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⧫ The Intelligence and Cost of Fawning, In the Body and in Relationship ⧫
Fawning is a relational stress response in which we adapt ourselves to others in order to maintain safety, connection or belonging.
We may become highly attuned to what another person wants, needs or feels, while our awareness of our own impulses, preferences and boundaries moves into the background.
**It is a kind of relational shapeshifting, and there is real intelligence in it.**
To sense subtle changes in another person, read the room and respond quickly can be an extraordinary relational capacity.
The cost comes when I become *so practised at feeling you that it becomes difficult to feel me*: what I want, what I need, where my boundaries are, what is actually happening inside me.
The body often tells us afterwards... through exhaustion, resentment, numbness. A need to withdraw, or a sense that the interaction cost us more than we realised at the time.
The body may have registered the places where we went past ourselves, even when another part of us has explained them away.
Sometimes it is only later that we realise: **that wasn’t actually what I wanted.**
This weekend is an invitation to slow that process down and explore fawning where it actually happens: in the body, in the present moment, and in relationship.
**Over the weekend, we will explore:**
⧫ What the body tells us during and after an interaction: tension, numbness, exhaustion, ease, expansion, the need for distance
⧫ How we shape ourselves around others — and sometimes around the group or relational field as a whole
⧫ The moments where an impulse arises and then gets inhibited, softened or redirected
⧫ Reconnecting with our own sense of preference, direction, desire & what feels true for us
⧫ Building nervous system capacity to stay present with and communicate impulses, needs, boundaries and wishes in connection with others
⧫ Experimenting with what happens when we allow more resistance, desire, expression or aliveness to move through the body
⧫ What becomes possible in relationship when there is more room to feel ourselves while staying connected with others
**We will work through movement, bodywork, nervous system awareness, relational practice and present-moment experiential inquiry.**
Practicals
**21–22 November 2026 · Amsterdam**
10:00–18:00 both days
De Ruimte, Weesperzijde 79A
**Early bird until 31 October: €345**
Standard price: €395
To register: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
More information: marysia-pstrokonska.com/fawning
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⧫ About us ⧫
Marysia and Markus are both bodyworkers, and have been working together for several years. A lot of what brings them together is a shared fascination with the body’s innate intelligence, and with what can open up when we slow down enough to really listen.
Their work together has grown through weekends exploring Shame and Innocence, anger as a life-giving creative force (Emerging Radiance), and now fawning… themes that keep appearing in their sessions, their own lives, and the wider territory of being human.
They are both deeply interested in tracking what is happening in the body, staying with what is here, and becoming more skilful at meeting experience without rushing to fix, override or escape it.
For them, the work is not about getting rid of difficult responses. It is about listening closely enough to understand what they are doing, and developing more choice and freedom in how we move with them.
They love creating spaces that are real, exploratory, relational and playful, with room for both depth and lightness.
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Event venue
De Ruimte, Weesperzijde 79A, 1091 EJ Amsterdam, Nederland, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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