Instant New York Times bestseller! Psychotherapist and social media star Meg Josephson joins Zibby to discuss ARE YOU MAD AT ME?, a groundbreaking, relatable, and binge-worthy guide to understanding chronic people-pleasing (or “fawning”). Meg shares how growing up in a volatile household shaped her instinct to people-please, how this unconscious coping strategy can be both protective and exhausting, and why so many women struggle with it. She and Zibby talk about generational patterns, social media’s impact on anxiety and validation-seeking, and the importance of repairing relationships rather than striving for perfection.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Meg. Thanks so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about, Are You Mad At Me? How to stop focusing on what others think and start living for you. Congratulations. 

Meg: Thank you for having me.

Excited to be here. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. I like to laugh. Looking at them, I mean, it's just, there were so many people. I was like, oh my gosh, look at this book. Do you say this all the time? Do I say this all the time? Of course. 

Meg: You're not alone. 

Zibby: Tell listeners what the book is really trying to do and do it the way you did in the book.

How you tell us about your own experience and lead us into. Your revelations about fawning and all the rest? 

Meg: Absolutely. Well, it's called "Are you mad at me?" because I think that question really speaks to a feeling, a feeling that a lot of us have, but maybe don't have the language for, and it's a question that's been really familiar to me in my life.

I open the book with a scene in my first therapist's office, and I say to her, why do I always think people are mad at me? And in my adulthood, that was manifesting as when my boss said, can we chat? Oh, I'm fired. I'm fired. That's what's about to happen. Or if someone didn't respond for a while, okay, they're mad at me, I've done something wrong.

Just immediate self blame, immediate, something is wrong with me and in my, you know, self inquiry journey and also just through being a therapist, I really saw how protective that was for me growing up. That thinking that hypervigilance my home growing up was quite volatile and my dad struggled a lot with addiction and I was just on edge a lot of the time.

And so thinking is he mad at me? Was at least on an unconscious level, was so protective. Being aware of people's moods, managing people's happiness, silencing what I need to prioritize what other people need was so helpful and useful when I left and as I became an adult and I realized, oh, it, it was, it was helpful, but now it's hurting me, and now it's leading to exhaustion and overthinking social interactions and feeling like I don't know who I am.

I have that scene of me in Bed, bed, bath and Beyond, picking out towels for my first, I say apartment, but like a four by four closet in New York, and. 

Zibby: Shoebox. 

Meg: Shoebox, and just not knowing even what my favorite color was, because I just felt like I had never asked, what do I like? What do I want?

And that's what the fawn response, which we'll talk about, does. It disconnects us from who we are because we're so hyper attuned to our external world as a means of safety. So I'll pause there. We can go into the fawn response. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Meg: I don't wanna throw too much. 

Zibby: No, no. It's all good. So the fawn response is another term and another way to cope with scary situations.

We've all heard about fight or flight as, 

Meg: Yes. 

Zibby: Two of the main characters. Then there's freezing and then as you go in depth into, into the book this other fawn response. FAWN. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: I dunno how else you would spell it, but I'm just gonna spell it 

Meg: Like the deer. Yeah. 

Zibby: A few words like that. And instead of positioning this as any sort of a weakness, you are showing us how incredibly smart a response this is and how it lingers.

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: As a self-protective mechanism. So what exactly does it mean? Is it cozying up to a boss? Is it enabling, you know, me too ish behavior? Like where is the line and why are women so susceptible to this particular response? 

Meg: Yeah, so when the body is detecting some sort of threat, whether that threat is real, like there's a lion in front of you about to chase you down.

Or whether that threat is perceived like your boss or your friend is being a little, a little standoffish and you're like, oh, are we good? Did I do something wrong? That might be a perceived threat. You think something might be happening regardless of whether it's real or perceived or remembered actually, our body has those four responses, fight, flight, freeze, and fawn and fawning is about appeasing the threat. It's trying to be liked by it. Um, impressing it, satisfying it. Wanting to make sure that you are good with the threat. So it really just says, my, my safety comes from pleasing you, and I can't feel okay until I know you are okay.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: And this really is a brilliant unconscious survival mechanism. And what's really important is sometimes we need it. This, it's in our bodies for a reason, like we need a paycheck. Sometimes we're in situations, whether you're a woman, you're a person of color, what, whatever identity you may hold, that fawning is genuinely protective to a, to survive in society and within systems, and when we're doing it all the time, when we're doing it, when we don't need to be, when we're actually safe, like with our best friend or a loving partner.

That's when it is exhausting. So I talk a lot about how it stems from childhood and how it can be learned in childhood as a brilliant mechanism for an environment maybe that was quite volatile or tense, or yet a caregiver who is critical or emotionally neglectful. But it's also such a socialized behavior, and that's why I think.

I view it as the most common but least recognized threat response because it's the only threat response that we're getting validation for. "Oh, you're such a good girl, you're so easy." You know, women, especially were, were praised for being agreeable and easy and malleable and so it's quite confusing because the fawn response, we receive a sense of safety by knowing that the other person approves of us.

So then it keeps it going, like we continue to fawn because it works. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's very protective in those early environments. It's also protective in society, and we don't need to be doing it all the time. 

Zibby: What I found so revolutionary about your book is that it takes away the onus of this on the individual and puts it more on the species, right?

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: Like, I am not a perfectionist or eager to please. I mean, I am, but anyway, um, but I have become that way because of my, how I was raised or what my relationship with my family was like, and when I have trouble making decisions about where I wanna go or what I wanna do, or should I go to this friend's party or not?

Like when you have that moment in the book where you're like, oh no, I said no right away, but then I doubted myself and, 

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: Had to go through this whole like, nicer strategy or whatever. 

Meg: Yeah, yeah. 

Zibby: Um, it's not because of who I am or any sort of deficiency I, the, the general I, 

Meg: Yes. 

Zibby: But more because of what's hardwired in us 

Meg: Absolutely.

Zibby: And what a relief that is. 

Meg: Oh, such a relief. Yeah. It's not a personality trait, but an unconscious mechanism. And that's where our awareness is so huge and important to, to pause, to notice when we're doing it, to step back, release some of the urgency, look inward for a second. That's automatically bringing it from the unconscious into the conscious mind so that we can at least notice it and maybe choose a different path. Um, but it really is so, so self-protective. 

Zibby: So I'm obviously like a grownup, right? I'm in my, I'm in my forties. I've had a lifetime of this. And now reading the book and flipping the switch for me and explaining it for younger people who are just starting out be like, what can we do like for my kids or people's kids who, you already hear this starting, right?

Meg: Yes. 

Zibby: You can feel it. But instead of having to go through the past, you know, 30 years that I went through, like how can we nip this in the bud, aside from just reading your book Of course. Which everyone must do. 

Meg: Yeah, of course. But you know, I actually, I wanna touch on that element, the generational element for a second, because I do think it's more prevalent.

Maybe that's a big statement. I'm noticing it more in younger people and I think and attribute, at least in part, to digital communication. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: And I say this in the intro, there's some line of like, there's so many ways to connect. And because of that, there's so many ways to feel forgotten where we're not just picking up the phone to connect with someone, we also, why did they see my Instagram story but not respond to my text?

And then why did they like that person's TikTok, but not mine? And why did they, like, there's just so many, there's dms, FaceTime, there's iMessage, there's liking, there's reacting reacting to why did they, did they not think my joke was funny? 'cause they didn't say, ha ha, to my iMessage. Like, there's just so many sources of external validation now. So I do think that especially the younger generation, because that's all they've known, they're expecting that, they're anticipating the dopamine of that validation. When it's not received, there's this letdown and it's a, it's a big swing to, to go through in the body.

So I definitely think that's an, that's an element. Just wanna, wanna acknowledge that for younger generations you know, when they're, they're, they may not have like a whole childhood to process at this point. They may not be looking back with that lens. I think it's the same framework of.

Viewing this part of you that's people pleasing as a part that is trying to keep you safe. And it's really easy to shame ourselves for it. What's wrong with me? Why am I like this? And to instead, create a relationship to this part that's working over time to try to keep you safe, to be able to pause, release some of the urgency, and to then look inward and soothe ourselves versus immediately seeking external validation. So for example, if you are trying to decide what to wear tonight, and you want your instinct, your immediate habit is to text for friends, what do you, what do I look good in? What looks, tell me, tell me what looks bad. Tell me what looks good. To be able to first look inward. What do I think? What do I feel good in? What feels good to me? And it sounds so simple, but because of that ex, that fawn response habit is to immediately look externally for safety, to to break that and look inward first before looking out. And we might still look out and that's okay. We're not meant to be in complete solitude, but just to add that break and that pause to release some of that urgency around making sure that others like us is very liberating and there's so many other things I could talk about of not taking things personally and blah, blah, but I think we can start we can start there. 

Zibby: In addition to putting out this super helpful framework, which by the way could be interpreted as another way of pleasing people, is that now you are solving everybody's problems.

Just saying, throw that out there. You also talk about your own relationships with your parents. 

Meg: Mm-hmm. 

Zibby: Your mother's early onset all-time rooms. I'm so sorry about that. 

Meg: Thank you. 

Zibby: This one moment where you really felt like she was saying goodbye. A moment of sort of lucidity in the midst of a lot of terrible, you know, times and a lot of the specific behaviors that your dad.

Did and continues to do in their relationship. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: So as you're putting this book into the world for the rest of us, thank you. 

Meg: Mm-hmm. You're welcome. 

Zibby: How are you feeling about that? What you're exposing about your own family and how are they feeling about it? 

Meg: Thank you for asking that. And something that I share in the acknowledgements that make it obvious in the book is my dad actually passed away.

Zibby: Oh no, I'm sorry. 

Meg: Three days after I turned in the final manuscript, which was. So messy and complicated because as you know in the book, I talk so much about my mom's mortality and processing for listeners. My mom started to show symptoms of Alzheimer's when I was 19 and she was 59, so very young. And so for the past, you know, my whole twenties was processing her eventual passing and she is still here. She outlived him. And that is, so my dad's, my dad passed away through unexpectedly health related concerns, um, causes, but it was, it was a big shock. And so it just really adds to the messiness of grief that grief isn't just as I talk about, it's not just losing someone when they pass, it's also grieving what never was and what can't be.

But you know, I wrote it expecting him to read it, and so that was really, I, I really think that that was an act of healing the fawn response for me, because I knew that in order for me to write this book in the way that I wanted to, I had to share something. And I was very careful, of course. And there's a lot, I don't say, there's a lot I don't share.

I was very careful about it, but I, I knew he would read it and I knew that there would be some feelings about it, but I feel grateful that I did call him when I was writing the book or when I got the, the book deal and said to him, you know, I, I do need to acknowledge some things that I experienced, and he was actually really supportive about it, and I feel really grateful that I had that support but.

It was really vulnerable and I feel like I still don't even think too hard about people reading it. I'm like, that, that's not happening. People won't know this. Yeah it was vulnerable and challenging, but to let myself, this is healing the fawn response to, to be connected to who I am, knowing that I can't control how it's being perceived.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: Understanding that it might be misunderstood, it might be misjudged. I can't control that. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: But will that, should that stop me from speaking about what I'm feeling? That's, that's healing the fawn response. So it was a bit of a meta healing process. 

Zibby: Wow. Well, I'm sorry that happened. 

Meg: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Zibby: You, you have a lot in here about not how not to take things personally as you referenced. And one of the things along those lines is asking yourself, do I even like the person who I'm worried doesn't like me? And it sounds so obvious, right? But we don't stop to think like, oh wait, do I even care? Like why do I care?

Is this even the type of person I would be friends with? So why do I care that they don't wanna be friends with me? And why does their acceptance matter when they might not be my cup of tea? Can you like to talk a little bit about that and why do we do that? 

Meg: Of course, well, knowing that the fawn response finds safety through being liked, so it doesn't matter.

And by doing more, the more I do, the more I can be loved. That's, that's the fawn response. And so there's no nuance there. It's just black or white. It's, am I safe or am I not? Do they like me or do they not? Am I good? Are they bad? There's no room for nuance. So to allow for nuance to allow ourselves to kind of question this immediate instinct is really liberating.

Where we find safety in being liked, but then we recognize, oh, we don't even like everyone, so why would everyone like us? And I also discuss, you know, the more we know ourselves, the more connected to who we are to our preferences, our style, our opinions. People may like us less, we may not, because we're no longer morphing ourselves and contorting ourselves to be pleasing to everyone.

No, that doesn't mean everyone hates us and that we're flipping the bird at everyone that bothers us. It just means we're connected to who we are and we can be kind and not be loved by everyone at the same time and that's okay. I think it's actually a really good thing. 

Zibby: Even just hearing you say that gives me anxiety. 

Meg: Oh same.

No, of course I'm saying this to myself and I, my heart's racing just saying it, it's, it's so, it's so real. And I think that healing happens through seeing that it's safe when someone, and it doesn't have to be a big thing, like I think for many people that are drawn to this question of, are you mad at me?

Like myself, I learn that in adulthood, if there's a conflict, the relationship is over, it's ruined. There's no going back. Conflict feels like such a big deal in our minds, and if someone doesn't necessarily even not like you, it feels like harsh, harsh words. If someone, you're not someone's cup of tea, it's not they're not screaming at you, they're not insulting you. It can just be that they don't text you to hang out again after you have dinner with them one time. Okay. Did you enjoy your time with them? And it's okay if you didn't. We only have so much time and energy for so many relationships and taking feedback from people that we respect and admire and look up to, knowing we cannot take feedback from everyone.

It would be too conflicting. So. 

Zibby: And wait, go back to what you were saying about this need to stay busy, which you also put in here about how we have to take on more and more and just like run it full capacity and how it's actually the stress response and the like sort of addiction to the adrenaline of it all that fuels it.

Meg: Yes. 

Zibby: Did I get that right? 

Meg: Yeah, for sure. I mean that my safety lies in doing more, and there's always more to do. So that's a tough cycle to be in as well. I have these different archetypes of how pleasing people show up, and one of them is the perfectionist, and I think that archetype archetype. I use that loosely, not as a personality type, but as a, as a pattern.

And just this idea that if I'm just more perfect, if I'm just have this one extra thing on my resume or this, have this one extra relationship in my network, then I'll be enough or, and it's, it doesn't end because then the mind that will be achieved and the mind will then create, raise the bar because we get used to that achievement quite quickly.

And it doesn't mean we're never striving towards something, but you know, it. It's just being conscious of when it comes from a place of purpose and when it comes from a place of survival. 

Zibby: I remember reading kinda a spoof of an essay a while back, like years ago of someone who was lamenting that even though they were on the New York Times bestseller list, they weren't like number three or that they only stayed on for a week at number six.

And I was like, oh my gosh. They must be totally kidding. Like obviously nobody even knows what number it is, but now that I'm like in this world, 

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: like people are not kidding at all. People. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: Care how long, what number? And I'm like, any of this would be amazing. If you hit the list, you're If you're on the list, you're on the list.

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: But the more granular you get with how you define success, the less easy it is to achieve. 

Meg: It also speaks to the hedonic treadmill of we, the great thing and the, and the horrible thing about being a person is that we adapt so quickly. So even like getting a book deal that might be the most crazy life altering, oh my God, this is a life dream.

And then it happens, you start writing it and you get used to it pretty quickly. It becomes your reality. And then I imagine if you were, like, if you became a bestseller. That's, oh my gosh, a life dream. Oh my gosh. But then once you get used to it, okay, now for your next one, you'll expect it from yourself.

And maybe it's no longer as exciting. So just, and that's that voice I think will always be there. Similar to the pleasing voice that's always there, but managing it, like being, checking it a little bit, being a little curious about it. And what I find helpful when that perfectionistic voice comes in is look at, look at your current reality through the lens of your past self.

And I think for a lot of people that are in that perfectionistic tendency, their past self would've died to have that, or they would be so thrilled to have that reality for a lot of these achievements or whatever we're thinking about here. So it, yeah, we're not trying to erase that voice, but just become aware of it.

Zibby: And one other thing, I, I actually took a picture of the page I was reading and texted it to my friend Isabelle, because we were playing tennis the other day and I was apologizing every shot I hit in the net, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I can't play today. I dunno what's wrong with me? It's like, I've never played tennis before in my entire life.

I'm so sorry. And literally from across the net, she's like, you know. There's this thing called spotlighting where you think that like everyone's noticing you, she's like, I've messed up just as much as you, but you feel like it's all on you. And I was like, oh, huh, store that away. And I literally was reading your book and there it was.

So I had to text her. Um, but it's so true. It's like it doesn't go away. You just keep thinking. I know you have some experiment about an ugly t-shirt that you mentioned in the book, but 

Meg: Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: We always think that everybody's paying attention and in truth. And I know I give this advice to my kids.

It's just so much harder to take. 

Meg: Oh, it's so hard. 

Zibby: You know that not everybody is paying attention to you. 

Meg: It's hard to take the advice ourselves for the very reason the study exists, which is we're so focused on ourselves. Like that might be true for other people, but for me, everyone's really noticing my mess up.

So yeah, we're, we all have our own lives and egos and relationships and that's not bad. We have an ego. We're people, we're not erasing that. It's just managing it. It's just noticing that voice and letting it go when we can, I think. 

Zibby: So are you worried, do you still get all this anxiety that you put out a book 

and is it perfect and 

Meg: Oh of course.

Zibby: Are you okay? Yeah. 

Meg: Oh my gosh, yeah. The difference is I just don't believe those thoughts as much anymore. 

Zibby: Mm. 

Meg: Like I, I my default doesn't feel that way anymore, but I still have waves of it because those are human emotions, and I think we have this false fantasy that once we quote heal, which is not a checkbox at all, it's ongoing.

Once we do this thing, then I won't feel these hard emotions anymore or like I'll just be happy and peaceful all the time and. That's a false fantasy because they're emotions and they're human and we're meant to have them and their proof that we're alive in this body. And so, yeah, certainly I get lots of waves of it and a perfectionistic voice comes in and I just know when it's useful and I know when it's not, but it doesn't mean it's, you know, it's there.

And I think it will be because the point is that this is a younger part that's trying to protect us and If we were to say, "Go away. I don't want you here anymore. I'm trying to get rid of you." For many of us we're actually just replicating the same story we were told growing up, which is something's wrong with you.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: You need to change. Um, so I have a relationship with that part now instead of trying to get rid of it. 

Zibby: Well, I also love that growing up everybody, even your mom was like, okay, you're just really sensitive and I got that too. Like you're just, you're just so sensitive. And I'm like, okay, and how you show us like A why and B that there are a lot of strengths to that, and it's not, it's not necessarily us, it's our environment and how we're shaped and all of that. So hats off to the other sensitive souls out there. 

Meg: Absolutely. You're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. Absolutely. 

Zibby: I'm hoping that you have, um, a lot of pages in the book that are full pages.

I mean, I have the galley, but I'm assuming that it's gonna be the same and that you have like a big powerful quote like. I am allowed to acknowledge the loss that I feel there is enough space in my being for both grief and gratitude in these little check marks. And I feel like 

Meg: That's there in the final version.

Zibby: Okay, good. And I'm hoping that there's like, I hope these become the type of things that people print out for their dorm rooms and that maybe you put it on card stock and like dorm fires or ways that we, you can make these top of mind early in a preventative way. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Zibby: because they're really powerful, everyone.

Meg: And to that point of reaching younger people sooner. I think also just modeling. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: Modeling. We're not supposed to be perfect, perfect parents, perfect partners. So just to, even to, to say aloud, oh, I'm feeling anxious and this is how we're moving through it, to have conflict and repair after the fact.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: Like we're, we're gonna lose, lose our shit some time. We're gonna react in a way we're not proud of. To go back to the moment and say, honey, I, I yelled and I'm, I'm really sorry about that. That wasn't your fault. That was on me and I'm really working on managing my emotions better. Like that is the healing.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: It's not that the conflict or the rupture won't ever happen. It will. And repair is such an opportunity for closeness. So it's, I think it's just through, you know, showing, showing our process to whoever we're, we're living with is so empowering and beautiful. 

Zibby: Well, I'm so excited about this book.

You're gonna help so many people. So many people are gonna feel just so free, so free of some of the burdens, psychological burdens, and, um, I'm excited. 

Meg: Thank you. 

Zibby: To watch this ripple and see what happens. 

Meg: Thank you. Fingers crossed. 

Zibby: Congratulations 

Meg: I just, I wanted to help as many people pleasers, caretakers, perfectionists as possible, so that's the goal.

Zibby: Yeah. I have no doubt that you'll achieve it. 

Meg: Thank you. Thank you. 

Zibby: Thank you so much. I'll be cheering for you. 

Meg: Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: Thank you. 

Meg: Appreciate it. 

Zibby: Take care. Bye.