You know that feeling you get when you can’t find a single thing right with yourself—or you simply can’t help throwing yourself under the proverbial bus every time you make a mistake? And even though you wish you wouldn’t, you find that you’re still mentally yelling at yourself for the slightest little slip-up? (And let’s not even talk about how it feels to receive a compliment…)

 

I know, right?

 

Been there—and OMG, I wore that t-shirt for decades.

 

 

Now I know that this behavior is clear evidence that you’ve been gaslit.

 

If you look up the definition of the term “gaslight” you’ll find that it means “to psychologically manipulate (a person) over an extended period of time so that the victim questions the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality or…experiences.” (Merriam Webster)

 

Now think about how all of us were raised and socialized as children—our parents, teachers and religious leaders taught us that they knew better about what we needed in order to be a successful member of society.

 

For (mostly) the BEST reasons—they wanted us to be successful—they systematically trained us to look outside ourselves for the “right” answers: to the family rules, to the school standards and/or to the religious practices that would allow us to “fit in” and be accepted by society.

 

AND. Before I write another word, it’s important to note right here that there is a WIIIIDE range of behaviors that parents, teachers, and religious leaders engage in that qualify as them “knowing better” and that involve training us to look outside ourselves for answers. This range of behaviors nets three different kinds of results:

If you’re still reading, I trust that you’re ready to explore the practices that got you to the behaviors—and feelings—you read about in that first paragraph. This whole “gaslit” conversation can get so deep! Trust me, we could talk about this stuff for weeks and still only scratch the surface.

My goal here is simply to introduce you to a new distinction because I just discovered it.

 

My favorite part of this discovery is that once you have this simple distinction as a filter for your experiences, everything in your life makes so much sense. It’s like a HUGE LIGHTBULB for your life—and that’s the point of this week’s Playbook.

 

 

This process of socialization required the adults in our lives to engage with us in ways that substituted their truth for our experience—as a result, we’ve been trained to “question the validity of (our) own thoughts, perception of reality or…experiences.”

 

 

Watching that K-drama with the boss gaslighting his employee a few weeks ago gave me the clearest illustration of this behavior in my own life—and talking with friends, colleagues, and clients about it, I can see that I’m not alone. That made me want to dig deeper into all of this so we can unpack it together.

 

Consider that harried parents and overwhelmed teachers are much more likely to use whatever is handy to keep the kids in their care under control—to quickly curb those kids’ natural enthusiasm in favor of obedience and compliance—because it’s relatively easy to do and is (temporarily) effective.

 

It takes a lot more time and patience to teach a kid to trust her/himself.

 

So what comes out of the mouths of those responsible for helping a kid maneuver through their childhood may not necessarily be in the best interests of that kid, even if it helps the adults get through whatever situation they face. Growing a human is a lot more complicated than anyone admits to; there are millions of well-meaning people throughout human history who were totally unqualified for the job.

 

And then their children had their own kids.

 

Here’s the juicy part: this whole experience is invisible to us because it’s simply the way things are done. It feels normal—and—up to now, there’s been absolutely no reason to question it.

 

Now you know about the idea of being gaslit. Now it’s visible to you. That gives you every reason to question your experiences so you can see what’s true for you as you unpack each one:

 

Now you know that most of this gaslighting has been invisible. Reading this week’s Playbook, you’ve made it visible. That’s a BIG WIN for you because you can’t address what you don’t see.

 

Now you can see that, just like water is invisible to fish, the lies we’ve been told to control us were invisible to us because we were taking them in as the unvarnished truth since we were babies.

 

Below is a short (and incomplete) list of some common disparaging observations that many of us heard growing up. Now you know these are simply the words of people who are trying to keep you in line, for their own reasons. This sample of words are the ones that lead us directly to the feelings and behaviors in my first paragraph:

Now that you can see them for what they are, I assure you that you have Unlimited Cosmic Power to dismiss them.

 

Next week, I’ll share with you three Everyday Communication Sorcery Strategies that are powerful antidotes to being gaslit. Until then, I hope you’ll be gentle with yourself. Should you be ready to explore your experiences to mine them for the insights that await you this week, you may find it useful to ask yourself those three Visibility Questions I shared with you earlier:

Being gaslit is much more common than I would ever have believed. Doing my own exploring has me walking this particular path right along with you—every step of the way.