I haven’t written a blog for a while.  Partly because life has been full, and partly because I’ve been immersed in an Authentic Relating course – which, as it turns out, is not just about relating to others.  It’s about learning to be more honest with yourself.

And that was confronting.

One of the things that has become clearer to me on my healing journey is how often what we call being nice is actually something else entirely.

Sometimes it’s self-abandonment.

For many of us grew up with unpredictable relationships, emotional instability, or environments where conflict didn’t feel safe, our nervous systems adapted very quickly.

We learned to read the room.

To soften tension.

To keep people happy.

To smooth things over.

Not because we were weak or lacking boundaries, but because our bodies were trying to keep us safe.

Psychologists often call this the fawn response.  Alongside fight, flight and freeze, fawning is another survival strategy.  Instead of confronting danger or escaping it, we appease it.

We become agreeable.

Understanding.

Low maintenance.

The one who “doesn’t make a fuss”.

And in many ways, society rewards this behaviour.  The accommodating person is often seen as kind, easygoing, compassionate.

But there’s a hidden cost.

When we continually override our own feelings, needs or boundaries in order to keep others comfortable, something inside us quietly fractures.

Every time we silence ourselves to maintain connection, our nervous system registers it as an act of self-betrayal.

And the body keeps the score.

That uneasy feeling in your chest after you say “it’s fine” when it isn’t.

The anxiety that lingers after you’ve agreed to something you didn’t really want.

The exhaustion that comes from constantly managing other people’s emotions.

These aren’t signs that we’re broken or overly sensitive.

They’re signals from the body asking a simple question – Why do you keep leaving me behind?

This is one of the things I’ve been exploring through Authentic Relating.

Not just how we communicate with others, but how often we shape ourselves to fit what we think other people want.

How quickly we edit our truth.

How easily we abandon our own experience in the name of harmony.

Real authenticity, it turns out, is not about being brutally honest or confrontational – it’s about being self-loyal.

It’s about noticing the moment when you start to override your own truth, and choosing not to.

That might sound like “That doesn’t quite feel right for me” or “I need a little time to think about that” or “I’m not comfortable with this”

For people who have spent years people-pleasing or fawning, those simple sentences can feel enormous.

Your voice might shake.

Your heart might race.

Your nervous system might briefly think you’re in danger.

But something else starts happening too – self-trust begins to rebuild.

Not all at once, and not perfectly.  But slowly, each time you choose honesty over automatic appeasement, you send your nervous system a new message:

I’ve got us now.

For me, this is a huge part of healing.  Not becoming harder or less compassionate.  But learning that compassion doesn’t have to come at the cost of abandoning yourself.

I still deeply value kindness and I still care about harmony and understanding.  But I’m beginning to understand the difference between genuine kindness and ‘niceness’.

One is rooted in choice.  The other is rooted in fear.

And the more healing work I do, the more I’m realising that real connection – the kind Authentic Relating points toward – can only exist when we bring our actual selves into the room.

Not the edited version.

Not the agreeable version.

But the real one.

And sometimes that real self says No.

For those of us who learned early that love depended on keeping the peace, this is radical work.  But it’s also deeply liberating.  Because the moment we stop abandoning ourselves in relationships is the moment something powerful begins to grow again.

Self-trust.

And from there, something even better becomes possible.

Not relationships built on appeasement.  But relationships built on truth.