Part 2: How Fawning Quietly Undermines Women’s Power, Money, and Leadership

If Part 1 helped you name the pattern,

Part 2 helps you see where it’s been quietly running your life.

If you haven’t read Part 1, start there — it explains what fawning is and why it happens.

→ [Read Part 1: Why Smart, Capable Women Still Fawn]

Because here’s the truth most women never hear:

Fawning doesn’t only show up in emotional moments.

It shows up in your success.

It shows up in your money.

It shows up in your leadership.

And it does its damage quietly — so quietly that capable, intelligent women blame themselves instead of the undermining fawn pattern.

Let’s name what’s really happening underneath.

How the Fawn Response Undermines Women’s Success

Most ambitious, self-aware women assume they struggle with:

• consistency

• confidence

• imposter syndrome

• fear of visibility

But that’s not the root.

What they’re actually struggling with is internal permission.

When fawning is active, success doesn’t feel safe.

It shows up as:

• Playing small in rooms where you should lead

• Dimming your authority so others feel comfortable

• Waiting for external “proof” you’re allowed

• Over-explaining decisions you’re already qualified to make

• Apologizing for taking up space

• Downplaying achievements so others don’t feel threatened

This isn’t humility.

This is a survival strategy hijacking your brilliance.

And the cost isn’t abstract.

It’s lost visibility.

Missed opportunities.

Stalled momentum.

And a quiet sense that you’re always one step behind your own potential.

How Fawning Impacts Money and Financial Capacity

This is where the pattern becomes impossible to ignore.

Fawning is deeply entangled with your financial ceiling.

It often looks like:

• Discounting your work before anyone asks

• Saying “It’s fine, I can work with your budget” while swallowing resentment

• Feeling guilty charging what your work is worth

• Absorbing other people’s financial stress as your responsibility

• Over-delivering to earn emotional safety instead of sustainable income

And then the questions start:

“Why can’t I get ahead?”

“Why does money feel charged or heavy?”

“Why do I feel resentment around work I love?”

Because your nervous system learned this equation early:

Being paid well = risk.

Charging fully = threat to connection.

So it will quietly sabotage financial expansion to preserve relational safety.

This is not a mindset issue.

It’s a nervous system loyalty pattern.

How Fawning Erodes Leadership (Even When No One Calls It Out)

Many women with natural leadership capacity feel ashamed of how “small” they become under pressure.

The fawn response isn't an identity issue it is a regulation problem that can be changed

But here’s the reframe that actually frees them:

It’s not a leadership problem.

It’s a regulation problem.

When fawning is active, leadership starts to leak in subtle ways:

• Avoiding hard conversations

• Over-managing others’ emotions

• Softening directives until they lose clarity

• Stepping back when your voice is needed

• Second-guessing instincts you’ve earned through experience

• Carrying emotional and operational burdens no one assigned you

Authority erodes not because you lack leadership skill —

but because your system is wired to prioritize safety over truth.

And that wiring is learned, not permanent.

I’ve watched this pattern unwind hundreds of times.

When it does, women often say:

“I didn’t hesitate. I just said what needed to be said.”

That’s what leadership feels like without fawning.

The Deeper Cost: You Can’t Build a Life You’re Afraid to Occupy

This is the part most women feel but can’t articulate.

I see women working tirelessly to build lives

they’re still too afraid to fully step into.

Because beneath the ambition, the competence, and the drive,

fawning keeps this quiet belief running:

If I shine too brightly, I’ll lose safety.

So success becomes something you reach for —

but never quite inhabit.

Not because you’re broken.

Because your system is optimized for survival, not self-expression.

And survival wiring can be updated.

When the nervous system no longer associates visibility, leadership, or money with danger, expansion stops requiring force.

It happens naturally.

Effortlessly.

Sometimes shockingly fast.

What's Next

If this piece named something you’ve felt but never quite understood, you’re not alone.

Fawning isn’t a flaw.

It’s a pattern your body learned when safety mattered more than expression.

And patterns can change — faster and easier than you can imagine.

If you want gentle, consistent support as you begin noticing and unwinding this response, there are a few ways to stay connected:

• Soul Vitamins — free daily letters that help your nervous system feel seen, safe, and supported.

  
  

• The MEE Method™ — my deeper mentorship program for women ready to permanently rewrite old emotional survival patterns.

  
  

However you begin, you don’t have to keep shrinking to stay safe.

You’re allowed to occupy the life you’re building.

Missed Part 1?

→ Why Smart, Capable Women Still Fawn — And How to Break the Pattern

Next in the series:

→ Part 3: How Fawning Disguises Itself as Kindness, Empathy, and Being “Easygoing”