You know that feeling that you get when you are on the other side of something you’ve just conquered? When you step out from under something that has had you caught or cornered, knowing that you finally solved it for good and all? When you can breathe again and feel better about what you’ve done—and maybe even who you are?

 

OH MAN!!!! I LOOOOOVE THAT FEEEELING.

 

Last week we unpacked the 411 of how to tell if you’ve been gaslit. I promised you this week that I would share with you three surefire antidotes that have worked the best for me and my clients. This week I’ll share with you the first two of my three favorite antidotes—these are the practices I have honed over decades—and you can see what you think.

 

 

OK—I get it. It sounds totally crazy.

 

First of all, who even admits in public to talking to themselves in the first place? (If you do, go to the head of the class and pick up your prize—since medical studies have shown that 96% of people talk to themselves.) The majority of us do it—yet we hate to admit it since “only crazy people” talk to themselves.

 

Here’s why this is my first—and I would say BEST—antidote to being gaslit: how you talk to yourself affects the way you experience EVERYTHING.

 

This was the first strategy I ever learned; I was a 26-year-old talking to my first therapist. My self-talk at that point was so vicious that she actually gave me some homework to address it first before she decided whether or not to accept me as a client. My work with her lasted a year—and it positively transformed my self-talk forever.

 

Here’s what she taught me:

 

 

Now think about how you talk to someone who you dearly love: it’s positive at the very least and very often tender. You’re giving that person every reason in the world to want to be around you because of the way you talk to her or him.

 

Now here’s my strategy: since you are ALWAYS gonna be in your own presence, and since the way you talk to yourself has a 100% impact on your experience of everything, why not make it a practice to talk nice to yourself?

 

 

And, hey, it’s a PRACTICE. It’s not perfect. At the beginning, if using this daily practice increased my talking nice to myself by even 10%, I counted it as a win. These days—45 years later—I AM my own Best Friend, and my self-talk is 99% positive. In those rare moments when some trash comes out, I can easily correct it and forgive myself. Sh*t happens—and so does the occasional, old, gaslight-induced, trash talk. Start here and see what you think.

 

 

No I’m not kidding. And yeah, I know it might seem crazy.

 

Stay with me here. I promise you that this is my second most crucial—and second oldest—strategy.

 

Although it might seem like a one-time thing, I’ve found that rescuing my Inner Child a mindset that not only helps me every day, it consistently saves my sanity. It has allowed me to build a life over the past four decades that my 20-something self could never have imagined. It’s all because I have discovered that, like all humans, I’m a complex being with a variety of parts to myself. Over time, I’ve learned to how update each one of those parts as I become aware of them.

 

My practice began when, before I turned 30, I went through a recovery program for Adult Children of Alcoholics. That’s where I was introduced to the idea that we are each the sum of all the “parts” of our experiences: the ones we’re aware of and proud of, the ones we’re aware of and ashamed of, and the ones we don’t even know are triggering us into responses that surprise us. (i.e., when you find yourself shouting, “HOW did THAT happen???”)

Have you ever said or thought, “There’s a part of me that wants to (X) and there’s another part of me that wants to (Y)…” That’s just your parts showing up. Those parts are real—and they’re not all the same age as you are. Your Inner Child is simply the part of you that’s still little.

 

The way it was explained to me all those years ago is that, as you grew up, a variety of negative—or unexplainable—or confusing—things happened to you.

 

Depending on how they landed on you—and what kind of support you had to deal with them at the time—there were parts of you that stopped growing and developing as the rest of you grew up.

 

Have you ever been accused of “acting like a kid?” Have you ever been told, “Oh GROW UP!” or “Why don’t you act your age??” That’s simply your Inner Child out in public.

 

If you were shut down as a kid, odds are very high that you will try to shut down your Inner Child by ignoring her/him, yelling at her/him or shaming her/him.

 

Those are all standard gaslighting behaviors where the adult makes their opinions the truth and ignores the experience of the child. (These are not bad adults—merely overtired, overwhelmed, or for one reason or another uninterested in expending the amount of energy it takes to be fully present with a child in ways that allow them to work through the new experiences they’re having as they grow so they can trust themselves).

 

 

Stay tuned for next week’s Playbook when I’ll share with you how to practice Rescuing Your Inner Child in three sustainable steps AND you’ll find out all about the third antidote to being gaslit.

 

Meanwhile, if this is the first time you’ve ever seen any of this stuff, take it easy. If all you do this week is talk nicer to yourself you will be MILES AHEAD in a week.

 

And I am walking right next to you, every step of the way.