we blame ourselves, we shame ourselves. And then we go into relationships with other people who are doing the same thing.

So the experiences in childhood are not having your reality validated, being shamed for your expression of your desires, your needs, your wants, which any time you had an experience where you were taught that the expression of your authentic self is not acceptable, you then make an unconscious choice to suppress or push away those parts of you.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:00.099)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nima (36:08.764)
into your shadow, which is what you love to study with depth psychology, and that relationship with these unacceptable parts of ourselves, we carry with us and it all gets triggered and causes all sorts of fuckery in our relational dynamics and in our health later on in life. So the second half of life for me has been all about going back to seeking all of these…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:25.007)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nima (36:36.592)
exiled, unwanted, unacceptable parts of myself that I was raised to be conditioned that they’re not acceptable and learn how to understand, appreciate, bring empathy and compassion to or integrate is what we like to call it. it’s all how you were met, how conflict, how you experience conflict, how you experience rupture.

you will then abandon yourself and that is the main kind of foundation of my trigger-proof methodology.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:12.591)
So now on the flip side of it, what does it look like when you’re working with clients in, you know, chronic Fawn responses? How do we start to expand our capacity to show up differently and model capacities to show up differently?

Dr. Nima (37:27.464)
Yeah, it’s a great question. The thing that you’re going to want to do is you’re going to start to pay attention to your body. You know, it’s a it’s a shifting of your orienting from up here and out there, and then starting to do some somatic nervous system exercises, which bring your attention into your body because your body will start to constrict. And then once it constricts, then you notice, my gosh, I just fond, right? So

in the beginning, it’s just paying attention because you’re not going to even notice it because you don’t even notice that you’re doing it. So in the beginning, it’s about watching it. my gosh, I just fawn. my God, I just did it again. I said yes when I meant no. I apologized for something that I wasn’t even my fault. Right. I totally just agreed with this person’s political views just because I didn’t want to upset them.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (38:25.007)
you

Dr. Nima (38:27.13)
you’ll be mind blown how often you do this. And so the first step is to interrupt it. Because you don’t even know you’re doing it. It’s a reflex, it’s reflexive. So you interrupt it and then what you do is you bring your attention to your animal body and you just call it out and you say, you know what? Normally I would say yes to that offer, but I just, I got a lot on my plate and I…

I’m gonna have to say no. I just said yes there 10 minutes ago. I was people pleasing you. And I’m working on breaking that nasty cycle. And I’m just gonna have to say I’m not available for that. And so it’s really about reflexively catching it and then repairing. Repairing with the parts of you you just betrayed first. I go, my God, I’m so sorry, Nima, that I just totally stepped over your boundaries there.

I’m gonna advocate for you and then say, Leanne, know, when you said that you wanted to come over and crash at my place for three months while you were, you I said yes, but I was totally people pleasing you there and I’m so sorry, can we just keep it to a week? Right, and then it’s about reflexively fawning.

catching it and then repairing again and again. And then that’s the first step. The second step, and this is for the big leagues, what you’re gonna wanna do is you’re gonna want to expand your capacity for other people being displeased with you.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:09.327)
What?

Dr. Nima (40:10.89)
What? How old do you feel when someone’s upset with you? I feel like that, you know, little eight year old who, who his mother is scolding him. Okay, great. So your work is to then connect with that eight year old inside and speak your truth. And while the other person’s displeased with you because you had the gall to set a boundary for the first time in this relationship.

You hug that little eight year old and say, I know this is hard, but I’ve got your back. And so it’s a practice and it won’t happen overnight. And it takes consistency and it’s really helpful to have a guide and to make sure that you’re practicing. And I do this with my clients, when I’m working with somebody and they wanna work with me and I make an offer and they say, sure, I’m in. And then I go, can you just pause there for a moment?

Leigh Ann, I want you to try on saying no to me. And then, and then they’ll be like, but I don’t want to say no to you. I’m like, I know, but do it anyway. So I lead them into that. And they’re like, Dr. Nima, I thank you for your offer, but I’m going to say no. And then I say, okay, Leigh Ann, I totally accept that. I wish you all the best and I love you anyway. And then, and then I go, how did that feel? And then some of them, start crying. They’re like, my God.

I’ve never had somebody say it’s okay for me to say no. And so part of that, Leigh Ann, you must be in a relationship with a guide who is able to hold space while you process all of that shit that’s gonna come up. So you can’t heal it in isolation. It’s not possible to heal the fawn response in isolation. So having a guide, having a community is critical.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:46.913)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:59.44)
Totally.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:09.045)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, there’s two things I’ll lean into with that for a second here. One is to that point, a lot of my work is if I’m in this pattern, it’s only because there were younger parts of me and maybe even inherited generational narratives that got created. So it’s not to shame or blame or coerce or strong arm those parts into different responses. It’s to go, hey, I see that there’s a little three-year-old in there who had to fawn to survive.

Dr. Nima (42:25.962)
100%.

Dr. Nima (42:38.473)
Yes.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:38.999)
I honor you and just so you know little three-year-old we’re not there anymore. It’s safe to speak up. Mm-hmm it’s safe to speak up and then the other thing I wanted to just add to that is something I think we it’s important to remind ourselves of is when we are shifting patterns we have trained the people in our lives.

Dr. Nima (42:45.18)
If you can see it, you don’t have to be it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:00.587)
And so I think especially with something like the Fawn response, we have trained people to expect us to be the yes man. So expect people to be prickled.

Dr. Nima (43:07.708)
Yep.

It’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be pushback and you might lose people. And that’s gonna be the most challenging time because it’s a face off between your authentic self and attachment. And in the first half of life, you were choosing attachment. And then that’s where you get the health issues and all sorts of crap happens in your life. The second half of life must be about choosing attachment over authenticity. And that is calling on a new identity that doesn’t…

Abandon yourself. So it’s not easy. Expect a lot of tears, a lot of grief, a lot of pain. But the key is to choose the guilt over the resentment. What’s happening is you’re choosing resentment by fawning and people pleasing and saying yes when you mean no. You choose resentment so you can avoid the guilt. To shift that is to choose the guilt instead of the resentment.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:06.863)
And then work on that guilt. Yeah, expand. Totally. And then expanding those unconscious narratives that this is something I should feel guilty about. know, the work is ever unfolding. So, completely. We could talk for hours. I know, anything else that we didn’t touch on that you feel like is really important?

Dr. Nima (44:08.742)
Expand your capacity for guilt. Guilt is the price of admission for breaking the Fawn response.

Dr. Nima (44:24.85)
Always. I love it. I love this conversation.

Dr. Nima (44:32.988)
I mean, if anybody wants to, you know, ask any questions, you can, I’m easily available, but I feel like we covered a lot. We could even do like a 10 part series and have so much content. mean, this is so cool. We should definitely partner up and there’s a lot of overlap between what we do.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:46.825)
100%.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:55.113)
Totally. Just so I’ll make sure it’s all linked in the show notes, but just so the audience hears it, where can they find you? Where can they learn more?

Dr. Nima (45:00.126)
Well, the best place to begin is to understand your attachment style and what I’ve done. If you can, my team has sent you the link to the…

the attachment style quiz to find out if you’re anxious attachment avoidant or disorganized, which is fearful avoidant. And that’s really the best place to begin to start to heal the attachment wounds. And I have the quiz that I’m providing for that. And then anytime an email or on Instagram sending me a DM, any questions you have, hit reply on the email and ask and I’m available.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:37.209)
I love it. I’m sure people are gonna reach out because there just was so much goodness here. And like I said, before we even got on the call, I was like, there are so many things you can speak to in depth. We had to sort of decide before we hit record, what are we really gonna focus on today? So definitely, definitely give Dr. Neema a follow because there’s so much great stuff going on on your page. Thank you so much. I’m just gonna…

Dr. Nima (45:51.536)
Where do I begin?

Dr. Nima (45:57.884)
Amazing. Thank you, Leigh Ann.