This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit trishawolfe.substack.com
Hello and welcome back to our book club read-along of Are You Mad at Me? If you’re new here, I release a new podcast episode every two weeks where we deep-dive into this book together. You can also listen on Spotify & Apple Music. These episodes are meant to help translate theory into everyday language and to connect the science to real life, real patterns, and real change. We also gather twice during each book for live meetings where you can connect with others, share reflections, and ask questions in real time!
This book takes us deep into fawning, one of the survival strategies so many of us developed in childhood to stay connected and safe. It helps explain why we learned to manage other people’s emotions instead of feeling our own, and how patterns like people-pleasing, overfunctioning, and perfectionism make so much sense when we understand where they came from, and how they can change.
If you’ve been wanting to go deeper into this work, becoming a paid subscriber gives you access to the full book club experience. That includes our live sessions, ongoing discussions, and the complete archive of past reads, such as Unlocking the Emotional Brain, No Bad Parts, Healing Developmental Trauma, and Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Your support makes this space possible, and I’m grateful you’re here and reading along with me.
This week, we’re reading a chapter on learning to be with emotions and to be curious about the messages they might have for us, rather than needing to fawn or freeze and shut our emotions down.
If you’re curious about doing a deep dive into how to create transformational change in your life, check out my new offering: The Transformation Lab. If you’re someone who reads all the books, tries every type of therapy, can analyze themselves better than Freud, but still can’t seem to change, then come join me for an experiment in transformation.
As you read or listen, you can be curious about these reflection questions:
1. What’s your current relationship to uncomfortable emotions like anger, sadness, and fear? How do you usually deal with them?
2. Recall a recent time when you felt an emotion that felt difficult. What was it telling you?
