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Beautiful souls, today we dive deep with psychotherapist Meg Josephson into the ‘fawn response’—a survival mechanism where we abandon ourselves to please others. If you’ve ever felt trapped in people-pleasing, hypervigilance, or the ‘am I too sensitive?’ shame spiral, this episode unpacks why. We explore how fawning shapes relationships (especially with narcissists), the 6 fawning archetypes, and why grief is essential for breaking free. Meg’s new book ‘Are You Mad at Me?’ releases August 5th, and her wisdom is a balm for every empath seeking authentic self-trust.

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW

00:00 Julie’s Personal Story & Podcast Mission

01:24 Introducing Guest Meg Josephson and Her New Book

02:03 Defining the Fawn Response as a Survival Mechanism

03:19 How Fawning Differs from Fight/Flight/Freeze

05:11 Empaths vs. Hypervigilance: Untangling Sensitivity

08:12 Shame as the Lowest Vibrational Emotion

10:56 Fawning in Narcissistic Relationships

15:50 Sponsor Message: Julie’s Programs & Offerings

18:17 The 6 Fawning Archetypes Explained

23:40 Childhood Roots of Emotional Caretaking

31:16 When Repair Fails: Grieving Unhealthy Relationships

35:39 Meg’s Journey with Parental Illness and Grief

45:47 Spiritual Insights: Life Reviews and Afterlife Messages

51:00 Closing Blessing and Listener Resources

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Transcript:

Julie Jancis [00:00:04]:
Hello, friends. Welcome to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host, Julie Jancis. If you love this podcast, please be our angel. Ask a friend to listen. Subscribe. Rate us five stars, leave a positive review and share a screenshot of this podcast on your Facebook or Instagram Stories. So my dad passed away in 2015.

Julie Jancis [00:00:30]:
We weren’t talking and it took a month for his family to track me down. Before I ever knew he was gone, I started hearing from him in heaven. It consumed me. How was communication with the other side even possible? I left my corporate gig, studied with spiritual teachers on every coast, and worked with my angels to figure out the answers. Today, my mission is teaching you how to raise your vibration, shift your thoughts, trust your intuition, develop your unique spiritual gifts, and connect with your loved ones and angels on the other side. Friends, when you have these tools, life really does become heaven on Earth. Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening podcast.

Julie Jancis [00:01:24]:
I’m your host and author, Julie Jancis. And friends, you’re going to have so much fun with today’s guest. Her name is Meg Josephson. She is just a breath of fresh air and she’s got such positive energy. I know you’re going to love her like I do. She’s also on social media. You’ve got to follow her over there because she’s got great content that she’s sharing. Her new book that is just coming out August 5th is called are you mad at me now? If you’re a people pleaser, you’ve been one in the past.

Julie Jancis [00:01:53]:
I think if you’ve been one, we always kind of struggle with it throughout life. You’re going to get so much from today’s podcast. Meg, welcome to the show.

Meg Josephson [00:02:03]:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Julie Jancis [00:02:06]:
Yay. You talk about something that I had actually never heard of, a term. You know, I always tell my audience and my members, there’s so many words that we use, right? And when we use a word over and over again, it kind of loses its energy and you see new words emerge to help people feel and connect with what’s happening in their lives. And so I love words. And so you use the word fawning, I’m like, oh, my gosh, tell me more. Explain to people how and what fawning is as a survival instinct, how we learn it in childhood and how we don’t have to see it as a defect.

Meg Josephson [00:02:54]:
Absolutely. And the book is called are you mad at me? Because I view that as sort of a manifestation of the Fawn response. And so the fawn response is a threat response that our bodies, bodies have. And a lot of people may be familiar with fight or flight. And those are two of the threat responses. We also have freeze. And the fourth one is fawn. And you may have not heard of it.

Meg Josephson [00:03:19]:
Well, one, I don’t think it’s talked about much in general, and that’s, that’s an angle. But it also has been, it was coined relatively recently in 2013 by the psychologist Pete Walker. And so it’s a relatively new term. But the fawn response is when the body is detecting some sort of threat, whether that threat is real, perceived or remembered. So we don’t actually need to have a danger in front of us. It can just feel like we do. Like if our boss or our partner is kind of being cold or standoffish, that might activate some part of us that’s like, oh, are they mad at me? Is everything okay? And the fawn response is about appeasing the threat, trying to be liked by it, satisfying it, impressing it, proving yourself to it. So in that example, maybe if you felt like your boss or your partner or your friend was being a little cold, your immediate instinct would be to compliment them or to be like, are we okay? What, can I just try anything to make it better, to make sure that you’re okay? And the fawn response really is my safety comes from pleasing you and I can’t feel regulated until I know that you’re regulated.

Meg Josephson [00:04:35]:
I think it’s the most common threat response. As a psychotherapist, I see it in my private practice all the time, but it’s the most under recognized. And I think that’s because it’s so largely rewarded. It’s a very social we, it’s very much learned in childhood, which we can talk about, but it’s also very socialized as well. And it’s rewarded. We get rewarded for being people pleasers, women especially are, you’re so easy, you’re so good, you’re so helpful. Like it’s such a, it’s such a validated behavior and it’s not a bad thing. It’s a self protective thing.

Meg Josephson [00:05:11]:
It’s an unconscious protective mechanism that has kept us safe and, and will keep us safe. But when we do it as our default way of being, it’s exhausting. And we’re only supposed to be in it for a few minutes at a time when there’s an actual danger. But when it becomes our default way of being, that’s where the healing opportunity Lies. When are we fawning? When we don’t need to be. Um, and that’s. That’s what this work is all about. So a hundred percent.

Julie Jancis [00:05:42]:
Now, I’ve got a million questions about this because I see everything as energetics, right? And there’s a couple of different questions that I have. The first one is, have you ever looked at empaths, highly sensitive people? How do you see empaths connecting with all of this? So good.

Meg Josephson [00:06:05]:
I love it. And first of all, what’s so important is when we learn to tune out our emotions as a child, which a lot of us learn to do as a fawn response to keep the peace, those emotions don’t go anywhere. They just get shoved into our bodies. And so. And we learn to shame our emotions, to suppress anger, suppress resentment, and even though, you know, those emotions are messengers, but that’s a side track, because I want to get to the empath, highly sensitive person. I think of it as a Venn diagram, where I have like, empath, highly sensitive person in. In one hand, if you’re listening and not seeing video, I’m holding up a circle as the one has one circle. And then hypervigilance, fawn response, trauma response as another Venn diagram.

Meg Josephson [00:06:57]:
And there is certainly. These are their own real things, and there can certainly be an overlap as well. I definitely identify as a highly sensitive person. I’ve always been. I’ve always felt very deeply. I need a lot of alone time. I’m very sensitive to who I’m hanging out with and how I’m spend my time and energy. And what has been so enlightening for me has been the process of parsing out what is being highly sensitive and what is coming from a place of unprocessed trauma and hypervigilance.

Meg Josephson [00:07:31]:
And I remember I have this scene in my book where I’m crying and I. I just cried so much as a child. And my mom was like, oh, honey, I think you’re. I think you’re starting to go through puberty. And maybe that’s what you have. You have hormones, and that’s why you’re so sensitive. And I was like, oh, finally I have an answer. And then I just, like, walked around and I passed everyone that day and I just said, I have hormones, because I was just so thrilled, like, oh, that’s why I’m so sensitive.

Meg Josephson [00:08:00]:
And I talk about sensitivity in the book because it’s thrown around as such an insult for so many people, especially women growing up. You’re so sensitive, meaning you’re Overreacting, that’s what.

Julie Jancis [00:08:12]:
You’re sensitive.

Meg Josephson [00:08:12]:
You’re too sensitive for people that are naturally empathetic and naturally highly sensitive. And also, growing up in an environment where you need to be on high alert, you are in a volatile environment or a tense environment, or there is hostility and. Or a caregiver is very critical. There’s so many ways in which it can show up that sensitivity is amplified.

Julie Jancis [00:08:38]:
A lot of people don’t realize that shame is the lowest vibrational emotion. That is, they did. I think a spiritual teacher looked at this, the vibrational frequency, and they thought that it would be hate or it would be fear. That’s the lowest. But it’s really shame. And when you look at the energetics of it, it’s interesting. Before COVID when I would be working on a person, I go through all of their chakras, every single reading that I. There wasn’t a lot of people who had stuff going on in their root chakra.

Julie Jancis [00:09:14]:
A lot of times it would be somebody who had just lost their job, is worrying about losing their job or worrying about money issues. Other than that, you wouldn’t feel a lot. And then Covid came in five years ago, and you started to feel people’s fears there. You know, especially if they had, like an immune, sensitive family member just kind of worried about that. You start feeling. Started to see a flare up. And you can kind of feel into people’s past in there, but you also feel into people’s shame. And I think that when we shame another people, another person, and so many people really aren’t familiar with shame in a way where they don’t recognize it, that shaming another person, being critical of another person is the equivalent of physically backing someone into a corner.

Julie Jancis [00:10:04]:
People have a human need to be a person person, like a person who has this identity. And when you shame them, you bring them into root chakra energy, backing them into this corner where they have to make choices. You are physically putting someone in a position where they have to make a choice. If they’re not feeling safe with you, then they have to get themselves to a place of safety to just continue being a human being.

Meg Josephson [00:10:36]:
And that is. So the role of the fawn response is, how can I suppress my needs, my emotions, my desires to please you and prioritize what you want and what you need? And this isn’t to say we’re not caring about what people want and need anymore, but we’re caring about both.

Julie Jancis [00:10:56]:
Yeah.

Meg Josephson [00:10:57]:
Abandoning ourselves in the process. To your point, I thought that was so. Well, Said about shame being hard to detect. It’s so funny because my whole life I’ve walked around with a feeling of I’m about to get in trouble. Like, I remember one of my earliest reflections in this trauma healing work was realizing anytime my boss would say, can you chat? I’m like, oh, I’m getting fired, I’m, I’ve done something wrong, or they’ve found out that I’m bad, or making it sound so simple and maybe even silly. But making the connection that that was shame was such a life altering realization because I’m like, oh, maybe I’m, I’m not in trouble all the time. Maybe it is just feeling like I’m quote bad. And that’s the difference between guilt and shame.

Meg Josephson [00:11:54]:
Guilt is I did something bad and shame is I am bad. And yeah, it’s a really potent motion.

Julie Jancis [00:12:02]:
Yeah, for sure. I really want to kind of go deeper into this with some questions because I really looking at social media, looking at like information that is out there, I think this is one place where humanity is really stuck and they don’t understand. I think that there’s a difference and I want to talk about this between warm people and us kind of wanting to be around other warm people. I think a lot of times the empath gets into a friendship or relationship with the narcissist thinking, oh yay, I have found somebody else who’s so warm. And then they get the cold side and they go back to default to what you were saying before, oh my God, I did something, I’m bad, I’m wrong. Talk about the relationship there with fawning and maybe coming into narcissistic relationships, but also how you can tell earlier what’s what.

Meg Josephson [00:13:06]:
Yeah, well, what’s really interesting is the fawn response. And this sort of are you mad at me? Thinking is really, really common from narcissistic family structures where if having a caregiver who is manipulative or gaslighting your emotions really critical. Hot and cold, being good and easy and perfect is a fast track to preventing all of that as best as you can of just wanting to stay. I write about this about my dad, like just wanting to stay under his wing and just wanting to stay on his good side, knowing he can change at any second. Something to perhaps highlight is with. And I’m speaking in like very clinical terms here, but like true narcissistic personality disorder, there actually isn’t. And this is what’s so hard to grapple with because I think when you’re in a relationship with someone like that, there’s. And this is the fawn response.

Meg Josephson [00:14:13]:
I want to change them or if I can only just be better or easier or more helpful, they’ll, they’ll change and we can have this relate this hope is the, is the thread keeping you on. And what’s really hard to accept is that with someone who has true narcissistic personality disorder, they don’t have awareness of it.

Julie Jancis [00:14:36]:
Right?

Meg Josephson [00:14:36]:
They don’t, there’s not, they’re not worrying that they’re a narcissist. That awareness isn’t there. Versus and this is what I as a therapist, I see a lot of people who have had narcissistic abuse come into therapy saying, what if I’m a narcissist? What if I’m actually secretly bad? And that’s shame, of course, because it’s self blame. It’s, it’s my fault. It doesn’t mean we’re not taking accountability, doesn’t mean empaths or targets of narcissistic abuse are perfect and like have. But it’s, it’s recognizing that, that awareness. If you’re worried, if you’re worried about being a narcissist, you’re probably not a narcissist.

Julie Jancis [00:15:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful souls. This has been one of the hardest years and we’re still kind of in the thick of it. And I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you so incredibly much to everyone who financially supports my work. Truly, I could not do this work without you. And I am so, so beyond grateful. For those of you who do want to support my.

Julie Jancis [00:15:50]:
I do have a new sacred Women’s circles. They’re all beginning all of the circles. August 1st. You can now sign up on my website, theangel medium.com then go to the Women’s Circles tab. Also, friends, I just read a report and this isn’t to scare you. The Angels want to prepare you. This report has talked about how over the next decade, 33% of all jobs in the US could be eliminated. Eliminated.

Julie Jancis [00:16:23]:
And 47% total could be disrupted due to new AI technology. Again, this isn’t to scare you, but your angels want you to be prepared. Friends, I would love, love, love to teach you the skills of being an angel, messenger, energy healer and medium all in one at my Angel Reiki School. If you’ve been feeling called to serve humanity or start your own healing business, please do not wait. This, this is your sign. Your Angels are trying to work with you on a whole new level, friends. A whole new Angel Reiki school begins online August 1st, and when you sign up this month for the online program, I’m gifting you free tuition to also attend in person at any of the three to four in person Angel Reiki schools that we’re going to have over the next 12 months. They’re always held in the Chicago suburbs because takes a few carloads to get all of the materials, massage tables that we use over there.

Julie Jancis [00:17:30]:
Friends, the Angel Reiki School certifies you in all three modalities at once, giving you a really unique edge. Also, friends, one more thing. If you love this podcast and want to support me, we’re starting a whole new course August 1st in the angel membership. It’s called release fear and step into your power. You can sign up for the sacred women’s circles, Angel Reiki School and the membership all on my website, the angel medium.com. if you want more info, use the contact form over@theangel medium.com to submit your question. I read all of them and from the bottom of my heart, friends, I can’t thank you enough. Thank you for being here.

Julie Jancis [00:18:17]:
Thank you so much for supporting my work. I truly couldn’t keep all of this going without you. So thank. Thank you. Thank you. Now back to the show. In your book, you go through, I think this is just so brilliant, the six different fawning archetypes. Yeah, can you go through that and just kind of explain a little bit about what each one is? And I think it’s beautiful.

Julie Jancis [00:18:43]:
Thank you.

Meg Josephson [00:18:44]:
I appreciate that. And I really viewed these as, I think as people. We love categories, we love boxes, and sometimes that’s helpful. But I created these not to attach to them as this is me and this is who I am, but rather, oh, this is the pattern that has really protected me and has kept me safe so that we can understand that. I have six archetypes which are the perfectionist, the performer, the peacekeeper, the caretaker, the chameleon, and the lone wolf. Do you want me to go. I could go through each one and kind of give like a belief that each one maybe has.

Julie Jancis [00:19:24]:
Yeah. Or just like a few sentences on each. For sure. I think it’s so helpful for people to be like, oh, I never thought about it that way. I’m that one. And that makes so much sense.

Meg Josephson [00:19:35]:
Absolutely. Yeah. And you may see yourself in each of them. You may see yourself in three of them. You may highly identify with one of them. Whatever. It’s just a prompt to think about just your. What has protected you.

Julie Jancis [00:19:48]:
I think a great example of that that I’ve seen, like, just kind of over the last 10 years on Instagram has been, you know, everything was so curate curated. And then you saw Mel Robbins come through, just showing up, no makeup, like on a walk, just talking and just having this aha moment and wanting to share it with people. And everybody was like, oh, okay, so we don’t have to be perfect for the world. Like, we can just show up, no makeup as we are, and. And then the next day in full makeup. If she’s doing like a recording, like, whatever, it’s okay.

Meg Josephson [00:20:26]:
Yeah. It has been interesting to see the evolution of curated to more raw through social media. And even then, it’s like, can I be perfect at being seen as raw or vulnerable or messy? Like, it’s inherent.

Julie Jancis [00:20:42]:
Oh, really?

Meg Josephson [00:20:43]:
Through. Well, it’s like we’re still. It’s. And it’s not a bad thing. We’re just. It’s an objective fact, you know, we’re just being perceived and we’re aware that we’re being perceived. And for people stuck in the faun response, being perceived is quite scary because we don’t know, do they like me? Am I doing enough? Am I being enough? And so the practice of letting it be okay to be misunderstood, misperceived, misjudged is so hard but so important for people who resonate with the are you mad at me? Framework. So I’ll go.

Meg Josephson [00:21:21]:
I’m not going in any particular order. I’m just kind of going around. But I’ll go into the performer. Because there are some overlap with the perfectionist. I view the performer as kind of like the comedian. I forget who said this quote. They’re like, people often ask, oh, are you a comedian? Two comedians. Are you a comedian because you were depressed? And it’s like, you should really be asking, are you a comedian because your parents were depressed? Where you learn to use humor as a defense mechanism.

Meg Josephson [00:21:52]:
Very useful defense mechanism to uplift the mood or alleviate tension in your home. So the performer is. It’s on me to keep the mood high. Whether that’s through humor, through being the jokester, through relentless positivity. It’s my job to kind of curate this positive mood in the home. Whether that’s because your parents are always arguing or passive aggressive toward each other, similar to the perfectionist. It can, as an adult, it can manifest as people don’t know the real me or I’m responsible for people’s happiness. I can’t let people see what’s beneath the surface for me.

Meg Josephson [00:22:35]:
So it can be Quite lonely, even though it’s a pretty. Tends to be a pretty extroverted type of person.

Julie Jancis [00:22:40]:
That’s really fascinating.

Meg Josephson [00:22:42]:
Yeah.

Julie Jancis [00:22:42]:
Yeah. And I wonder if anybody felt that as you were saying it, Meg, of. If you could feel that you’re an energy feeler. Like, you can feel and perceive energy. If you felt the tension in the household when you mentioned it and then felt the levity, the lightness of the comedic relief coming in, it’s all energetics. I think I was definitely that and, like, mentally helping carry the very, like, heavy load. I didn’t have to do as much, like, physically around the house. I did get a job very young.

Julie Jancis [00:23:19]:
But mentally. And there’s a weight, too. My sister and I were just talking about this. Like, there’s mental weights that we carry around, and they’re exhausting.

Meg Josephson [00:23:32]:
Yeah. Julie, how did that show up for you emotionally, day to day? What sort of. What sort of weight were you carrying?

Julie Jancis [00:23:40]:
I think I started to intentionally seek it out where I knew that my parents were middle class, you know, and we probably lived above our means, where, like, we would have a nice house, but your house rich, cash poor. And so then money always felt very tight. And I remember being in college and going to my best friend Sarah’s house in Peoria and her parents really having this deep discussion with us about how they lived below their means. And it was like light bulbs went off in my head because I had never heard people talk about that before. And I was like, ding, ding, ding. You know, circle that, highlight that. That is the way to go. Because then you don’t have this pressure just constantly.

Julie Jancis [00:24:33]:
But then I would seek it out, you know, when there would be family parties, I was never with the kids playing with the kids. I would play with them for a while because I was the oldest. And then I would try and get back into the kitchen to hear everything that was going on, because I was like, there’s a better way to be living. And I think that there was some mental health stuff. I could probably talk about this for an entire episode, but I think that endometriosis and women who have PCOS and pmdd, which a lot of people have multiple at the same time. I think a lot of people in the mental health sector misdiagnose that for, like, a bipolar or a mood disorder, but it’s really the hormones and how they’re playing out. And so I don’t think that there was a mental health disorder. I think that there was a lot of hormones that created something that mimicked that within the household.

Julie Jancis [00:25:40]:
And then my dad would just completely shut down, shut out and just not participate anymore. And so now you have like one parent who’s like, totally shut off. And I would seek out the information, like, what is happening, talking to as many people as I could talk to. And even my freshman year of high school, I got really involved in journalism. And looking back, I’ve interviewed thousands of people over my lifetime because I’m always searching for that information, like, help me understand how I do life. Right. To totally bypass problems. Right.

Julie Jancis [00:26:24]:
And missteps.

Meg Josephson [00:26:26]:
Wow. And someone had to. Someone had to fill that role of gathering information to. And whether it was, you know, to soothe yourself, to soothe other people, it doesn’t matter because it was. It was what was in your control to keep people regulated.

Julie Jancis [00:26:45]:
Yeah.

Meg Josephson [00:26:45]:
You know, how, like how, how brilliant to fall into that. And, you know, you were too young to fall into that at the same time, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for sharing that.

Julie Jancis [00:26:57]:
Of course. So we have caretaker. And that doesn’t have to be physical, so that can be emotional too.

Meg Josephson [00:27:04]:
In fact, most. A lot of the time it’s not physical. A lot of the time it’s emotional. Of like you were speaking to kind of carrying that mental load being when you were speaking about just living above your means being really hyper aware of. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it’s just inevitable. But being hyper aware of income level or just how your family might be different in some way and filling that role to keep make sure people are okay. I’m trying.

Julie Jancis [00:27:35]:
You know, this is kind of interesting, but I’m realizing in our conversation that inadvertently I put a lot. Not put, but just kind of in inform my daughter and I have over the years of maybe more than she needs to be aware of because, like, I want her to be safe. And it’s just kind of always in the back of my mind of what if this, what if that? Like, she needs this information. And so I’ve had a problem as a parent feeling safe with her being in the dark on things where I can see that, you know, maybe she didn’t need to know everything and that it’s okay to be in the dark.

Meg Josephson [00:28:23]:
On some things, but you’re speaking to something so important, which is, I think, and I really believe this, that, you know, a parent’s weakness becomes the child’s strength because we’re all just trying to improve upon our parents. And so, yeah, of course, like you, you were left. It sounds like you were left in the dark and you weren’t. People weren’t giving you information and you wanted that information. So of course you’re going to break that cycle by sharing with your daughter. And I trust your intuition of when to share, when not to share. And I think something’s so important to recognize. And this is with being a parent, being a partner, being a friend.

Meg Josephson [00:29:09]:
We’re gonna mess up. Yeah, that’s okay. But. But it’s inevitable. What matters so much more is the repair. And I think for a lot of people, that resonate with this. Are you mad at me? Feeling is there wasn’t repair. Things were brushed under the rug.

Meg Josephson [00:29:25]:
Things were not. I know in my family growing up, like, there would be huge, huge, huge conflict in really rageful ways. And it was not taught. I’d go downstairs after that, that episode, and my dad would be like, so, what do you want to do for dinner? And it’s so confusing for a child. Are we not going to just talk about. Are we not going to acknowledge what just happened? But it’s just things are constantly brushed under the rug. And speaking of shame, just to go back to that of when that happens again and again and again, the child makes sense of that by believing that they caused it to happen. There’s no other way it can make sense for a child.

Meg Josephson [00:30:10]:
It must be my fault because my dad’s not acknowledging it. So it goes from over time. I made dad upset, he’s really upset, and that’s my fault. It goes from I made dad upset to I am bad, I did something bad, to I am bad because it happens again and again and again with repair. We break that. It’s like if you were to yell as a parent, which inevitable. We all lose our temper. We all.

Meg Josephson [00:30:39]:
We can’t be regulated all the time. And to go back and say, honey, I’m so sorry for yelling, that was my fault. And I’m really working on. I’m really working on self regulation. I love you and I’m here for you and we can talk about it. How healing would it be to hear that from a parent? Some acknowledgment. It’s just, just. That’s the most important part.

Meg Josephson [00:31:00]:
And actually a little bit of conflict, a little bit of friction followed by repair can lead to so much more closeness. So special opportunity.

Julie Jancis [00:31:11]:
We do that in our household, both my husband and I, with our daughter. But I felt it when you said that of, wow, that takes the I am bad, I am wrong off of the child. When you hear a parent come in and say, I am so sorry, that wasn’t you, that was me. Wow, does that Make a difference, like in the overview of their entire life.

Meg Josephson [00:31:36]:
Absolutely. And just to witness someone taking accountability for their mistakes.

Julie Jancis [00:31:42]:
Yeah.

Meg Josephson [00:31:43]:
Oh, my gosh. What. What a powerful model because it’s showing the child you don’t need to be perfect. You can mess up and just own it and it’s fine. It’s so much more, as I think a lot of listeners and maybe us like, feel of, it’s so much more last of a lasting impact to just have it be ignored. We talk about energy that we are feeling that that is being stored everywhere in our bodies. And it’s very alchemizing to just repair, you know?

Julie Jancis [00:32:17]:
Yeah. There. There are times, though, in life where you are in situations where you’ve had the conversation so many times, the boundaries aren’t respected. People can put you in situations where I didn’t say it that way. I didn’t say that, you know, and you know, what you heard and they make you feel like you’re crazy. That can be a frustrating situation to be in for Our listeners, who 99.99% are very highly empathic, highly sensitive and are going to keep trying to repair that relationship over and over again. When do you give yourself permission to say, I’ve had this conversation this many times or I don’t feel safe with this person or I’ve seen they’ve shown me with their actions they’re not going to change and it’s okay to release myself from this.

Meg Josephson [00:33:16]:
Thank you for that. Repair requires two people. If one person is wanting to repair and understand the other person and the other receiving person is shut off, invalidating, saying, you’re making it up is stuck in their ways, repair can’t happen. And so repair is so healing when it’s a safe and healthy relationship, when repair is impossible and that closeness isn’t on the other side of that. What I like to say and what I talk about in the book is perhaps it’s not closeness, but clarity. Clarity that the other person may not change, the other person may not see the pain that they’ve caused. And it’s so. I really think, like the last thread of healing is that hope.

Meg Josephson [00:34:13]:
Hope that they would change, hope that they would see the pain and own up to it. And then you could have the relationship you want, whether it’s a parent or an ex or a friend grieving. That hope is so hard.

Julie Jancis [00:34:28]:
Think about that. Yeah. Because I do think that I’ve seen it multiple times in my life. A couple specific instances where you do have the repair and then it happens again. And Then you have the repair and then it happens again. And you know, you do this for seven times and you go, I can’t. Like, I cannot physically keep going because there’s just somewhere along where it’s a fake repair they’re repairing to just appease in the moment. But it really isn’t authentic, it really isn’t true.

Julie Jancis [00:35:06]:
They’re just gonna go do it again. And so I’m just kind of wondering when it comes to that, there is grief in letting those relationships go. And you talk too openly about your mom having Alzheimer’s and grieving that relationship. I can’t imagine. Meg, I’m just so sorry. That’s gotta be so hard. Grieving relationships, I don’t think is something that we talk about enough.

Meg Josephson [00:35:39]:
Not at all. Not at all. And. Oh, what? Wait, what were you saying? Sorry.

Julie Jancis [00:35:45]:
Thinking fake repair.

Meg Josephson [00:35:47]:
Oh, yes. Okay, we’ll go there and then we’ll go grief. When. Oh, why did I lose my train of thought Again, sorry.

Julie Jancis [00:35:54]:
That’s okay. Like when they say that they’re gonna, they’re. Oh, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it.

Meg Josephson [00:36:00]:
A really important part of repair is action to improve. And it’s acknowledging what happened. It’s going back to that moment, taking accountability and actively working to work on it, improve it. So if I was reactive and I yelled repair would be looking into that, speaking to a therapist, meditating, breathwork, pausing, like self regulation techniques. That is showing, show the person that you are working on it. So if the other person is just muttering the word words sorry just to make it, make you get over it, that’s not repair. And that’s really actually common narcissistic relationships is I’m sorry, which just means like, move on, you know, so that’s that. But grief, you know, I, and I talk about this, I talk about this in the book as well, is grief is so complex because it’s not just grieving someone when they pass, it’s also grieving what never was and what was really.

Meg Josephson [00:37:16]:
My mom started showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s when I was 19. She was 59 and she’s still alive now. She’s 70 and she’s toward the end of her life. But it’s really such a. It’s been such a strange process because I grieved so much of. I’ve grieved her while she’s still breathing on earth. She’s in the earthly realm still. Although we were talking before, it feels like she’s kind of straddling the realms.

Meg Josephson [00:37:50]:
At the same time, I feel like I get messages from her. I feel. I see, like, I dream about her. We have conversations. But, you know, while she was healthy, because my dad was very volatile, my mom coped by dissociating. She was very. She was so sweet and so loving, and she was also very emotionally absent. And it felt like I never really knew her that well because it just.

Meg Josephson [00:38:20]:
She felt so far for me. Like, I’m sitting next to her, and I’m like, where I. You’re almost there, but I can’t quite reach you. And so her Alzheimer’s really unearthed grieving what we couldn’t have and the closeness we weren’t able to feel. But you don’t have to have a parent with Alzheimer’s to go through that, you know, a breakup, grieving a relationship that you really wish you had with a parent. I speak to this feeling of, like, being at your own home, childhood home, and feeling like, I want to go home, like, I crave home, but it’s not this. Yeah, it’s such a sharp, distinct feeling. And I think anyone with parental pain really gets that.

Meg Josephson [00:39:12]:
But, yeah, grieving is. It’s. It’s grieving, Hope, it’s grieving what was. Watching other people, what they have with their parents and wishing you could have that and letting yourself grief. And I think so often we want to just jump right to the compassion or we want to jump right to the acceptance. And grief is such. Such a necessary part of the healing process. Grief and anger also go hand in hand of, oh, why couldn’t have been different.

Meg Josephson [00:39:43]:
And it’s not sulking in that, but it’s acknowledging and letting it move through.

Julie Jancis [00:39:48]:
Us and letting it move through us, like, when it’s happening and not thinking that it’s just, like, one time, and then we’re not going to this anymore, because that’s not realistic. Like, we’re human beings. And just as there’s, like, waves of energy in the ocean, the ocean waves and tides, we are constantly swimming through energies that we’re not seeing, but we’re feeling emotionally. And so at some point, that wave’s gonna come back, you know, in every month or every year, every quarter, during different holidays or, you know, birthdays. And we know that we’re gonna feel it. I get it. With. We’re coming up almost to August, fifth year book, the release date, and it’s the day that my dad passed.

Julie Jancis [00:40:37]:
And I know around this time, mid July, I always start to prep. And it came in, like, last week where I was like, okay, Dad, I know this is coming up I don’t want to remember it, but just send me, like, a big sign on that day. I always tell him that. And you kind of have to be more easy with yourself and let the waves just move through you.

Meg Josephson [00:41:03]:
Absolutely. I really think the body remembers anniversaries as much as with my mom and I shared with you. And my dad passed in January, which was really weird because I had written the book a lot about grieving. My mom and him passing before her is just such a weird thing to wrap my head around. But with both of them, similarly, my body really remembers anniversaries. And I love what you’re saying about it coming in waves. It’s funny, because happiness comes in waves, and so will grief and so will anger. But I think because grief and anger and sadness and shame, they’re uncomfortable emotions, we have this natural aversion to them.

Meg Josephson [00:41:55]:
We cling to good things, positive. We cling to pleasurable things, and we have an aversion to uncomfortable things. And so, in the same way we’ll never be happy every second of the day, we also won’t be grieving every second of the day. Grief comes in waves, not. It’s not steps. And it’s. It’s hard to remember when we’re in it because it feels very dense energetically. And so for sure, it will pass.

Meg Josephson [00:42:28]:
And it does.

Julie Jancis [00:42:29]:
Yeah. Meg, do you have kids?

Meg Josephson [00:42:33]:
I don’t. I hope to one day, but I’m giving myself a couple years.

Julie Jancis [00:42:38]:
For sure.

Meg Josephson [00:42:39]:
For sure.

Julie Jancis [00:42:41]:
Can I share something? Thing that I keep seeing from your dad on the other side? Please. I think, you know, when you’re talking about your mom and your dad, that you were completely spot on. Like, when there is an illness, you know, sometimes a severe illness or dementia or Alzheimer’s, our energy starts to straddle both worlds. You can kind of see it almost like. What is that? Like an hourglass where the sand is in one spot, but then it’s starting to move into the other spot. You also start to see that hourglass, too, when you’re working with people who are crossing to the other side, the active space of, like, hospice. And we’re really releasing a lot of our energy. And for people who don’t pass in, like, an immediate way, a tragedy, they’re passing more at the end of life.

Julie Jancis [00:43:40]:
I. I would love to write an entire book about it because there’s so much that actively happening. Yeah. Where we’re releasing this lifetime and participating in the PR process of moving our energy to the other side. But I do think that I Was just talking to somebody about this today. I was telling them, you go through a karmic life review. When you go to the other side and you pass and you physically, the angels say, cannot see heaven unless you participate in that karmic life review. And you’re not watching yourself on a movie screen.

Julie Jancis [00:44:23]:
You’re stepping into situations of your life, not reliving the whole life, but situations both good and bad had where you’re stepping into other people’s shoes, thinking their thoughts as they thought them, feeling their feelings as they felt them, and seeing yourself from the perspective of your entirety, just the wholeness. You’re not getting shamed by God. There’s nobody else in this karmic life review except for you. Like, you’re just in it. And I do think that there are some souls who deny the process, and I think it just takes them longer. But as soon as you go, okay, this is what we’re doing, I get this. We’ve done this before. We’re gonna go through this.

Julie Jancis [00:45:15]:
It’s not gonna feel great all the time, but I’m gonna see it in its entirety. And I do think you get to a place of peace and love through it. You see heaven. You. You physic. It’s. It’s a vibration. And you have to release the ego completely, the egoic mind completely, to be in the vibration of it.

Meg Josephson [00:45:44]:
That’s beautiful.

Julie Jancis [00:45:45]:
Thank you.

Meg Josephson [00:45:46]:
That’s beautiful.

Julie Jancis [00:45:47]:
But all that to say that they know on the other side, and I know you gotta go, but I keep seeing your dad with this little boy on the other side and just, he knows that you want that family. And he said, please tell you a hundred percent that you will have those happy, healthy babies. And, yeah, he’s met them on the other side.

Meg Josephson [00:46:15]:
Brings me to tears. Thank you so much. That’s so sweet. Do you feel, as a parent, do you feel it has healed your inner child through parenting?

Julie Jancis [00:46:30]:
Yeah, a hundred percent. Being the parent to her that I. I needed as much as I can. I know that we mess them up in ways that we’re not even seeing unconscious of. And I’m sure that there’s some of that. And we joke too, you know, she goes, yesterday we were going through her memory box and she goes, my favorite picture is the one where I’m imitating you, where she does this imitation of me as the beginning of every episode that I do. Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the angels.

Julie Jancis [00:47:03]:
And I’m like, go ahead, imitate me all you want. It’s hysterical the way that she does It. I have big belly laughs, but it’s so much fun. And. And we have really worked hard to create just a very healthy family unit. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s just pure heaven.

Meg Josephson [00:47:24]:
That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. So healing for these younger parts of us that are still here inside of us that we can rewrite the narrative, you know, through our own experiences.

Julie Jancis [00:47:37]:
Meg, do you have a podcast?

Meg Josephson [00:47:40]:
I don’t. I don’t have a podcast one. Thank you.

Julie Jancis [00:47:44]:
Yeah. You’re so naturally good at this.

Meg Josephson [00:47:48]:
Thank you. Oh, my gosh. That’s really sweet. You. You ask such thoughtful questions and you. You feel like you really pulled out the points that I would want to discuss. So thank you for being so good at what you do.

Julie Jancis [00:48:02]:
Oh, my gosh. No, of course. So everybody can read more about fawning in your book. Are you mad at me? I’m sure pre order it right now. Everywhere books are sold and it comes out August 5th. So you just pre order it and it’s at your door August 5th. Tell everybody, Meg, where they can find you your awesome content on social, all that good stuff. Thank you.

Meg Josephson [00:48:28]:
Yeah, just Meg Josephson on Instagram and TikTok and I also have a newsletter on substack called Peace of Mind by Mega Josephson. And I’m also working on an are you mad at me? Fawn response workshop. So that’ll release in the next few weeks as a way to kind of take what we talk about in the book and to integrate it and practice it together. So I’m excited for that.

Julie Jancis [00:48:53]:
That’s amazing, Meg. Thank you so much for being here. Yes.

Meg Josephson [00:48:58]:
So grateful for the time.

Julie Jancis [00:48:59]:
Thank you, beautiful souls. We have so many freebies to help serve you, your family and friends. Want a weekly message from your angels emailed to you? Sign up on my website to receive a weekly message of love, hope, and healing from the angels. Do you have a prayer request? Go to the homepage of my website and submit your prayer request so that our team of prayer warriors can be praying for you daily. Want to learn learn more about the angels and energy healing? Subscribe to my YouTube channel called Julie Jancis to learn more about the angels, energy healing techniques, and so much more. One of the biggest things we hear from our listeners is that they have no one to talk to about their spiritual awakening. We created a private Facebook group called the Angels and awakening Podcast Tribe so that you could connect with others like you and know that you’re not alone. So be sure to join this group on Facebook to get the support you need.

Julie Jancis [00:50:09]:
Want a free session? We plan to give away over 240 free sessions with students in the Angel School per year to win a free session. Subscribe and rate this podcast five stars. Then write a positive review and email us a screenshot. That way we know who to contact when you win. Want to share your uplifting angel story on the podcast? Because we love sharing them, Please write down your angel story and email it to us. Don’t forget, be an angel and share this podcast with someone who needs it. See you back here next time for another episode of the Angels and Awakening Podcast. Friends, before we go, I want you to take a deep breath in.

Julie Jancis [00:51:00]:
Deep breath out. Again. Deep breath inhaling the pure white light and love of God making you feel weightless and filled with joy. And I want you to exhale all of the heaviness that you’ve been carrying in your Auric field, in your chakras, in your body. Friends, no matter where you are in your life, your angels need you to know that you are so, so loved. Never doubt that you have big, big purpose here and now. What is your soul here to do? My friends, your spirit team is always working with you. I want you to see and feel your heart chakra and your heart itself opening like French doors.

Julie Jancis [00:51:59]:
I want you to see God and your spirit team sending you a multitude of blessings of abundance in health, wealth, happiness, love and peace. See all of those unexpected blessings filling your heart right now. My friends. Your soul is love, joy, peace, bliss, ease and grace. And because that’s who and what you truly are, these elements can never leave you. They can never be taken away from you. And my friends, all you really ever have to do is just be. Be you and radiate the beautiful light that you are.

Julie Jancis [00:52:45]:
So go forth today and be an angel in the lives of others. Radiate your love and live in the high vibration of simply being.