The Fawning Trap

One of the most common and overlooked problems that I find in student teacher relationships in spirituality, and really all student teacher relationships, but it's particularly common in spiritual circles, is what I call the fawning trap, and to understand what the fawning trap is. You have to understand what fawning is.

Um, and the way I define fawning is a little bit more broad or loose than it's oftentimes described in psychology. Sometimes in psychology, fawning is described as this very intense sort of extreme thing that only happens to people that are very heavily traumatized or they're in like a very, um. Like intense, uh, situations, say like someone's being physically abused and then they start fawning in order to appease their abuser.

But this is actually just a very extreme type of fawning, but fawning itself is extremely common and normal. Um and pretty much everybody on this planet does it all the time without even noticing that they're doing it because it's just so common and normal. But so the way that I define fawning is fawning is absolutely any action or movement whatsoever, which comes as a reaction to

conform or to fit in or to appease a perceived authority or person of high status, it could be a perceived threat or a perceived leader. And it's not just with individuals, it's also with group situations too. It could be fawning to society, fawning to community norms, fawning to family dynamics, um, like things like group think are examples of fawning, like succumbing to group think.

Fawning, what it is is it's a contractive survival based mechanism that the mind and body uses to force your system to succumb and appease to a perceived authority or perceived important figure or important type of information, for the purpose of maintaining some type of status or uh, safety.

And safety in this context, it's not really about physical safety, it's more about mental emotional safety. It can be the safety of just fitting into a group, like getting social approval, like things like people pleasing, um. And really like, what it goes back to is it goes back to tribal and caveman times when, where if there was an apparent authority or group dynamic, if your body didn't succumb to that and um, conform to that,

oftentimes you would be murdered for it or you would be kicked out of the tribe or something like quite tragic would happen. So we have a very strong biological pull to succumb to fawning. Um. And so yeah, that's, that's what it is. It's any type of reaction rather than a response, I make the distinction between responding to life, which comes from expansion versus reacting to life, which comes from contraction. And

fawning is any type of reaction, which is based on conforming, which is based on being inauthentic and putting on some form of mask or adopting some form of outer external belief or approval or anything along those lines. And so fawning actually does play a practical purpose in a way. It's like if you are in a plane ride and the plane crashes and

you are stranded with a handful of people and one of the people there is like a survival expert and you guys crash in Alaska and this person knows all about Alaska. It would actually be of your benefit in that moment to fawn to that apparent authority and to follow them and to conform to them.

Ideally, it would be better if you were able to authentically, uh, follow them. Not from a place of contraction, but from a place of expansion. But for most people, most people aren't really conscious enough to do that. Most people aren't responding to life, particularly in intense situations. They just go straight into unconsciousness and into reactivity.

Um, and so in those cases. If the person isn't conscious enough to authentically yield to leadership and authority from expansion, it would play out in their benefit to fawn because if you fawn to the authority and to the leader, if they're actually a good leader, they will get you out of there safe. So that's like the benefit of fawning.

But ideally it's like, yeah, you don't want to be fawning, you want to be able to yield to authorities when they are a genuine authority, um, and when it would be of your benefit to do so. Um, but you want that to come from expansion and from responding to life rather than reacting. But so the way that this plays out in spiritual circles and in one-on-one

like student teacher relationships, and this happens all the time. I see this with so many of the one-on-one videos that I watch and things is the,

the teacher is being perceived as an authority by the student. Right? And, and also to understand this, you have to understand that the lower mind actively rebels against expansion and its entire purpose is its influenced by these energetic parasites, or like, some people call 'em demons.

Like they're, they're, it's like the pain body, like Eckhart Tolle calls it. It's these kind of low frequency energetic parasites, which are attached to everybody's energetic structure, to varying degrees. Um and the lower mind is largely ran by these energetic

parasites. And so the lower mind does absolutely everything it can to maintain contraction. And it's particularly, um, afraid of spiritual teachings and spiritual people because they often hold the greatest opportunity for expansion. Um, and the lower mind and these kind of energetic parasites, they actually do have

an intelligence of their own, a kind of external intelligence, which is constantly scanning the environment and it knows everything that you're doing and it knows everything that could potentially happen in your future. And so it's using this intelligence to do anything it can to invite you into contraction, which will prevent expansion from happening.

Because if you were to expand, you would expand through the frozen energies, through the energetic parasites, and then they would no longer be able to survive and feed off of you. So they do everything they can to keep you stuck, to keep your energy wound up and in a state of stagnation and being stuck on the wheel of samsara being stuck on the wheel of reactivity and contraction and conformity, um, and all of the bad things basically.

But, so the, the way that the fawning trap plays out is because the lower mind knows that there's a big opportunity for expansion when someone is interacting with a very high level, expansive spiritual teacher, the lower mind will hijack and use the survival based mechanisms that are built within our biology

to try to hijack the expansion and turn it into contraction and to try to prevent genuine transformation and progression from taking place. And so the way that this plays out is when a student is going to have a one-on-one with a spiritual teacher, the teacher is being perceived as the one of higher status and of the authority of the the leader in that situation.

And so what happens is the mind will be sending you very, very strong invitations telling you to fawn and telling you to act how you think the spiritual teacher wants you to act, and then it will use your own wisdom and your own insights against you by telling you that that's the right thing to do by telling you, oh, well, you're supposed to act present and peaceful.

That's what this is all about. So you need to focus really hard on acting present and peaceful. But the problem with this is, is when it comes from fawning, it's not fully authentic. And so it's based on contraction, and so it prevents genuine transformation and energetic progression from happening.

Um, and so

when the student goes into the one-on-one, they will be having their challenging frequencies, their, their low frequency emotions and their, their, their frozen energies, their sticking points. Those will be wanting to surface for the sake of being transmuted and healed in the light of the master, because that's what a great spiritual master does.

That's the higher purpose of a spiritual teacher, is to help you to transmute and transform your energies, your challenging energies, um, by serving as an energetic lighthouse, an energetic model in terms of how to be with those energies without succumbing to contraction and resistance.

So what will happen is the

the sometimes at the beginning of the one-on-one, the student will be being a little bit more authentic and they'll have a lot of those challenging energies coming up, which is actually good, but so those challenging energies such as nervousness or crying or strong emotions or fear or um, resistance.

Basically all of the negative stuff, that stuff will be surfacing for the sake of being transmuted and healed. But the lower mind will come in. And it will start telling the student like, no, you need to be peaceful. You need to be spiritual, you need to be present.

And so it will start inviting the student into fawning, into contracting, and into subtly suppressing these energies. Um, and then what happens is the student then starts to begin to appear more peaceful. It looks like their energy is settling some. And so from the teacher's perspective, the teacher will see the students start to become a little bit more settled, a little bit more peaceful, a little bit more present, and then the teacher will start to get happy because the teacher thinks that the teaching is working, the teacher thinks like, oh, like this line is working.

So. Like, this is good. But then what happens is

when the system is fawning, when the system sees that the fawning is working and the perceived authority or the perceived threat is getting happier, and they're getting more expansive, the body rings that as safety. The body says, oh, the fawning is working. This is good. This is playing out how it's supposed to.

And so what happens is the body then starts dumping euphoria and dopamine into the system as a reward mechanism to keep the fawning going. And because it's perceived as a win, it's perceived as we get to survive another day. Um. And then this carries over over to the teacher because then the teacher starts to see the student having a lot of euphoria and feeling better and better.

And then so the teacher gets even happier, um, and the teacher gets even more into it and they start giving even more lines and things like that. Um, and then it bounces right back to the student, to the fawner, the happier the perceived authority gets, the happier the fawner gets. Um, and then so they both end up being very highly euphoric and blissed out, and they're able to access like

seemingly very significant states of peace and presence. Um, and it seems like a very productive session. Um, but what ends up happening is it ends up not lasting. It ends up not leading to genuine transformation and progression because what's happening there is that all of that peace and that presence is it's flowing from contraction.

It's flowing from that root compromise of fawning, and so it's not authentic. And so there's not genuine, authentic transformation and energetic progression taking place.

This is why in a lot of the one-on-one sessions, the one-on-ones which seem the best, they seem like very productive, and it seems like the student is very settled and they instantly have this "big transformation." And it seems like this like really good session a lot of times those sessions end up being the least productive.

A lot of times those sessions, the student just kind of instantly loses it and regresses and goes back to their old patterns, whereas on the other end of it. A lot of times the sessions, which seem the worst, the sessions which seem where the student may be crying or having anger come up or being very like raw and like having like a lot of challenging energies come up and it seems like they're being the opposite of peaceful and present.

A lot of times those are the students that end up getting the most out of the calls. Those are the ones that tend to have genuine transformation and progression. Because what's happening in those cases is those students aren't fawning. They're not suppressing their energies, they're actually being authentic.

They're allowing those challenging energies to surface, and then they're actually being transmuted, um, and progressed through through the presence of the session, through, through being in the presence of the teacher and through the teacher helping them to transmute and, uh, progress through those challenging energies.

Um, and this is a very common dynamic. This happens a lot, a lot of times it is like this, the sessions which seem the best on the surface are the least productive, and the sessions which seem the worst, those are the ones that end up being the most productive because those are the ones where the student is allowing all of that challenging stuff to surface.

And then it's actually getting transmuted and flowed through. Um. And Yeah, and the thing is, if you're authentically at peace and authentically present and you're not suppressing anything in a one-on-one meeting, then it's good to be peaceful and present. Like you don't need to be crying or having like a bunch of emotions come up

to have a good one-on-one session, but if you are having those come up, you have to let it out. You can't just suppress it or just think like, oh no, this is counter to this. I need to act peaceful and present. I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be honest about what I have going on, or I shouldn't cry, or I shouldn't

act angry or I shouldn't push back against the teacher 'cause that's not the right thing to do. 'Cause when you start to do that, you start to suppress things and you dissociate from them and you're fawning and then you don't get that genuine transformation and progression. Um. And I have a video on this where I talk about it some, uh, I think it's called like "Insight on Authenticity and Suppression."

It's my video where I have a picture of Carl Jung in the thumbnail. Um, but this is why it's very important if you're going to do a one-on-one session with a teacher, be as absolutely raw and vulnerable and authentic as possible. If you feel nervous, let that flow and be honest about it.

If you feel like crying, let yourself cry. If you feel like screaming, let it out. If you're angry at the teacher or what they're saying is bullshit to you and it's not helping share that too. Because if you're fawning and you're just acting how you think you're supposed to act, that will prevent genuine transformation and progression from happening.

Your teacher shouldn't be encouraging you to be inauthentic whatsoever. Like a good spiritual teacher should be able to handle absolutely any energies that you have coming up because that's their role as a teacher is to

aid you in transforming those by being with them from impersonal effortless awareness or flowing isness or transcendent neutrality or present moment awareness, whatever words you want to put to it, it. It's the causal body. It's Vijnanamaya kosha. And Vijnanamaya kosha is how samskaras are released and healed and transformed.

So when those challenging energes surface, you actually want to allow them to surface. Allow yourself to cry or allow whatever emotions are coming up in the one-on-one to fully come through, because that's how they will heal and transform. Whereas if you're just fawning, it may seem nice because you may get that like temporary dopamine and euphoria when the teacher, uh, misinterprets the situation and starts getting happier because they think that you're getting present.

It may seem like a very productive, peaceful, nice session. Um, but then it won't lead to that genuine transformation and, uh releasing of the samskaras, releasing of the, the energetic parasites, uh, that are, that are keeping you stuck and are keeping you bound to lower frequencies and which are feeding off of your energies.

Um, it's funny, the way that I was actually able to discover this dynamic and to understand it really, really clearly is through being with my grandma and spending a lot of time with her. Um. My grandma is an extreme fawner.

She fawns to absolutely everyone and everything. The moment she gets even the slightest bit uncomfortable about anything, her immediate reaction is to start fawning like she will just, that's her fear response to everything. I mean, she, she fawns even with her own cat.

Like she fawns with everything. She fawns with even authority figures that aren't in front of her. It could be like the news or society or religion or absolutely anything. She, that is like her top mechanism. She fawns to everything. Um, but so. The situation that I kept having play out over and over again with her and I could never understand what was going on, is after I had my big spiritual awakening and I was having all of these insights and bliss and wisdom and things come to me, I would be so inspired towards like sharing these with people and sharing these with her. Like I really deeply wanted to help her and I wanted to, um, be able to find a way to like heal her and to share some of these insights and things, which had helped me so much.

I wanted to be able to share them with her. Um and in general I know that it's not really productive to talk about this stuff to people. I'm kind of, I learned that like quite a long time ago. Uh, in general, it's not really it's not worth even bringing this stuff up, but there would be certain moments that I would have with my grandma where I felt like I would just be sharing a story or something, or I would be sharing something about myself.

And I would think in that moment, like, yeah, like this is the time to like sneak in like a little insight or something to sneak in like a little, little piece of wisdom for her or something and to kind of try to guide her to some sort of awakening. And what would happen is I would start to get really into it, and I would start to really be grounded in that power and in that inspiration.

And so I would take on higher levels of authority and power in that moment, and then I would start trying to talk to my grandma about the insight or about the clarity that I was having come through in that moment, and I would start sharing it with her. But then what would happen is she would start fawning.

She would start fawning, and she eventually, her system had learned what my system was looking for in those moments. 'Cause the first few times I had tried to share that stuff with her, it just, she just didn't really understand and she just, it nothing really happened at all. But then over time, the more she would hear me talk about this stuff,

her system began to learn what my system, the perceived authority was looking for. And what my system was looking for was for her to act peaceful, to act present, to act happy, um, and to use words like, like, oh, I feel connected to God, or I feel more present, or, wow, this is like so big. So

I would be sharing the teaching and then she would start fawning and then she would start using those buzzwords and her system would be giving my system the exact signals that I was looking for. And then so I would start getting so happy. Sometimes I would literally start crying 'cause I would be like, it's working.

Like, oh my God. Like she's understanding me like she, she gets it. Um, and I would get so happy. And then her system, the fawner would see that the fawning was working and it would start pumping her with euphoria and dopamine and she would get super happy. And then we would have these super deep moments where like, yeah, sometimes I would start crying and like I would be sharing all of these

things and I would be getting so inspired and she would be going right along with it. And she's like saying all the buzzwords that I like, like talking about God and presence and all of these things. And I would be like, wow, this is amazing. And then it would go great. It would seemingly go great. And then

I would be thinking like, wow, like she's gonna be transformed after this. Like this is gonna be like life changing for her. But then what would happen is every single time, the very next day, it's like she would just completely forget. It's like all of it was just out the window. Nothing changed whatsoever.

And I would be crushed. I would be so disappointed and I would be so confused because I was thinking like, we just had such an amazing transformation and like talk and she was saying all of the the right things. Like how, like how, how is she not having the same awakening that I had? But what was happening was she was fawning, she wasn't being authentic, she wasn't authentically having an awakening.

Her system just got really, really good at fawning to my system. And then I was biting the bait. And then we we were both kind of swimming in this dissociative bliss fawn pool of dopamine and euphoria, and we're having like these seemingly amazing deep spiritual moments, but it was a bunch of bullshit.

Like, and I don't mean that to be mean or negative, but that's just what it was. It was a bunch of bullshit. And it's not to blame her 'cause it's just as much my fault, if not more my fault that I didn't understand what was happening. Um. But after it happened so many times over and over and I was really understanding this fawning thing, I put it together and I was like, holy shit, this is what's happening.

She's been f**** fawning to me this whole time. I thought I was like healing my grandma and giving her these profound transformations when really we're just in this cesspool of dissociation and false expansion together, which is just compromised by contraction and fear and et cetera. But the beautiful thing about this was, was it gave me this clarity and it gave me this insight.

And I began to understand this dynamic. And once I saw it with my grandma, I started seeing it with everyone. Like if you watch spiritual one-on-one videos, um this happens so much and the teachers a lot of times just completely miss it because at the end of the day, the teacher's a human too, and they're just doing the best that they can in like the hour and a half that they have or whatever to try to help the student and like nobody

teaches this specific thing. This is like a very like, um, overlooked insight. And it can be very, very subtle. It's much harder to catch than you would think, like you would think fawning would be very obvious, but it's really not. And then it's very tricky because the moment that the, the fawner, fawner's system sees that the fawning is working,

it sees that the teacher is getting a little bit happier, or they're, they're getting, um, they're moving forward with the teachings because they think that they're working. Their system starts dumping euphoria and, and dopamine into the system, and then the teacher bites the bait, the teacher's like, oh, it's working.

This is great. Like, and then the teacher just keeps going and going. But then from there, it's like the whole thing has already been compromised and distorted and like tainted with contraction. Um, and then, so it just leads to unproductive sessions, which on the surface seem very productive. And then it's confusing because the sessions which seem the least productive, those tend to be the ones where the student never comes back because they actually have that genuine transformation and the session actually works for them.

Um, but uh, this is like. This is so common. This, this is happening so often in these one-on-one, um, types of things, and it's happening all the time. Like people are fawning and they're fawning I mean, it's not just to teachers. It can be, again, it goes to like group think too. Teachers or students are fawning to the group

think of the spiritual community that they're in. It's like they start fawning and acting how the group wants them to act, and then they start to get social approval for that. Like people are like, wow, this person's so peaceful. This person's so present, they're so enlightened. And then when the, the system sees that the fawning is working, it starts dumping those

feel-good chemicals, and then the student just thinks even more so that it's working. They, they, they get even more of a high, like even more of a seeming expansion, which isn't real expansion. It's like contraction, disguised as expansion. Um. And then they get even more approval, they get even more approval from the group because the group is like, wow, look at this person

they're so peaceful and present, but it's all been hijacked. It's all based on dissociation and compromise and distortion. Um, and it's such an elusive trap. It's such a tricky little thing. Um, but this is why authenticity is such a good word to tune into. Authenticity is everything. You have to be authentic in these things.

You don't want to be inauthentically in peace and presence and blissed out. You want to be authentically transformed, authentically healed. It's better to be authentically sad or authentically in a low state than to be inauthentically blissed out because when you're being authentic that's when you can have genuine transformation and progression.

Um. And, and, and you're actually grounded and stable and you don't like keep regressing. Like, whereas when you're having the inauthentic bliss states, which are based on the fawning, you always end up regressing because it's not sustainable. 'Cause it's not coming from genuine transformation. It's just coming from those temporary dopamine and like euphoria dumps that the brain is putting out because of the fawning

is being perceived to work. It's, it's being perceived as like a success. Um, but so yeah, that is like really good to tune into, um, be very, very, very raw and authentic If you're gonna do a one-on-one with anyone, like let it out. If you're feeling nervous, talk about it. If you feel like you're gonna cry

let it out. If you feel pissed off at the teacher, let them know. And if the teacher can't handle that, find a new teacher. Like the teacher should be encouraging authenticity and vulnerability and rawness. Um, and yeah. And, and, and I mean, if you're, that's not to say again that you have to be like crying and this emotional mess to have a good session.

If you're authentically just feeling great, that's great, but it's about authenticity. Um, that's the key. You have to be fully, fully authentic with how you're feeling. Um. And be open to pushing back on the teacher. Like, don't succumb to that urge to think that you shouldn't push back against the teacher.

Like if you're paying someone money, get your money's worth. Like argue with them. Not in like a mean way, but like if you don't understand them, disagree and talk about that like, and be open about what you do understand. And what you don't understand. Um, and yeah, don't be afraid to push back on them.

Like don't be afraid to like question them because yeah, you, you, you, you want to get genuine progression and insight from the call. You don't want to just act how you think you're supposed to act and then you don't get that genuine like transformation and progression. If they're a good teacher, they will be able to help you very quickly like transmute and heal that stuff.

Like they'll be able to handle your he heavy energies, um, and they will serve as an energetic lighthouse, an energetic model in terms of how to be with those without succumbing to them, and when you can be with them without succumbing to them and just transcending them, just allowing them to be as they are.

That's when they transform and they heal and they progress. Um, and that's what a one-on-one session should be. A one, a one-on-one session should be healing and transformative. It shouldn't be this like dissociative fawning

trap of like, oh, I'm so peaceful. I feel so great. Like this is so nice. And then you leave the session and you're pissed off at your husband or your wife or whatever, like uh, a day later or a week later or something like, it doesn't, like you should be getting permanent results from this and genuine embodied insight.

Like not just like heady level cute lines that you can repeat to yourself that become like your next symbol of safety, that become your next like thing that you latch on to and form an identity around. Um, like a very common one that happens with the Emerson non-duality crowd is like that belief that like all concepts are bad or

if anyone argues with you or disagrees, you just say, oh, it's just a concept. Like, it's like for one, the idea that concepts are bad. That's also a concept. Um, and that doesn't lead, that's not sustainable. That doesn't lead to real transformation and progression because it just becomes another outer symbol of safety.

A symbol of safety, which is temporary, which is worldly based. Which is an idea. It's the idea that concepts are bad or that you're supposed to act present, or you're supposed to act peaceful. Um, and then temporarily the symbol of safety will be bring relief and satisfaction. But long term, you'll just keep having problems.

You'll keep having regressions and issues because you're not getting at that primordial level expansion. You're not getting at the roots of those samskaras by healing them through the causal body, which is effortless, impersonal awareness or isness or transcendent neutrality, present moment awareness, um, unity consciousness, whatever word that you want to put to it.

Um, but. So yeah, that's very, that's very important. Do not fawn in front of your teachers, like be authentic, get your money's worth. Like you are paying these guys or me money to help you out. Don't just act how you think they want you to act. Be real. Let it out. And if they know what they're doing, they will know how to heal you and they will know how to help you and give you guidance, which will authentically

transform these things and not just give you this kind of like surface level peace and resolution. Um, but, so yeah, that's my message on fawning. It's, it's. It's an elusive one, and it's a very common trap. This is happening in so many situations. It happens again in group situations, like at retreats and things.

This is related partly to why people go on retreats and it's all peaceful and they're having such a great time, but then they leave and nothing really sticks. Like maybe they're in peace for a couple weeks, but again, they're not getting that genuine permanent progression and evolution because it was just

it was just fawning and dissociation based. Like it's not like real genuine healing of the samskaras, transformation of the samskaras, um, it's just, it's what I call symptom soothing. It's soothing the symptoms and it's, it's treating the surface of the problems, but it's not getting at that root. It's not getting at that very root level of the energetic contraction.

Um, but that happens from flowing isness. Um, and related to this, uh.

It's, it's very important to see that. A lot of times we think authenticity only has to do with the personal mode, or it has to do with the character, or it has to do with like dualistic based consciousness, but that's actually not true. Authenticity is not a quality of the lower three koshas, of the mind, body, or emotions.

The only way to be truly, truly authentic is from the impersonal layer, not from the personal layer. Authenticity only happens from the impersonal layer because the impersonal layer is what allows things to be as they are, and doesn't suppress things and isn't succumbing and plugging into contraction and fear. Even if there is contraction and fear

you can be authentic to that. And to be authentic to that is to be the isness to that, to be the transcendent neutrality or the effortless impersonal being to the challenging energies and sensations and things which are coming up. And when you can be authentic to those, again, that's how they actually heal because you're being with them from present moment awareness and you're not plugging into them.

Like authenticity doesn't just mean like you're just being negative all the time or something if you're feeling negative. Um, because what you authentically are is your true nature. What you authentically are isn't the fear based you. What you authentically are is the unconditionally loving based you.

It's not the reactive based you, it's the creative based you, the side of you, which responds to life from creativity and inspiration rather than reacting to life from contraction and fear and succumbing to challenging energies. Um. But, so yeah, you can be authentic to challenging energies. You can allow them to surface and allow them to be as they are from this impersonal layer.

Um, and then that's how they actually again, authentically heal and transmute. Whereas if you're just plugging into them and you're like juicing them and you're like clinging to them, that's when you're reacting to them. And then that will just perpetuate them because that's coming from the false self, that's coming from the fear-based self.

Um, it's like, it's like fearing fear or like resisting resistance. It's like if you already have resistance surfacing. You don't want to suppress it or resist it even more, or try to like get rid of it or like react to an emotion with another emotion. You just want to be very real and vulnerable and true about what's coming up for you in that moment, and to be as you are, be fully as you are, and to allow those things to surface.

And then when you can be the authentic isness to those, again, that's how they actually heal and transform. Um, and so yeah, do not fawn in front of your teachers. Be real, be raw. Be vulnerable. Be fleshy and let it out. Be very, very honest and just direct about how you're feeling. Don't just succumb to that urge to try to act peaceful or to try to do this or that.

Like don't, you shouldn't be trying, you should be being effortless to what is actually coming up. And that could be anything. It could be crying or it could be peace and presence, but. No matter what it has to be authentic. It has to be embodied and grounded in who you are in that moment. That is key, that is foundational.

What also ends up happening a lot of the time as the teacher takes on higher and higher levels of success and they're getting more of a following and they're becoming bigger and bigger and becoming higher status and carrying higher authority, the more that teacher is perceived as authority and as like this holder of power, the more likely the student is to fawn to them.

So it creates this elusive trap where the student and the teacher both gets sucked into it. Where just about every student that ends up meeting the teacher, because the teacher carries so much authority and leadership, the students are just constantly fawning to the teacher and then the teacher

completely falls for it. The, the teacher keeps thinking like, wow, like I'm so up here. Like everyone I meet, as soon as I meet them, they just get peaceful and present and I'm just helping people so much. And then the teacher's getting that winner's effect and they're getting so happy. Um, and then the, the students are so happy around the teacher 'cause they're fawning and it looks like the fawning is working, but then they're both just getting sucked into a trap and then the teacher just keeps having more and more seeming success and taking on higher levels of status and authority.

Um, but it's all compromised. It's all, it's all largely fear-based and not many students are getting that genuine transformation and progression because they're just all fawning. You'll have like an entire retreat full of spiritual students that are fawning, and then the teachers just getting this winners effect over and over again, and then they're getting these

positive comments from the community of fawners that are hyping them up, and then the teacher just becomes this symbol of safety. Like this is when genuine spiritual teachings, they end up regressing and, and becoming hijacked. And they turn into some sort of like religion or belief system because it's all compromised and it becomes the symbol of safety.

And all the students are fawning to the teacher, and to the group think, and then they form these little communities which perpetuate the fawning. And they're all kind of stroking each other's fawning, spiritual egos. So they're getting a lot of that surface level dopamine and euphoria. So it seems like there's a lot of like spiritual high things happening, but no one's getting like real genuine liberation and permanent healing and progression because it's all compromised, it's all fear based.

Um, and it's all like based on group think and fawning mechanisms. Um, and then most of the teachers, I would wager, pretty much all of the teachers never notice this. They completely fall for it because just like the dynamic with my grandma, where my grandma's system became very, very, very good at telling my system exactly what I would fall for.

That's what happens with the students. The students study the teacher so much and they study the teaching so much. Their system learns exactly what to say to the teacher exactly how to act to get the teacher to be happy and to get the teacher to think that what they're doing is working. Um, and it becomes so laser focused and dialed in because that's what the fawning mechanism does.

And then both the student and the teacher both start getting really happy 'cause the teacher thinks that the teaching is working and they're getting that winners effect and they're, they're the students are getting really happy. And the students are getting really happy because the fawning is working, and when the fawning is working, their body starts pumping out dopamine and euphoria, and then they

start clinging to the teacher. The teacher becomes their symbol of safety and the, the, the lines from the teacher become their symbol of safety, and that's like the thing that they keep fawning to. And then that's when you have these students that are like stuck to the teacher. They keep coming back to the teacher, they keep watching the videos over and over again, or they keep going to the retreats or they like

borderline, like worship the teacher, or they're obsessed with the community or something, because that's turned into their symbol of safety, that's turned into their fawning trap. Um, but it's just this endless loop of like highs and lows. Like the, the student will be feeling great and then they'll be feeling bad, and then they'll be feeling great and then they'll be feeling bad.

Because they're not getting that genuine transformation and progression. They're just getting those chemical dumps and it's like when the chemicals come in, you feel amazing, but those are temporary and fleeting. And then when they go away, you crash and you feel bad and you're like, oh, I just, I need to watch one more video, or I need to

meet with the teacher again, or I just need to do another retreat, and then the process just starts all over again and it just keeps going. And I mean, I'm laughing about it, but it's kind of horrible. It's kind of like this has kept people in suffering for, for forever. This has always been happening. This happens with every authority figure in everything, like in religion, in spirituality, just in

normal like government or communities and things like this is such an elusive trap. This is what keeps us stuck in group think and keeps us stuck in these like survival conforming mechanisms is it seems like we're, we're feeling good. The system is getting confused and it's conflating temporary relief or temporary symptom soothing with genuine transformation.

With genuine progression. Like what you want is the genuine progression and not the just symptom soothing, not just the temporary chemical dumps. Um. But, so yeah, it's, it's a big trap. This is a big one that is like plaguing all of these communities and like the one-on-one sessions. Um, and both parties are falling for it.

The teachers are falling for it too. And then that's what also causes the teacher to stagnate because the teacher is never going to develop and refine their teachings if it seems like the same teachings just keep working and working. And then what happens is the teacher takes on higher levels of authority again, so people are fawning more and more.

So the teacher is like, oh, I'm just gonna keep using these same lines. 'cause every time I say these lines, the student gets so peaceful and present. But the student is just fawning. They're just fawning. And then they're both trapped. They're both, they're both stuck. They're both being compromised and they're both conforming to contraction without even knowing that that's what's happening.

And their brain is tricking them. Their brain is pumping them with these feel good chemicals, and this teacher keeps getting that winners effect. So it seems like they're attaining to these very high levels, but then they too end up regressing. That's part of the reason why you have some of these teachers who on stage they seem like these next level leaders and they're so present and this and this, but then secretly they're doing like sex scandals or secretly they have PTSD or like stuff like this.

It's 'cause they're not genuinely transforming and healing either. And they're also getting pulled into this contractive trap without noticing that it's happening. Um, and then when we're just symptom soothing and we're just getting our relief through that. There's always, the pendulum always swings the other way.

There's always. You swing back towards suffering. And if you've been getting that winner's effect quite hard and you've been getting a lot of like false, um, wins from this fawning trap, you'll have swung so far this way and you'll think you're doing so amazing. And then you swing back the other way and you get hit hard.

And that's like the teacher ends up doing like something awful or they end up like completely regressing or like ruining their life or like sabotaging their career or something. It's because they weren't having real grounded, embodied transformation. They were just being strung, they were being swung up so high on a pendulum held to the super high level, and they think that they're so like up here and everything seems to be working, but then it all comes crashing down and it just is like, voom.

It's, it's largely because of this. It's also related to a couple other things, like the dissociation that I talk about, um, on my, I have another video on called Dissociation is the Shadow of Transcendence that's connected to that, but that's also connected to this 'cause dissociation and fawning, they go hand and hand. Dissociation

goes hand in hand with all the survival, fear-based mechanisms. Um, but so yeah, this is a big problem. This is like you gotta tune into this and you've gotta start noticing how this plays out in these communities and one-on-ones. And it will blow your mind when you see it, and it will really help you to progress and transform because you, if you're gonna do a one-on-one, you'll know to be fully authentic and to not just succumb to the fawning.

And then you can get genuine rapid progression through the one-on-ones. Like you can literally have your life changed forever from a single one-on-one. Like if, if it's a good teacher. And you're a good student in the sense that you're coming really fully, authentically and being very, very real. You can change your life from a single one-on-one.

Like you can like have very rapid progression and expansion. Um.

And I mean, sometimes it is useful to have multiple sessions with a teacher, like depending on the thing. It's not to say that it only has to be one session, but you should be getting genuine progress and real transformation like from each session, like every session, it should be very palpable what you're getting out of it.

Like it shouldn't just be this temporary thing or like where you go to a retreat and you feel great for three weeks and then it all fades away. Like that's not how this should be. It should be like really, really like embodied and empowered and anchored in your structure. And you should get like genuine transformation, genuine progression, um, and it should

carry with you, like wherever you go. It shouldn't just be when you're with the spiritual people or when you're in front of the teacher or that kind of thing. Um, but yeah, that's my message on fawning. I hope it helps and I hope people can understand what I'm saying here because this is big and I think some people think like, oh, like, no, like the teachers

they're conscious of fawning, like they wouldn't, they would notice this, like they would see that this is happening and they wouldn't allow it, but they really don't like sometimes they do when the fawning is extreme. But the teachers underestimate how slick and smooth and effective the fawning can be.

And some of the spiritual students are very high level and they're very smart, and they have watched tens, if not hundreds of hours of footage of the teacher. And so their system understands the teacher so unbelievably well. So their system knows exactly what to say and how to act in front of the teacher, to fake them out, to get the fawning to work.

And for the teacher to think that their teaching is actually working when it's really just the fawning. Um, and so a lot of teachers are getting tricked by this. This is plaguing the teachers and the students. It keeps the students trapped and it keeps the teacher and the teaching trapped and stagnant. Um, and on a false pendulum because yeah, it's pendulum based like.

Transformation is not pendulum based. Like pendulum based is like swinging from highs to lows, but transformation is vertical based. It's where you get this genuine progression and refinement where you're not just swinging on these kind of temporary states, you're actually ascending to embodied, grounded levels of being.

Um, but so yeah, it's a big trap. It is a big one. Um, but I hope people, I hope this gives people, I hope this gives students and teachers clarity on this, um, and can hopefully help to break this dynamic. Help people to step out of group think, step out of fawning, um, and to show up authentic. Come as you are, be as you are, be your authentic self.

Authenticity is everything.

Relating to my grandma, um, and relating to trying to heal her and give her these spiritual teachings. What I came to learn and came to realize. Is that the way that you heal people is by authentically connecting with them. That is the most healing thing you can do.

You don't need to give people spiritual insights or like wisdom or any of that. Like sometimes that can come, but if it comes, it will come very spontaneously and organically and like smoothly and effortlessly. Um, what I learned with my grandma. Is that the most powerful thing I can do with her is to just authentically connect with her, to just not fall for the fawning and not fall for getting my ego stroked by her fawning to me and me getting all spiritual and happy

'cause I think that it's working. I learned that the best thing I can do for her. Is to just help her to feel safe, help her to feel grounded in where she is, and help her to feel very, very, just secure and happy and like crack jokes with her, um, and stuff like that. Because what causes fawning is that root sense of unsafety is that root sense of contraction, that root sense of something isn't okay.

Like these energies aren't okay. I don't feel okay in my own body, and so what I need to do is I need to try to do something to act a certain way. Um, and that starts that cycle of contraction and inauthenticity and fawning. Um. But so I learned, and I talk about this a little bit in some of my videos, I talk about how authentic connection disrupts frozen energy patterns. And it's because again authentic connection only happens from the impersonal layer, from the causal layer, from that transcendent layer, which heals and releases samskaras. And so I came to learn. That I can heal my grandma just by helping her to feel safe, helping her to feel comfortable in her own body, not by giving her teachings or trying to tell her what worked for me.

By instead just laughing with her, just having a good time with her. Just cracking jokes, just like doing simple, ordinary things that have nothing to do with spirituality, and that is what has had the most profound impact on my grandma. And me, my relationship with her. That's the most powerful thing you can do for someone is to just authentically connect with them.

Allow them to be as they are, because when you succumb to that urge of like thinking you need to give them a spiritual teaching or something. Usually what that comes from is you're a little bit uncomfortable with them, or you kind of don't quite like how they're being, so your system is like, oh, let me give them the spiritual teaching that helped me, because that will help them, and then they will feel better.

But that's coming from that reaction and that fear-based energy, and so it's not productive. But the truly the most powerful thing you can do for yourself and for anyone else is to allow them, is to first allow yourself to be as you are. And when you can allow yourself to be as you are. You can allow others to be as they are, and that is the most powerful thing

that you can do for anyone. That is what has had the most profound impact on my grandma and on my relationship with her. Is just authentically connecting with her, just laughing with her, watching shows with her, just sitting with her, just having a good time, not succumbing to that urge of feeling like I need to heal her or I need to give her these teachings.

I don't need to do any of that. I just need to be with her and to love her exactly as she is. Um. And that's when I've seen, that's when I've seen those real permanent progressions in her. That's when I've seen her really start to open up and heal. Um, and it's so beautiful. It's, it's like that's, that's what I always wanted.

But it's so funny 'cause from there I'm not even trying to make it happen. I'm not trying to heal her or trying to do anything, I'm just authentically connecting with her, allowing her to be as she is, allowing me to be as I am, and connecting on that heartfelt level and just having a good time, having normal human interactions and just being grounded

in the relative in the 3D world and having, just having a good time, just being positive, um, and being real and being vulnerable with no pressure, no coercion, no trying to persuade someone, just. Authentic connection. That is the key, and that is the most transformative thing you can do for someone. Um, and yeah, that's, that was the solution that I found, uh, with my grandma.