Are you gaslighting yourself? 5 signs you are and what to do about it.
GASLIGHTING
The origin of the term gaslighting comes from a 1940’s movie titled Gaslight, where a man manipulated his wife’s reality, denying he was hiding objects, turning down the gaslights every night, stating she was imagining things and going crazy. Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse and manipulation which makes the victim question their thoughts, emotional validation, sanity, and self-worth (Healthline).
Gaslighting is the undermining of someone’s emotions or reality, such that they doubt that what they are feeling is real or valid.
What is self-gaslighting?
While gaslighting is a commonly referred to in abusive relationships, we are also highly capable of gaslighting ourselves. Self-gaslighting means that you suppress of invalidate your feelings and your thoughts.
How do you know you are self-gaslighting?
You minimise your feelings.
Telling others “I’m fine. I’m just being sensitive”, and yourself to “Stop overreacting, it isn’t that bad”.
Telling yourself that you are fine is only going to lead to the suppression of your feelings, that WILL bubble up eventually.
You doubt yourself and undermine your dreams and wishes.
“That’s probably a silly idea. I’m not good enough to do that, you need to by xyz to do that”.
Your dreams are the first step towards their manifestation. No idea is a silly idea, and every single person starts somewhere.
You apply the positive-psychology trick and convince yourself that things aren’t that bad.
“Look on the bright side, it could be worse”. “I’m just making a big deal out of nothing”
Sure it could be worse, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t feeling something in the moment. To say 'I'm being too sensitive' is to judge and dishonour your own reaction.
You compare your feelings to another person’s.
“I don’t have it as bad as them”.
Yes, you may not be facing the same difficulties as someone else, but that doesn’t invalidate the pain you are feeling right now.
You make excuses for another person’s behaviour.
“I know they love me and didn’t mean it like that.”
Perhaps this is true, but also its important to recognise that you did feel something in response, and if this is a consistent pattern than perhaps there is an unhealthy dynamic at play that is worth investigating further. The intention may not have been there, but there is an impact and that is valid.
Why is self-gaslighting harmful?
Not only does gaslighting keep you from accepting situations that are not tolerable, it prevents us from reaching out for the support that we really need to function and enjoy life, and, it keeps us playing small, we stop chasing our dreams and setting goals and life is not as full as we deserve.
It can play out on a daily basis, where you find yourself questioning yourself, leading to a breakdown of confidence and trust in yourself.
You deserve more.
It's not uncommon to question our own feelings, but that doesn't mean it's always healthy.
How to Stop Self-Gaslighting
Awareness
If you’re reading this and recognise yourself here than your first step is to realise that it is actually going on.
This can be challenging as many of us were raised to believe that emotions are socially unacceptable (read ‘drama queen’ ‘sook’ ‘big girl’) and so we’ve become habitually wired to minimise and ignore our feelings, which we tend to see as a display of strength and resilience. It may have been unsafe for you to display emotion as a child, and you may hold unresolved emotional trauma that makes it terrifying for you to express your feelings.
These can be so buried down, and our avoidance of our feelings so second nature, that we don’t even realise what is going on.
Curiosity
We begin with gentle curiosity to bring awareness to those moments when we have been self-gaslighting, and to reflect on what transpired without judgement. Explore this with journaling, movement or art:
How has self-gaslighting helped me to stay safe in the past? How did it help me cope?
How is self-gaslighting no longer serving me? How am I dishonouring myself and my needs?
Compassion
The simple act of curiosity invites compassion. For doesn’t it make total sense being raised within a patriarchal society that many of us would engage in self-gaslighting as a means of protection? Gaslighting ourselves may have helped us in the past to adapt to toxic situations or relationships, so we can honour this adaptive survival skill yet still learning to release it from today.
Be gentle with yourself. What is one thing you can do right now to practice greater self-compassion towards yourself?
Acceptance
The next step is to understand that your feelings are not only valid, but incredibly important. Every feeling is a message that is coming through you. Every feeling deserves to be honoured as a form of communication. They are our barometers to what is a yes, or no, and where change needs to be made. They are not in your way, they are important signposts along your way. It is time that we began to show reverence to our feelings without dismissing, denying or avoiding them.
Feel
Every feeling deserves to be felt. This is nature’s way and what she intended. This means to become attune to what sensations you are feeling in your body in that moment, to lean into them instead of away from them and allow them to be there without judgement. Of course, there is going to be times that we can’t immerse ourselves in how we feel right in that moment, but it is important to revisit charged experiences and allow that feeling to be felt, and in the feeling of it expressed.
Breath and Movement
Embodiment practices are vital. They allow you to sink into the body and move and express as you feel, unfurling and releasing stuck energy inside of you and cultivating greater and greater flow in your body. Embodiment is a true practice of honouring, and loving yourself and it’s been such a gift in my world.
So I invite you to stop for a moment, pause and breathe and if you feel comfortable to do so close your eyes as you sink into your body. Scan yourself for how you feel, physically, emotionally, energetically and allow what comes up to come up without needing to understand it. Settle there on what is most charged for a moment and invite greater breath and some gentle movement, maybe even sound so to full feel that emotion. As you feel it, allow it to be expressed through you in anyway that it needs to be. Continue to follow your feelings and expressing them until you feel release, more centred and calm.
The above methods and techniques are centred in the art of Feminine Embodiment, they invite you to come back into your body and to contact the truth of who you are. Feminine Embodiment provides gentle, simple, and natural ways of unwinding our nervous system to bring ourselves back into the state of flow which is our natural way of being.
Feminine Embodiment is a fundamental practice of self-care and self-exploration.
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