For many of us, “being a good person” was taught as being agreeable, easy, adaptable, and pleasant. We learned to smooth the edges in order to keep the peace. To not take up too much space. To be liked. To be chosen. To be safe.

In psychology, this is often called fawning—a survival strategy where we turn down our own needs, boundaries, emotions, and impulses in order to maintain harmony with others. It’s not a personality trait. It’s not who you truly are. It’s what your nervous system learned to do to reduce threat.

But here’s the thing about long-term suppression:

What we refuse to express doesn’t disappear—it gets stored. In the body. In the breath. In the muscle tone. In the jaw. In the quiet resentment that leaks sideways when we’re tired or overwhelmed. In the ache of “I don’t know what I want anymore,” because we’ve spent years tracking what everyone else needs first.

Fawning keeps the outside smooth by making the inside silent.

The Feral Return

Feral doesn’t mean chaotic or destructive.

Feral simply means returned to original nature.

The shift from fawn to feral isn’t about becoming aggressive or rebellious; it’s about slowly reconnecting with the parts of you that had to go quiet in order to survive.

It’s learning to:

• Feel instead of numb

• Move instead of freeze

• Say “no” instead of over-functioning

• Be real instead of palatable

• Let the body have a language again

When the body starts to move in ways that are nonlinear, primal, breath-led, and sensation-responsive, we begin to notice how much was living under the surface. Emotion has shape. Instinct has rhythm. Anger has heat. Pleasure has expansion. Grief has weight. Power has pulse.

Movement becomes expression instead of performance.

Expression becomes communication instead of collapse.

Why Suppression Stops Working

Suppression works until it doesn’t. Eventually the system hits thresholds—physically, emotionally, energetically. Symptoms show up that look like:

• shutdown and exhaustion

• loss of appetite or overconsumption

• chronic tension

• digestive issues

• sensitivity or anger that erupts unexpectedly

• feeling misunderstood or invisible

• resentment in relationships

• disconnection from sexuality or desire

• difficulty asking for what you need

• fear of being “too much” or “not enough”

These aren’t character flaws. They’re communication.

They’re the body asking for expression.

Rewilding the Nervous System

Rewilding—not an aesthetic, but a physiological reclamation. Practices like Buti, Feral , Vinyasa, Somatic flow, Yin, and sound work all become portals for the nervous system to renegotiate its range.

Because once the body feels safe to express, the psyche doesn’t have to carry everything alone.

Rewilding looks like:

• shaking and trembling to discharge freeze

• hip spirals to thaw suppressed desire

• breathwork to expand capacity

• nonlinear movement to reconnect instinct

• vocalization to reclaim boundary and truth

• stillness to integrate and digest

These are not luxuries. They’re repairs.

From Palatable to Present

When expression returns, relationships shift too—not because you become harder to love, but because you become easier to understand.

You stop contorting to be digestible.

You stop apologizing for taking up space.

You stop outsourcing your safety to other people’s reactions.

The question becomes less “Will they be okay if I do this?” and more “Am I honoring myself if I don’t?”

Presence replaces performance.

Agency replaces appeasement.

Honesty replaces harmony-at-all-costs.

This is Why We Practice

The journey from fawn to feral is not overnight. It’s not linear. And it’s not about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who you were before survival demanded compliance.

Yoga, somatic work, and expressive movement give the nervous system experience with:

• boundaries

• desire

• sensation

• voice

• self-respect

• truth-telling

Not as thought, but as embodiment.

When the body learns it’s safe to express, the spirit doesn’t have to hide.

If you’ve spent years fawning, it doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re intelligent. Your body kept you safe with the tools it had. That deserves respect—not shame.

But safety evolves.

And at a certain point, the body whispers:

“I’m ready for more.”

More expression.

More instinct.

More truth.

More feral.