Why are you gaslighting yourself?
- Doubting Your Feelings: You might dismiss your emotions as unimportant or irrational, convincing yourself that you shouldn’t feel a certain way about a situation.
- Rewriting Memories: You may alter or question your own memories, believing that you misremembered events or that your perception was wrong.
- Minimizing Your Needs: Convincing yourself that your personal needs or boundaries are excessive or unreasonable, leading to neglect of your own well-being.
- Invalidating Yourself: Regularly telling yourself that your thoughts or feelings are silly or not worth considering, leading to a lack of self-acceptance.
- Overanalyzing Responses: Constantly critiquing your reactions or emotions, interpreting them as flaws or weaknesses, rather than normal human responses.
- Rationalizing Toxic Behavior: Making excuses for others’ harmful behavior towards you and believing it’s your fault or that you deserve it.
- Fear of Judgment: Worrying excessively about what others think leads you to alter your thoughts or feelings to conform.
To combat self-gaslighting, it can be helpful to:
- Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself with the same kindness you would offer a friend dealing with similar feelings.
- Keep a Journal: Document your thoughts and feelings to create a tangible reference of your experiences and validate your reality.
- Seek Support: Talk to trusted friends or a mental health professional who can help you gain perspective and reinforce your reality.
- Challenge Negative Thoughts: When you notice self-doubt, challenge those thoughts by asking yourself for evidence and considering alternative perspectives.
Recognizing self-gaslighting is the first step towards reclaiming your sense of self and establishing a healthier relationship with your thoughts and emotions.
Whenever you’re in the presence of someone who carries an opposing view to your own…others may perceive that as toxic or unwelcomed. Or, worse yet, weaponize your own words, back at you, at a later date.
I’m not going to go into the whole philosophy of, everything is in the delivery. Many have mastered this art, of calm and soft persuasion. There are many levels in the art of persuasion, but ultimately it’s a form of manipulation. If someone comes right out and states, exactly where they’re coming from, and their intentions. That is received as intense, domineering, forceful, rude, and off-putting.
Many need to surround themselves in passivity, and complete agreement to support their scarcity mindset. Many fear being excluded, so they go into lockstep with others. Denying their feelings and emotions, fearing repercussions from those feelings.
Self-validation is a non-negotiable, it can never be taken away from you. This also allows you to observe and not internalize other people’s hate. Because the job of a toxic person is to change other people’s opinions. Instead, of respecting them and allowing the difference of opinion and perspective.
Follow me into the dark, so that your light becomes so bright that you’ll be able to embrace your own shadows. I might not write what you want to know, but maybe it’s what you need to read!
xxx gail
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