"He just wanted to help with the towels!"

Deconstructing Gaslighting™

Did you know that we can unknowingly gaslight OURSELVES? Why do we do that? How might that show up in our lives? In today’s episode, Sarah and her guest will deconstruct one of the ways people gaslight themselves, as we talk about an example from her life.

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The guest today is the AMAZING MJ DENIS!

Word of the day: CATASTOPHIZE - According to the APS dictionary of psychology, to catastrophize is: to exaggerate the negative consequences of events or decisions. People are said to be catastrophizing when they think that the worst possible outcome will occur from a particular action or in a particular situation or when they feel as if they are in the midst of a catastrophe in situations that may be serious and upsetting but are not necessarily disastrous.

Story Time: Sarah and MJ discuss how catastrophizing, though being a normal, human way of expressing our anxiety, is something that falls into self-gaslighting.

• MJ gives a few examples of how it sounds, including the moment she knew she wasn’t “okay” during her post-partum depression.
• They talk about how it’s distorting our own reality, and how this pulls us out of alignment and our of our power.

Deconstruction Zone: There are a number of ways and reasons a person may gaslight themselves.

• Catastrophizing falls under Changing Reality. When we do this to ourselves, we are unknowingly distorting the facts (cognitive distortion) of things we either HAVE experienced, or MAY experience.
• This is a negative distortion – either in the way of how people will view us, or the “danger/harm” we may experience.
• Main reason why people unknowingly do this: Survival/Trauma response: our brain’s job is to protect us/assess for potential hurt/harm… ongoing trauma can exacerbate this or cause this function of our brain to work on over-drive.
• “Situation” = FEAR of rejection/some sort of punishment or retaliation = if I can predict the hurt/harm, I might be able to avoid it = we “forecast” worst case scenario, and we think we can protect ourselves.
• ***Is actually DISempowering, bc we can’t use the right tool(s) we may need.

Set Your Alarm: UHH Scale – Uncomfortable/Hurt/Harm – we can use this scale a few ways; for catastrophizing: 1) What is the situation? – notice any vagueness – get specific. 2) What am I “making up” is happening/will happen (energy of understanding my brain will fill in any gaps)? 3) Get curious – am I exaggerating anything? Am I distorting the facts anywhere? 4) Where on the UHH scale would this fall?

Remember – it’s not about becoming who you want to be, it’s about awakening all that you already are!

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