Marla Miller: 1:10

Welcome back to open-minded healing. Today we're going to be diving into the topic of unresolved trauma responses, particularly the one called fawning or people pleasing. We'll be discussing with my guest, Dr. Nima Rahmany, why people get stuck in this people-pleasing mode and what specifically needs to be addressed before we're truly able to regulate our nervous system and reclaim our health and our authentic self-expression. Welcome, Dr. Rahmany.

Nima Rahmany: 1:44

I am so glad to be here, Marla. This is pretty exciting.

unknown: 1:48

Yeah.

Nima Rahmany: 1:49

Side note, just a qualifier is that I have now since retired as a chiropractor. And so my whole identity has been shifting in this transition of my identity and letting go of that doctor title and becoming just Nima. So this is kind of like a transitional time for me. So I'm just a qualifier, is that I'm no longer a licensed chiropractor anymore. And so this is NEMA as the guy who's done the work that lives in his bones. That's what I'm doing.

Marla Miller: 2:23

Yeah. So you have a lot to share with us based on your own personal experience. And then also other furthering education and different ways you accumulated this. So let's talk about fawning.

Nima Rahmany: 2:38

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 2:38

It's a trauma response, just like fight, flight, or freeze. So before we really dive into it, do you want to explain what that looks like?

Nima Rahmany: 2:50

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because here I am, a chiropractor for 25 years working in the mind and body healing in the physical healing kind of space. Patients would come and see me with these very common symptoms, pain that's diffuse around the body. You know, if you come in with a knee issue and it's on the left side, then we're looking at, hey, what happened to your knee? There's some problem with the ligament or there's a nerve issue in the sciatic, it's in the back of your leg. But when they come in and the pain is diffuse, it's on both sides of the body, then there's a red flag that comes up for more of a centralized issue, which means there's something global, emotional, that the person is holding on to because the chances of both knees being problematic at the same time is very slim. A funny thing that I put together was that all of these people, as I got to know them, had a very similar personality profile. And they all were people pleasers and fawners. Fawning is a conditioned, reflexive, unconscious attachment strategy that we use, where we betray ourselves, abandon ourselves, where we freeze our bodies in the truth of our truthful expression because we're afraid that that's going to be a threat. And then we put on a performative agreeableness. So it's a dualistic response where we freeze our truth and perform connection and positivity and pleasantness so that we can give off the perception to a perceived kind of threat that we're safe. Right. And in so doing, that abandonment of self creates a deep resentment over time to that other person, but deeply within ourselves. And that self-resentment is a self-attack, which is what autoimmune actually is. So as I started to notice that these patients that were coming in with all of these stress-related chronic illnesses that are just weird, and they're trying to explain their symptoms, and doctors are looking, they're shaking their heads, they're going, ah, this is all just in your head. Well, there's some truth to that because it's not really physical, it's psychosomatic when we don't have the capacity or the capability of saying no or providing that boundary. It's like a boundary violation that we do to ourselves, causing the body to slowly wear down until finally it says, I can't. I'm done. And there's a diagnosis that happens. There's a symptom that comes up. And finally, it wakes the person up to go, hey, wait, everybody wants to tell me what to do. I'm going to take this on myself. I'm going to be the captain of my own life. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say what I want, what I need, what I don't want, what I don't need. And I'm going to now take the time and receive. And it's like suddenly they wake up to the needs of the animal body. And only by doing that can we recover and heal by overcoming that fawn response, which is a conditioned self-abandonment. And so in that journey of seeing this with patients, I just started seeing the patterns in my own life. And as I went and healed that within myself, I created a methodology called the trigger-proof methodology, where you're able to notice yourself in those fawn responses and then rewire that condition response so that you're choosing yourself rather than betraying yourself. You're speaking your truth rather than abandoning yourself. From that communication, you can rupture and repair confidently and not abandon yourself. And that's the pathway to healing. It's teaching skills rather than taking pills.

Marla Miller: 6:58

So uh Well, I like that saying teaching skills instead of taking pills. So before we get into your method that you use with people, I want to go back a little bit and let's talk about some different types of traumas that can trigger this chronic stress response.

Nima Rahmany: 7:17

Well, it's really the way that we relate with life itself. And so as we grow up and we get into relationships, we have children, we go start businesses, we jump into leadership, you uh write a book or you want to go off on stage or start a podcast, you're now getting activated with all of these old identities, these old woundings that have you feeling like you're not good enough. And this is where our body goes into constriction. So anything, Marla, that you're going through in your life where you're going through a transition, you have this moment where you're activated. And so you're either fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And how does that work? Well, how do you do arguments? What happens when conflict comes into play? What are these traumas? Well, they're usually wake-up calls. There's a betrayal that you come to terms with within a relationship. You find out your partner's been cheating, or you're finding yourself wanting to have an affair, whatever story that is, there's a wake-up call that awakens us to the fact that how we are experiencing and relating to life, we're not in a fulfilled state, and we get activated. And so any change, divorce, um, moving, uh, job changes, any type of transition in your life is going to trigger these old wounds and these old identities, whether you're moving, whether your kid is leaving school, whether you're going through a marriage, you had the loss of a loved one. Just look back on the last six months. What major transitions are you going through? Like, for example, in my case, where I am now getting to relinquish my doctorate title, that's going to bring up all these woundings of identity, who I believe I am, worthiness. So having the skills to be able to identify, oh, I'm triggered, and being able to go in and resolve what this is really about is the skill to learn.

Marla Miller: 9:24

So the trauma you're talking about, like when you get triggered because of a story in your head about who you are, your identity.

Nima Rahmany: 9:35

Anything can trigger that.

Marla Miller: 9:37

I would say we aren't born with that. We aren't born with the story or a certain importance placed on who we are. When does that begin?

Nima Rahmany: 9:47

Yeah. When you're born, you are given an identity. You are told. It's interesting. I had a client who she's going through major relationship breakdown. She's constantly anxiously attached. And as she's diving in to do the healing work, she's going back and realizing she was born in a situation where her father was super duper aggressive and reactive, and mother was a fawner and a people pleaser, and she was a Mormon. Okay. So when she's born, she's now given all of these messages of this is good and this is bad, right? So your your experiences, Marla, as a child from your parents, are you're given these messages of this part of you, when you react or you feel or you share this, that's not appropriate. And this is appropriate. So we are fed information through our family system, through our culture. We are given an identity. Sometimes we're given a faith that this is right, this is wrong, this is black, this is white. So we learn very quickly how to be, how to position our truth to get our needs met. And so we have two fundamental needs as children for attachment, because if we don't attach to parents, then we're not going to survive. And we have also a need to express our truth, to express the truth of who we are. But if we get the experience that the expression of your truth, whether you're straight or you're gay, whether you like this color or that color or you prefer this type of music, that's appropriate and that's not, you're given this message that my expression of my authentic truth results in love being withdrawn. We make this unconscious choice that we are going to choose attachment over our authentic self. So often in childhood, we develop these identities that are based on becoming whoever we need to be and creating a false self so that we can get our needs met. Very seldom are we raised in environments where our authentic self is deemed and given the message that it's acceptable. So it starts in childhood.

Marla Miller: 12:16

Yeah, and I'm sure family comes first. I mean, that's who you're around first, but then it's also, you know, the kid you go to school with and how they respond to you or the teachers or yeah, yeah, whoever it is that you're around.

Nima Rahmany: 12:28

100%.

Marla Miller: 12:30

So have you found with the fawning, anything in particular that makes someone a fawner as opposed to fight, flight, or freeze?

Nima Rahmany: 12:40

Yeah, yeah. So let me give you an example of that. So my son is he's five years old. And so when my wife Diana goes to girls' nights, it's just me and Dominic, and we're just playing and we're we're hanging out. And then he likes the game of when I turn into a monster and I chase him around the kitchen. He loves that game. And suddenly, in a moment where my aggression turns a little bit past his comfort zone, or I'm like, I'm coming at him with the scary face, he's running away. I notice his nervous system go into deep activation, and then all of a sudden, he starts getting terrified. And what does he do? He stops running, he turns towards me and he's like, I love you, I love you, I love you. And my heart goes, Oh my gosh, he's fawning. The fawn response is a biological survival strategy that our child self uses because in order to dismantle the threat of the perceived predator, we have to turn on love and charm and appeasing. Because when I go into appeasing, my predator's nervous system calms down and my chances of survival go up. So this is where you hear of scenarios like Stockholm syndrome, where they have hostages, and then the person who's the hostage falls in love with their captors. That is the fawn response. This is a survival strategy. If I can fall in love, or if I can turn towards and open to my captors, then I'm gonna survive, right? It's a survival strategy. So when would a child use that? Well, any little thing where you have to go to church and you better, you know, one of my clients, he's five years old, get up, speak in tongues. So they were like all encouraging him to speak in tongues, because this was kind of like a Pentecostal church or whatever, and he's five years old and they get up and he just started to fake it and started to do that. And then they were all celebrating. It's like, oh, so if I appease and I'm signaling consent, I'm signaling appeasement, really, then I'm going to feel love. So I want you to think about it, Marla. When does that get trained? And now you're gonna start to think, well, almost everybody lives in a world where, okay, who do I have to be? If I'm not agreeable, am I gonna get hit? If I'm not being a good girl or a good boy, or I'm not complying, then am I gonna get in trouble? And so now you start to realize that, especially if you were raised in communism, for example, think about that. This is what you believe. You're not allowed to believe this. So you're conditioned to fawn as a form of survival, or you were raised by people who are raised in communism, where that's who they've become and that's how they teach you, right? So it's an intergenerational attachment survival strategy that's so subtle, it shows up in our body. It shows up when somebody is being mean to you or you're in the service industry in hospitality and the customer is mean, being abusive, but you're smiling and you're like, yes, sir, okay. Anytime that you're experiencing that your truth is gonna get you into trouble, you're going to fawn as an attachment strategy. It's highly manipulative, unconsciously, uh, but it's how we lie to people almost every day. It's an inauthenticity, it's a false self. Because if I express my truth to you, then you're not gonna see me as lovable and I can't live with that. And so it'll translate into your teenage years where you will have sex with a boy, not because you want to, but because you want to be liked. It's paying for things when you don't want to, just so that you could be seen as the good guy. So it it permeates through almost every relational dynamic and it destroys healthy, secure relationships.

Marla Miller: 16:58

Yeah, that's always the true test or barometer is when you're in a relationship. Well, even, you know, it could be a good friendship or a romantic relationship, but they will always test where you're at, right? They'll reflect back where you're at pretty quickly. So I'm trying to figure out is there a reason why some people go into fight rather than fawn?

Nima Rahmany: 17:22

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 17:23

Who are those people?

Nima Rahmany: 17:25

It's whatever gave you the highest chances of survival. So if my opponent is fighting me, I'm gonna fight them back. If fighting them is going to cause me to get hurt, I'm gonna fawn. Right? It's about perception of power. So you might fight with somebody in your family, but you'll fawn with a police officer, right? It depends on the dynamic. So you in that moment, your nervous system is kind of gauging. Do I run from this? Do I fight back? Do I freeze and not move? Or do I see if I can charm them? See if I can become agreeable, which one is gonna cause me to survive? And the thing, Marla, is that we have all of them baked in our nervous system. And your nervous system makes a split decision on what's gonna cause me to survive. The problem is, is when we unconsciously identify as those identities who fawn. And so we don't know how to be anything else. Right? You can be a seven-figure entrepreneur, badass, you know, boss babe, but then you get into a relationship and you can't express your truth. You hide it to keep the peace. And so this is why so many people are successful in business. They can set boundaries, they can say no, but in an intimate relationship, they just can't. Why? Because in that intimate relationship, when the attachment hooks are in, you then turn into the child inside of you that had to turn to that strategy to get their needs met. So it's depending on the dynamic and where your perceived power is. So if you're feeling disempowered in a relational dynamic, you will use fawning. So my students will do this to me all the time, right? And this is part of the challenge of when I'm working with a woman, especially, because she just doesn't realize she's constantly fawning, people pleasing, saying yes when she's no. I have to stop her and going, pause. Can you take a moment and tell me, tell me no? And they say no, and I say, Your no is safe with me. And then they'll start to cry. And I'll be like, you know, what's coming up for you? She goes, I've never experienced that with a man. I've never been able to say no. And so part of the recovery is to find a man where they can create a container where your no is experienced as safe. Because if your no was experienced as threat and a danger, then you're just gonna develop into a person who's a doormat who can't say no until finally they get a diagnosis that wakes you up and goes, wait, I gotta maybe change something about myself, do some healing work.

Marla Miller: 20:18

Yeah, let's talk about that. About if someone goes on with these trauma responses, and it could be any one of them, but since we're talking about the fawning, I guess we'll stick with that. But if they continue down that path, let's talk about some of those health results. What have you seen?

Nima Rahmany: 20:38

Oh, yeah. Well, first one is you know, somebody who's been diagnosed with fibromyalgia started doing the work and all of a sudden this is not run by chronic pain. And when the pain shows up, she then is like, ah, it's a signal. I've been abandoning myself. I have my practices to come back into my body. So I don't want you to see these illnesses as a light switch on off. I have it and I'm cured. There's no such thing. This is a feedback mechanism, right? To let you know, oh, you've been abandoning yourself. And then you're like, why is that? Well, one of my clients, she when she started just eczema all over her body. She showed me her arms. It was full of eczema. And so we just started doing the work and healing those attachment wounds, becoming trigger-proof, being able to start exerting boundaries. It was challenging because in a relational dynamic, when you're constantly the doormat and everyone expects you to just kind of comply, when you start doing the work and you start saying, no, I'm not available for that, it's going to shake things up a bit. And so now you're going to have to start to feel the guilt and the shame of feeling like a bad person because other people are now displeased with the fact that you're no longer a doormat. And that's really difficult. And so as she started working through that and experiencing that, her eczema started to go away. Interesting. And so she's within a few months, like, I'm eczema free. This is amazing. And then what happens? She then goes on a family trip. She lives in New Zealand, but her family is from South Africa. So she goes back to South Africa and visits family and all of the relationship dynamics as before that had fawning and she gets to relive. Cause whenever you go back and you see people with a shared history, you then will experience a regression. So she experienced that regression. And then sure enough, all of a sudden she had the flare-ups come back and she's like, ah, my body is speaking to me. Now I know what to do. It's about really then having the willingness to speak up where she wasn't speaking up, risk having some ruptures, some arguments, and then repairing. But it's really a call to action. And then there's another amazing case where she had Crohn's disease, where she was scheduled to have surgery and get a colostomy bag. And she was on the fence. She was like, I'm scared to work with you because I have these doctors. I want to see what the doctors say. I said, sweetheart, do not go based on what the doctors are saying. Let them do their job. But you don't wait. Don't be a passive participant in your health. Be an active participant and learn the skills so that you can then trust yourself. So she thank God she jumped in, did the work. And within six months, she was like, Oh my God, I'm so happy. I'm in remission. The doctors have said, I, you don't need a surgery, you don't need colostomy bags. I'm just so grateful. And she found love and appreciation for herself. She healed all of those guilts and shames that she was still holding on to from a previous relationship that she walked away from. She was so scared of walking away. This is one of the hallmark features of a fawner is I'm so scared of walking away from this really toxic scenario because I don't want to be seen as the bad guy. And so she was carrying that, like I'm the villain, I'm that guilt for so long, which guilt is a self-attack, and it was showing up in her body. So as we move towards finding the emotional root causes of these symptoms, we now have a path moving forward to become trigger-proof to it. Because every single time that you're dealing with these physical symptoms, here's what I want you to ask the question How long has this been going on for? When did I notice the symptoms starting? That's the first one. And number two, what was happening in my life around the time, three to six months before the symptoms started to show up? And now we have the conflict that we can address while everybody's doing the physical, going to the doctor and doing all this stuff, maybe even meditating and all that. We actually have the conflict that is unresolved within yourself that can be resolved. And that's what being trigger-proof is all about.

Marla Miller: 24:58

So interesting. The body is so wise and it's not attacking you. Like you said, it's a signal. It's trying to help you.

Nima Rahmany: 25:09

It's highlighting where you've been inauthentic.

Marla Miller: 25:12

Yeah. And yeah, so many people, if you're people pleasing, then you're doing what everyone else thinks you should be doing or what you perceive that they think you need to be doing. Yeah.

Nima Rahmany: 25:24

Oftentimes it's not.

Marla Miller: 25:27

Well, that's true too. Yeah, you may be perceiving that incorrectly. Yeah.

Nima Rahmany: 25:30

But it's they don't care.

Marla Miller: 25:32

But it's like all this talent you have or things that would excite you, or you'd love to do, or you'd love to say or share, get held back. And yeah, that does crush, crush your spirit as well as then your body starts really feeling it.

Nima Rahmany: 25:49

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, if you have a thyroid issue, autoimmune and thyroid, there's anger, there's rage that you are suppressing, you're not allowing to come out. Why? Why does that make sense? Well, because good girls don't get angry, nice boys don't get upset, right? So we have developed these identities based on suppressing these emotions, which are parts of ourselves. And so what the symptoms are doing are trying to awaken us to expose and allow and witness parts of ourselves that were never witnessed by the people that were supposed to witness us because they haven't witnessed themselves. So it's an intergenerational habit that passes down, unless you step up and say, I'm gonna break that cycle. I'm gonna be the one to break it.

Marla Miller: 26:40

So before we hear some more stories of how people healed, you know, how individuals healed specific health conditions or relationship problems.

Nima Rahmany: 26:51

Sure. There's usually overlap, isn't there?

Marla Miller: 26:53

Yeah, definitely. But do you want to share some of your own story?

Nima Rahmany: 26:58

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 26:58

How you came to know this?

Nima Rahmany: 27:00

How did I come to this? Right, exactly. Well, as a chiropractor, I always wanted to help people heal. And patients were coming in and I couldn't help them. And I my ego didn't like that. So I was always curious about, you know, why is it that the people that are coming in with the chronic issues, they all have a similar type of a personality profile? They're all the same kind of like boundaryless people pleasers, right? I started seeing it. Patient would come in with autoimmune or like fibromyalgia or something like that. And they would tell me and their chart was like this thick. And I look at them and I see them, I'm like, oh my gosh, why can't I just predict all of their issues just by seeing them and the way they talk to me? They just have this fear of how other people are perceiving them. This is just something that I noticed. And while personally going through a relationship breakdown and going through one toxic relationship after another with the same pattern where I was more of the avoidant, looking for freedom, attracting partners that were more anxious, that wanted more connection. And I felt overwhelmed and suffocated. And we would just go through these push and pull dynamics until finally I met the one that just brought it all out and began this toxic type of dynamic as I was transitioning out of my chiropractic practice into doing this teaching work where she came in with a bunch of autoimmune health issues, and I started helping her. And she was able to eat foods she wasn't able to eat before. And at the same time, we started this romantic relationship and we left our partners and started this vision. She had a fantasy of a power couple dynamic. I had this fantasy of leaving my chiropractic practice and teaching this full time. And we kind of joined forces and aligned in our shared fantasy, but doing so with severe unresolved wounding. And we started this trauma-bonded type of dynamic where there was this push and this pull dynamic between us, the anxious and the avoidant kind of cycle. And we would get into these volatile arguments. And it would just be this pattern. And as time went on, the arguments would get more and more volatile as her anxious attachment came up. And I'm embarrassed to say, March 11, 2018, after a group kind of workshop retreat that we both were running, an argument started at 10 p.m. and went till two in the morning. And I got to this place where I was so triggered and activated that I completely lost consciousness in a dissociative rage and I slapped her. And it was so shocking to me. It was a wake-up call saying, you know, if I could be honest, there was a few times during our relationship where it got a little bit more physical than I would have liked, but this was like the wake-up call. It had never gotten this bad. And I was just like, all right, what happened? How did I get into this situation? How do I make sure that this never happens again? And if I can do one and two, how can I get out of this relationship and start something that I've never had before, which is a secure relationship? And if I could do all of those three, then I have a commitment to teaching other people how to break that cycle. And so healing from this codependent, trauma-bonded dynamic where there is a push and pull dynamic became very important to me. And so this is why I now teach what I most needed to learn. I have this beautiful marriage now. My wife and I have been married at the recording of this for about five years. We have a five-year-old son, and I have an online community of people committed to breaking the cycles of intergenerational trauma and become trigger-proof. And so that's why it's so meaningful for me to teach it. And the people who come to me are ready to start to face what they've been avoiding. They've been doing the doctor stuff, they've been doing the meditation, the breath work, the pills, the vitamins, the yoga retreats. And now they're ready to face the parts of them to then now react and respond differently to what they reacted to before to become triggerproof. Not triggerless.

Marla Miller: 31:31

Yeah, trigger-proof. So how did you come out of that situation? How were you able to accomplish those three steps that you wanted to accomplish?

Nima Rahmany: 31:41

So, what I realized, the first step was realizing that most of the personal development and therapeutic work that I was doing was an unconscious attempt to gaslight parts of me, to get rid of, to invalidate parts of me, that I was using personal development to avoid my shame. And so the first step was to rewire my conditioned self-abandonment. And I did that with understanding and studying the polyvagal theory. I studied somatic experiencing. I started receiving guidance with embodiment practices, with learning how to get back into my body, neurosensory exercises that weren't cognitive based. I learned how to get better at feeling the emotions that I was avoiding. So it's really about a combination of parts work, somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory, breath work. It's a journey of getting out of my head and getting into my body and learning how to feel and expand my capacity to hold charge within my body.

Marla Miller: 32:45

Maybe you can explain just briefly, even what those are polyvagal theory.

Nima Rahmany: 32:50

Polyvagal theory is kind of the neuroscience of safety. It's understanding that our autonomic nervous system, which is driven by the vagus nerve, which is the 11th cranial nerve, it has different branches, the ventral and the dorsal branch. Our entire sense of safety and regulation of our nervous system comes from this nerve. And by understanding how it works, how to use it to our advantage, we can then understand how to bring safety within ourselves. Because if we can't bring safety within ourselves, unconsciously we use relationships to be our source of safety. The hallmark of codependency is I need you in order to be safe. Well, how do I create safety within myself? Is by understanding the nervous system and how to become an active operator of my nervous system, how to recognize when I'm in sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, how to be able to interrupt my fawning pattern, pause it, how to find the activation where in my body and be able to locate a younger part of myself that this is evoking and activating, and how to be the parent to the younger parts of me so that I can now bring that sense of safety within myself. So the polyvagal theory is really about understanding first, what does it feel like when I'm in sympathetic? What does it feel like when I'm in what's called dorsal, which is when you go into kind of like a collapse or a shutdown, also labeled as depression, but it's when your nervous system is in a protective dissociative shutdown. It's a collapse response because fighting was not safe, running is not safe. So we go into kind of dissociating from those emotions and how to recognize that and how to use the body and use sensation, use these tools, whether it's getting into the body, essential oils, body work, breath work, you know, cold and heat to be able to activate the system and go from that freeze up the ladder, the autonomic ladder, into sympathetic, fight or flight, and how to use anger as medicine, use the things that I've been stuffing away to actually face and feel when my system is just so used to avoiding these angry parts or thinking they're wrong, so that I can keep feeling my way up into the ventral vagal pathway, which is where safety is. So understanding the polyvagal theory is really understanding the different phases, being able to recognize when I'm there and take action steps to move myself into safety. And then the bonus happens where you're able to see it in other people. So when I see my son, I see, oh, he's insympathetic. I can parent him in this way, which is to really encourage him to get moving, to kick and punch and scream and you know, just to express what you've been repressing, right? So that he can then find his tears and then go into ventral. So moving up the ladder into autonomic safety is about feeling what you've been avoiding. And so it's by alchemizing all of that charge into tears where we find our regulation. Learning how to feel again.

Marla Miller: 36:19

Yeah, that disassociative state can look like different things as well, right? Yeah. Think something totally different.

Nima Rahmany: 36:28

Yes.

Marla Miller: 36:28

Or they're laughing when they really feel like crying.

Nima Rahmany: 36:31

Exactly. That's dissociating. It's not disassociating, it's dissociation. And it is when the child self didn't have a parent to sit there and hold that space when they're expressing their emotions. They were shamed for having them, or they were the cry it out method where you put your kid in this thing when they're crying, you don't respond. The charge in their body is so much that it's just safer to just stop feeling. It's like the soul leaves the body so that they don't feel anything. The problem happens when you're in relational dynamics with someone and you get overwhelmed, you will dissociate. So you will ghost people, you don't respond to them, you just seem like you're aloof, you seem like you don't care. If someone is dissociating around you, you feel like they don't care. You feel like they just have dismissed you and abandoned you. It's something you can check out on YouTube. It's called the still-faced experiment, where they have the one-year-old child with the mother and they're engaging and they're playing, and then they take that mother, they turn her around, and they come in and then they have her just have no expression on her face. And so very quickly, this one-year-old is trying to engage, but is getting nothing back and starts to dysregulate the child and is screaming and turning away. And it's like, ah, it's like starting to go into a panic attack, really, because the mother was completely disconnected. And then after that, she comes back in and goes, Okay, I'm here. What's going on? And then now can bring that child back into a regulated place. And I show this in my trigger-proof experience event, and it brings people to tears because they realize that they were either the still-faced baby to a mother who was dissociated. Her soul has left her body. There's so much trauma that hadn't resolved that she's mirroring that to the child, or they are parents that were dissociated to their child. Their child was that still-faced baby. So it's really hard to be around somebody who's dissociated because it's going to activate you. You're going to perceive, you're going to think, oh my God, I'm bad. I'm wrong. Right. And you can't see because you don't understand the polyvagal theory. You haven't studied it. You haven't understood. Oh, they're in dissociation. It's not about me. I can help now because I understand I can first work on what's arising within me as I'm seeing them dissociated. That I'm here to just take care of my own charge that's happening in my own body so that my regulated self can show up there. Because if I show up going, what's wrong? What's the problem? that pushes them further into dissociation because now they are shamed for what's happening. And there's a lot of shame associated with dissociation. So this is why understanding and mastering the polyvagal theory was the secret to me being able to have healthy relationships because now I can relate to my nervous system as an operator rather than a victim.

Marla Miller: 39:37

Yeah, that's interesting. I have found meditation as well to be very calming to the nervous system and to really help tune into the genuine self-expression. Like the more I got into meditating, the more easily I was able to just quickly know what I wanted, what I didn't want, and have no problem telling people.

Nima Rahmany: 40:02

Beautiful.

Marla Miller: 40:03

Whereas in the past, that wasn't the case when I was younger. I felt like I definitely held back a lot. I used to never like that word nice.

Nima Rahmany: 40:13

Yeah.

Marla Miller: 40:14

Because if you say someone is so nice, yeah, it's different than like someone is kind or correct. Someone is funny or witty.

Nima Rahmany: 40:22

Nice is manipulative. Nice is manipulative.

Marla Miller: 40:25

Yeah, it's someone that's probably in that fawning.

Nima Rahmany: 40:29

Yeah. They're performing to have you like them, which means that when I'm nice, I'm orienting to you. And you can feel that. But kindness is when the person is orienting to themselves and they are not performing to get something, they're in the place of overflow and they're giving. That's kindness. But niceness is kind of like I'm doing this to get something. And so deep down, our nervous system knows the difference. And so you talked about meditating. And so what's happening is to be able to have a process where you can then get embodied to be able to bring your attention back. In your own body to know what it is that you want, what it is that you need, so that you can be able to advocate for yourself and ask for what you need is critical. The problem is, is sometimes, depending on if you're dissociated, if you are in fight or flight, meditation isn't going to be helpful to you. So it's important for us to have practices that actually, if you're in dissociation, you're going to want to get physical. You're going to want to go into anger and rage. You're going to want to do physical activity, you're going to want to do breath work that helps you evoke emotion to bring you back into your body so that then you can move up into sympathetic, which is fight or flight, when then movement, and then get into the expression of those emotions. So then meditation then is a secondary tool after you've learned how to bring the charge in your body to a release safe place. Meditation then can be used as an enhancement, right? But when you know your mind is really busy, it's better to actually bring physical practices, somatic practices, where you're bringing your awareness into states of the body and to your sensory system, and then releasing whatever it is that's there so that then you can pave the way so that meditation can be actually effective.

Marla Miller: 42:44

That makes total sense.

Nima Rahmany: 42:45

When you're in that extreme trauma response, see how you can't sit down and just calmly go within and when I was went through the legal process, and I can tell you that whenever I would get an email from my lawyer or I would hear something and I would just see this rage come up, I can tell you that sitting down and meditating would not have helped me. So I created this modality, it's called the rage run, where it's like a moving meditation where you're combining high-intensity running, the fight and the flight, with kicking and punching. So you got the fight and the flight, you're physically actually going through the body motions of the fight and flight through intervals. One minute of sprinting and kicking and punching, three minutes of just walking, one minute of sprinting, three minutes of walking. And so as I went through these intervals, really fully expressing all the rage that was there, my nervous system slowly started to get more calmer. But it wouldn't have happened if I just sat down and just tried to clear my mind because I needed to express the natural fight response and flight response that was in my body. So you can't meditate your way out of that. You must move that energy, activation energy through your body. So I created the rage run for that. That sounds like a good with heavy metal and and rap music. It's like a favorite in my community.

Marla Miller: 44:20

Yeah, I could see meditation, just if you did that immediately when you're in that state, how that would almost feel like someone putting a blanket over your emotions again when that's the issue.

Nima Rahmany: 44:32

It's spiritual bypass. And that's one of the things that we notice is very challenging with most personal development. It's a form of spiritual bypass. Oh, just bless them, just forgive them. When there's an animal part of your biology that just feels like this is unfair and needs to get that out. In fact, this is one of the most important parts of healing from autoimmune, is finding your fight energy that you've been suppressing. This is why you're exhausted, because you've been gaslighting your fight and anger then becomes medicine to the soul who's been fawning and people pleasing, because there's fight in there. And so, in the recovery of the fawn response, you must access the fight you've been suppressing. This is where your energy is, is by the is by the activation of that, right? And so this is a different type of work. This is really acknowledging your biology that you've been suppressing, and that's how healing will happen.

Marla Miller: 45:38

So interesting, all of it. What are some other examples of someone that changed a relationship? And do you find most people are in those codependent relationships? I mean, how did you work out your relationship that you have now? Did you both have a certain codependent style that you both worked through together or before you met?

Nima Rahmany: 46:02

Well, uh, before we met, I was in the path. I just woke up, I had the wake-up call, and I was like, all right, I'm not going to distract myself with another relationship because my pattern was that I had to I use relationship to validate me from feeling my unworthiness. So every single relational dynamic was an unconscious strategy to have me not feel worthless and unlovable. And so it was a covert strategy that you are going to be the one that saves me from that part of myself. And so people are stuck in these kind of dynamics. They're stuck in these dynamics where it starts off with pedestalization, right? You're love bombing them or you're being sex bombed. Usually the male is the love bomber. The female would use sex bombing, which is like uh unlimited access to sexuality in exchange for pedestalization. So it's a co-pedestalizing of one another. And within about three to six months, when the oxytocin and dopamine wears off, and then the attachment hooks are in, usually you're gonna get triggered. There's going to be this experience where your wound is gonna get triggered. There's going to be an abandonment wound, a betrayal wound. One of them wants a little bit of space. And then now the other one's like, oh my God, do they want me? Like they're calling me needy now. Like, what's happening? And so now all of the insecurities from my childhood are now activated. And now from the honeymoon phase, we then graduate to the power struggle phase where the two of you are going through this anxious and avoidant dance where this person's wounding of avoidance activates this person's wounding of anxiousness, which then triggers this person's need for more space, which then triggers this person's need for more connection. And this becomes what's called the infinite loop of doom in this push and pull cycle where you're both in your, you know, 30s, 40s, even 50s, but you're still acting out the wounds of an eight-year-old, looking for love outside of you, safety outside of you. And so I got to work when I saw that. I spent time by myself and I worked. There's two phases of this work. The first is the self-work that we do outside of partnership, where we have to take stock and accountability of how we contributed to the dynamic. This isn't a blame game. This isn't about whose fault it is. This is about understanding that we were unconsciously paired up to work through unfinished business from childhood. And we didn't know that that's what we were doing. But now we can become aware. The first step is the awareness of that dance. First step is to understand what is my attachment style. That's why I provided an attachment style quiz in the show notes so that you can really see where you're starting off. Am I the anxious? Am I the avoidant? Am I the disorganized, which is also known as fearful avoidant? So understanding what your pattern is when you get distressed is the first step. So that now we're like, oh, I'm not an idiot, I'm not, you know, weak. This is just unresolved wounding. Now I have an opportunity to go in and resolve the wound that it began. So unless I go in and heal with the younger parts of me that are seeking that approval and validation outside of me, then I'm bound to keep repeating this cycle on and on and on until we break up, right? And then you start with a new partner and you're gonna go through the same thing again, same dance, different haircut.

Marla Miller: 49:35

So when you met the woman that you're married to now, yeah. Had you healed trauma bond by the question.

Nima Rahmany: 49:44

So that was phase one is the self-work. Phase two is the work that comes up when you partner again. No matter who you are in a relationship with, as you've done your healing work, there's no such thing as healed in the past tense. The fantasy is, oh, I've healed all my attachment wounds. I'm secure and I'm perfect now. You can now orient more as a secure person, but in any dynamic, those triggers are going to come up. This time, what was different was I was aware of them. I had the tools to resolve when those triggers came up, and I had the skills to rupture and repair. So the next phase of the journey for those who are in that trauma bond, they've left the toxic relationship, they've done their self-work, and they're like, okay, when you decide to get into a relationship, you cannot heal this on your own. It must be healed within a relational dynamic. So this time with Diana, with this awareness of where her wounding is, where my wounding is, when it gets activated, I have the trigger-proof process where I can resolve the trigger that arises and then get into communication and resolve what comes up, resolve what actually is arising, and then we repair. And in the repair, the relationship becomes stronger because of the rupture and repair than had you not gotten into the argument because it's now exposed the unresolved parts within ourselves, and now we can use the rupture as a means to grow into deeper intimacy. So my relationship with Diana now had just gotten stronger and stronger over the years through these ruptures and repairs that we've had. So did you find that make sense?

Marla Miller: 51:38

Yeah. Did you find that you were, since you did that work on yourself, you drew in a totally different type of person?

Nima Rahmany: 51:48

Hundred percent. Like I can now see that same type of person I'm attracted to, the wounded bird that needs rescuing. Or if you're on the other side, you're like the bad boy that's a lot of women will say, I haven't been in a relationship. I tend to attract the bad boys. I'm like, oh yeah, it's because you're afraid of intimacy, right? You know that you won't have to really get intimate with the bad boy, right? And then you like the chase, right? So it's an addiction to this teenage wound that really craves intensity. That's who I was attracting because I was operating within relational dynamics as a teenager. So, as a teenager who craves intensity, I'll go after the one who's completely emotionally dysregulated and crazy and that I need to fix, that I need to become the hero to. And so as I matured, I see that I can feel the draw. An older version of me would have been like a moth to a flame for that. But I only want to engage with a woman who's equally as mature, as responsible as who I've become. Because truth be told, Marla, people don't like to hear this, but we attract people who are at the same level of emotional maturity that we are at. Otherwise, we wouldn't be attracted to that.

Marla Miller: 53:11

Yeah.

Nima Rahmany: 53:12

Because if you were to become more emotionally mature, that wouldn't attract you, that wouldn't be, you know, appealing to you. So we are attracted to those at the same level of emotional maturity that we are. And that's a big wake-up call, people don't like to hear.

Marla Miller: 53:27

So when you entered into this new type of relationship, and then you go through the experience where you or she or both of you at the same time are triggered, was she also someone that had been doing all this self-work, or how did you resolve that first?

Nima Rahmany: 53:46

Great question. Great question, Marla. I love your question. And this is a weird thing, but she doesn't do any of this work. She doesn't do any of it. And one of the hallmarks of somebody who's dedicated to becoming trigger-proof is I'm doing this work for me. Right? I'm doing this work for me. I'm not doing it for anyone else or to keep a relationship. But what I noticed is when I'm doing it and my intentions are clear that the work is for me to learn how to love myself, that I bring my adult self online. And when my adult self comes online, I'm able to have an empathetic discussion and not need the validation, but I'm able to resolve it much quicker because who I show up as becomes safe for the other person. And a rising tide lifts all boats. So this isn't to say take on the emotional labor for someone else. This is about not needing somebody else to do the work for you to be able to be clear with who you are, so that your stay or go type of mentality is like, oh, I've now gone to this level of maturity. I'm not going to tolerate this type of behavior. And then I'm clear with my boundaries. And then whenever I do that, she then feels that and is like, yeah, okay, I agree. Right. And so we're able to repair without her doing the same type of work that I do. She has her own way of processing, but it's not, she's not a student of mine. She understands the work and she's grown just by listening, but she's got her path. And it's really about me doing my own work. And so in doing that, I repair with myself. I can now have an adult conversation and then initiate a repair in my marriage. And we just keep getting stronger and the trust has grown even more. We fight even less, we argue even less. And when it happens, we just resolve it right away. It's gotten better and better as the time has gone on. We just really feel like we're a team. Whereas before in the trauma bond, it starts off hot and heavy and then it fizzles. This one in a secure relationship didn't start off as hot and heavy and intense. It was okay. And it's just gotten better as we've just kept going.

Marla Miller: 56:06

Well, I'd like to hear about that. How, like you said, how the relationship started off. Like if it wasn't hot and heavy, what did that look like? And how many dates in and how'd you decide to like stick with it?

Nima Rahmany: 56:19

This is so interesting. You're going into the private stuff. Sure, I don't mind. Okay. So I was in, I was kind of in recovering from my trauma bond, and I was like, well, geez, I got to get out of Vancouver. So I come to Victoria, British Columbia, and that's where I like to kind of locum for one of my colleagues who has a clinic here. So I'm working as a chiropractic holiday coverage in his practice. And in walks this woman who has a really bad back. And it was my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time, but I see her. And she's not usually like my type. I'm more of a brunette type of guy. She's a blonde. And there was just something about her I really saw that was different. And what I saw was a genuineness, right? We do the personal development work so that we can remove the false self and then emerge as our authentic self. But when I met her, she was just already an authentic self. And after I left the clinic, we decided to keep in touch. And then just a friendship developed there. And I just remember thinking, my gosh, she's such a present and real person. I've done so much inner work to become present and real. And she hasn't, and she just already automatically is that. I was really drawn to her realness. It wasn't flashy. It wasn't like, you know, my ex in the toxic relationship was a former sex worker and an exotic dancer. So it was like in your face, overt sexuality type of person that really catered to my uncontained sexual energy parts that were suppressed in my teenage years growing up with a religious background. So I got to express it all, and it was intense, and there was push and pull, and she was always dramatic and very histrionic, and she was always a problem, and she thrived on chaos, and so did my nervous system. So there was this push and pull and just makeup sex and all that intensity. As I did my healing work, what I realized was when you've been used to the chaos and the intensity, secure relationship initially feels boring. When I met Diana, I'm like, she isn't dramatic. She doesn't like ostentatious overt display of emotions, uh, domination and manipulation. She was none of that. I surprisingly kind of found that appealing. And I was like, wow, a previous version of me who didn't work on regulating his nervous system would have found that boring. So I started dating. And as we dated, I still was keeping my options open, right? And she was very loyal. And after about two or three weeks of dating, I had, you know, talked to her about dating other people. And she was like, Oh, I didn't know you were dating other people. And I said, Yeah, you know, I'm just not in the place where I'm ready to decide. And she said, Oh, that makes me sad because I really like you and I'm ready to be with that right person. And I want them to like me the same as I like them. And so I understand that's where you're at, but I'm not going to force you into it. And it's just not something that I can be a part of. And I was like, okay. And so a couple days of that later, I'm sitting down, sitting with that, and I'm going, wait a second, this is weird. Most of the times when I'm dating, I tell a woman, yeah, I'm just keeping my options open. She would usually fawn and say, Oh, I'm fine with that too. But secretly she wasn't. She was just trying to maintain attachment, which is a fawn response. She set a boundary, which is an act of self-worth. So the women that I was dating before clearly didn't own their self-worth. And they consented to a less than ideal relationship because they wanted the attachment and they were afraid of losing it, which was my last relationship. She always wanted something more, but I wasn't willing to give it. But she stayed with me, even though I had zero intention of really going the distance. And her lack of self-worth caused me, I don't want to blame anything, but when we show up without owning our self-worth, we're teaching other people how to treat us with our behavior and what our standards are, with our boundaries. What Diana showed was that her standards were that I wasn't going to be in a less than fulfilling, fully committed relationship. I'm not available for that. So she removed herself. She wasn't a bitch about it. She just said, No, I'm not available for that. Within about two, three days later, I message her and I say, Okay, all right. This is weird. Okay, I'm willing. What do you need? She goes, just give it a month. Let's give it two months where you're not distracting yourself with other women. And let's just focus on building something here. And I said, okay, you have a deal. And so here we are now, almost six years, six and a half years later, still in the game. So that's that's how it worked. And so now I love teaching women how to show up with their feminine self-worth so that they don't have low quality, low vibe, fuckboy type of guys like I used to be. So I love sharing and showing how and teaching women how to show up so that they can attract more higher value type of commitment by owning their self-worth and healing with the parts of them that believe they don't deserve any better than the scraps.

Marla Miller: 1:01:59

Well, that brings up a question. So if someone is used to the drama and the chaos in their relationships, and then they work on themselves a bit, and then they meet someone that seems kind of boring, like you said, they're not sure if it's because that person really is not the person for them, or if it's because, no, this is just something new and different now that I've healed that part of myself. How do they tell the difference?

Nima Rahmany: 1:02:28

By sitting with the feelings and by communicating what's arising for them without any attachment to outcome. Because the way that you communicate that, the right man will be able to, the wrong man will be like hurt about it.

Marla Miller: 1:02:48

Oh, you're saying if they talk to this man, say yes, and they say this is what I'm feeling can I share?

Nima Rahmany: 1:02:55

Can I share how I'm feeling right now? Yeah, what's going on? I've so used to this intense push-pull, toxic, codependent, love bombing, I can't live without you dynamic. That as I've been healing, I'm noticing my relationship with you, that intensity isn't there. And I'm having a hard time understanding that is it because we're not meant to be together, or because this is my old self kind of saying, Hey, this is unfamiliar, and I don't know what to do about it. And I just wanted to presence that and I'd love some help.

Marla Miller: 1:03:39

What do you think this person would say?

Nima Rahmany: 1:03:42

I don't know. But if that was me and I was a secure guy, and you said that to me, and I truly cared about you, I would feel the hurt of that, but not react to it. And I'd say, hey, that makes sense. I totally get it. And maybe I might make a joke about it. I'd be like, Do you want me to start like screaming at you a little bit? Do you want me to insult you? Do you want me to bring back old memories? And like what I would do is I would make a joke of it. And I'd be like, that's okay that you feel that way. Why don't we just kind of like take this on and just explore? Right? If I was the insecure type, I'd be like, oh, you don't love me? What's the heck? You're hurting my feelings. And then that would cause you repulsion. And that answers the question that this isn't that right guy. Because the right guy would be able to hold space for this confusion and go, I totally get it. Tell me more. What comes up for you? I totally understand. And I would result in having you feel seen, and I would guide you into a decision, and I'd be okay if it's a no. So there's so many options, but the fact is that the truth has come out. So you're gonna have to expose this truth, and the right guy who's secure will be able to work with it, and you continue to work through that, right? And get some coaching and mentoring and going, all right. So, what parts of you? What's the excitement? Oh, I crave that excitement that that danger. All right, well, how old is that part of you that needs that? What do you get from that? This is a discovery. This is all about healing, mirroring parts of you that are looking for love from yourself. And that's what a relationship is is to reestablish what a relationship actually is. It's not some fantasy to get you out of your misery of your own unworthiness. My wife's job is to provide me a mirror of parts of me that I haven't yet loved and keep working at it. That's why this is a tool that gets used for life, being trigger-proof. And my job is to help expose parts of her as we go that she hasn't loved. The relationship is a place for us to learn how to heal and grow and evolve together.

Marla Miller: 1:05:59

Yeah. Very good. Yes, that's all very interesting. Yeah. So is there any last story you want to tell of someone who worked through something with the relationship or a health issue?

Nima Rahmany: 1:06:13

Well, it really is a commitment to going inward. And Pamela, for example, reached out and was like, in a 10-year should I stay or go scenario with her husband, there was infidelity. They've been doing group, you know, talk therapy, going to counselors week after week. And he was like, No, we're gonna make this work. And she just wasn't feeling seen. So she just finally jumped in and said, All right, I got to learn these skills. And so she started doing the work. And within about three months, it hit her. She got that clarity and she's like, I can't keep going like this. And during a couple's counseling session, she turns to him and says, It's time for me to leave. The codependency was continuing where they thought that they were healing because they were doing talk therapy, but the talk therapy was just two people whining about their own story. And it just wasn't getting anywhere. They were spinning their wheels. Finally, she started healing with the parts of her that felt like she didn't deserve any better. Right. And so finally she just turns to him and says, I think it's time for us to move on. And he got it. And then within a few months, she bought a new place because they have three kids. So it was a few blocks away. He helped her move and they began their whole life separate. And what happened was because she took that leap of faith and said, I'm not doing this to heal us, I got to heal myself. She then found herself, her truth, found her boundaries, moved on. And this woke him up and said, I got to deal with my stuff now. Because her staying with him was kind of dangling him over the gates of hell, not holding him accountable. Right. Oftentimes, unfortunately, woman has to leave. Finally, he's like, Oh, my abandonment wounds are up. I got to look at my stuff now. And he did, and he started owning his stuff. And then two years later, she reaches out and she's like, You're not gonna believe this. But after I moved out, he started working on himself and he started showing up differently. And now we're back together and we have a better relationship than we've ever had before.

Marla Miller: 1:08:14

Wow.

Nima Rahmany: 1:08:14

And we talk things through, and he has me feeling seen and heard. He's not gaslighting me anymore. And all of that happened when she first took on getting out of the talk therapy game and going into learning how to become trigger-proof and owning her power and creating elegant boundaries around her energy of standards of what she would allow and what she wouldn't. And this is where health comes from: relational health, personal health, self-worth, self-love. This is the journey becoming triggerproof.

Marla Miller: 1:08:45

So well said. Yeah, perfect. Where can people find you if they want to learn more work with you?

Nima Rahmany: 1:08:52

I'll provide a link in the show notes. The best place to start is the attachment style quiz. So going there and learning your attachment style, and then send me a message email. I can give you all of my socials, any DMs that you have a question, that's the first place to start is that attachment style quiz. My website is drnima.com, but I'm changing it to "becoming trigger-proof."

Marla Miller: 1:09:16

Okay, great. And I have three questions I like to ask people who have gone through their own healing journey, like you have.

Nima Rahmany: 1:09:23

Sure. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 1:09:24

So just briefly, what was the biggest obstacle during your own healing process?

Nima Rahmany: 1:09:31

My biggest obstacle was the judgment of my feelings because I've been so conditioned to make certain emotions like sadness and fear wrong that I related with my emotions in an unhealthy way and slowed my healing down. And so patience is the biggest thing that actually speeds up healing. It's so ironic, it's so dualistic. Yeah.

Marla Miller: 1:09:59

Yeah. And what was the biggest lesson you learned?

Nima Rahmany: 1:10:03

The biggest lesson that I learned was that the outside world is simply a reflection of how I'm treating myself.

Marla Miller: 1:10:13

Very good. And what was the biggest kindness shown to you while you were healing and evolving?

Nima Rahmany: 1:10:19

The biggest kindness that was shown to me uh was, you know, through friends, the the people that really had my back that believed in me. The true ones have emerged. And my closest people in my life are those people. And that's where your true friends and those that are aligned with you reveal themselves.

Marla Miller: 1:10:42

Well, thank you so much for this conversation. I know there's a lot of people out there. Well, anyone in a relationship can be going through this or does go through this, whether they're aware of it or not, I guess, and bring it to the surface. Thank you for shedding light on these different trauma responses and especially the fawning response. And also how you can come out of that, how you can learn the tools to better your relationships.

Nima Rahmany: 1:11:11

You can.

Marla Miller: 1:11:13

Yeah. Thank you so much for your time.

Nima Rahmany: 1:11:15

Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you.