If you're trying to convince me that I did something for myself to be mistreated, no. We can't have a conversation about that because that's not true. You're making a choice to mistreat me. So last time we went really deep in talking about manipulation and how couples or people can manipulate you in your life and then how to then set those boundaries. What I really wanted to talk about today is go really deep into the manipulation, very specifically gaslighting because I feel like at least for myself, I didn't realise I was being gaslit when I was younger in another relationship. And so I wonder how many people don't realise they're actually in a relationship where this is happening to them. And the reason I want to start there is to kind of start to unravel some things and then go into once you recognize it how to then act in accordance. Absolutely. Well gaslighting is sneaky. It sneaks right up on you because you don't like you said you don't realize it's happening. But when you get to a space in your relationships where things are unhealthy and you're questioning yourself and you haven't done anything, that is a time to consider is this gaslighting. Because there are so many times when we upset someone and they blame it on us, or when something and they tell us, they tell us our need is to be it. When we are trying to express our sales and they say, you didn't express yourself good enough. And these things can be really scary. And we think, oh my gosh, I need to improve my communication. And when you're being gaslit, there's no better way to communicate. You could say it five different ways, 100 different times, and this person will say to you, you're not being clear. You're not asking for what you want and really what they're not saying is, I don't want to do it. I don't have the capacity or I'm unwilling. And with gas lighting, I think the biggest challenge is you replay in your head all of the details of what was said, what you did with the other person, where you possibly made them a mistake and you blame yourself and is really not your fault. And it's strategic behavior on the other person's end. Yeah, well, thank you for breaking that down. You've done a post recently about this. and I'd like to kind of go a little deeper on those points that you just mentioned and really start to break them apart and know when that is a true sign of it versus just a little let's say misstep in a relationship or you know communication issues. So number one you say you question your sanity. So how do you know then when you question your sanity, if it actually is gaslighting or if it's like, oh no, actually the chemicals in my body were making me think, you know, having a response to something, where actually it was over the top. It's always helpful if we have a good sounding board and I'm not talking about people who will always agree with you, but perhaps a therapist, a elder, a parent, someone who will honestly let you know, well you were wrong in this situation or I see your perspective here, someone who can be honest. But sometimes, everyone can say to you, there's nothing wrong with what you did. And when you're still questioning yourself, like there must be because this other person is saying, so that's when you have to step in and say, okay, perhaps something else is happening here. Perhaps I'm not the person who is at fault because 10 people are saying, now I don't think this thing is your thought. So you have to believe your crew. That's great, because that then goes into the second one where it's like apologizing even when it's not your fault. And these, correct me if I'm wrong, with these tips that you found yourself doing when when you realized you were in a gas-lighting relationship? Absolutely. The apologizing, it is a way to make the other person calm down, to make them feel more at ease to disarm them or even to repair the situation. So when you apologize and sometimes you don't even really mean it, you're just using it as a peace offering. Like, okay, let's move past this. Maybe I was wrong, even though I know I wasn't. Let's just move past this so things could be smooth again. It is a betrayal of self because nothing has been improved, but you have put out this sort of, I want this to be better without the other person being accountable for their actions. So how do you, in those moments, let's say you recognize this isn't my fault and you go to find yourself a apologise and be catch yourself because let's say they've just watched this episode and they heard you say that. What would you then say? Because pardon me actually things, isn't it on you? Isn't it my responsibility to not apologize when it's not my fault versus it's that person pressuring me? How do you know that that's the problem in the relationship versus your own problems like you said is self-betrayal? Well anytime you're trying to apologize to keep the peace, that's not authentic apology. An authentic apology is I feel like I have truly wronged you. I apologize and I'm willing to change my behavior. If you're just saying I'm sorry to say I'm sorry, it's not very helpful, it won't be useful in the future. You'll constantly be apologizing because you don't even know when you're doing something wrong or what is wrong. So you have to be able to apologize from a space of, I really mean this and not, this is the next step so we can just move on from this and forget about it. I think sometimes with kids, there has been the spirit of apologizing to them, apologizing to, you know, with parents, apologizing to your sister, apologize brother. And then the kids five minutes later, they're doing the same thing because they don't mean it. And do you find that in a relationship where someone is guess lying, the other person will do that to you? Or is it the opposite? They wouldn't apologize. Both. I think, well, they typically don't apologize because they don't believe it's their fault.

They don't think they did anything.

It's one you, when you bring a situation to a person and then they pin the situation on you, it's not their fault. I've certainly heard of someone, you know, perhaps going to their partner and saying, hey, the other night you were yelling at me, please don't do that. Well, you provoked me because you asked me question that I don't like. Still not a reason to yell. That's not a reason to yell. I came to you with this issue and now the conversation has switched to I provoked you. And then it's like, well, I'm sorry for provoking you and you've apologized and your whole issue has gone out the window. So you can't even talk to them about being yelled at because it was your fault that they yelled at you. And again, even with kids, you have to tell them that it's not okay for people to yell at you. And if I do it, I made a mistake and I apologize. It's not okay. How much do we think, because that's what's super interesting, How much do we should we be looking into our history and our past and what we were told and how our parents brought us up to be able to assess our actions now? I think the biggest thing is changing your behavior now and then secondary, you can look at the past and figure out why it happened. happen, but when you know something is a problem, the business is doing something better today, not going through this, oh my gosh, where did I learn? That's great. That's a great piece of it. I'm so happy you know your origin story for this behavior. I need you to stop doing this thing today and figure out the story of why later. Because if we get into this cycle of, I can't do anything until I figure out why I'm doing it, we won't try to drive behavior. That may take time. But today, what you need to do is maybe not blame things on people, not yell at people, not point fingers when you are responsible for something. And I think it's very hard to acknowledge that you're at fault for something. It doesn't feel good to be accountable. It's not my favorite thing, but it is the thing that I do because it is necessary and I normalize it. I make mistakes, you make mistakes, we're humans. And I'm not supposed to be perfect. So if I yelled at you, if I was late to your party, if whatever happened, I apologize because you're right. I'm wrong, I'm not gonna justify it. I'm not gonna give you a reason as to why it's okay for me to do this thing to you. It's completely okay to not be perfect. I love that girl, thank you for saying that. But then in those moments, how do you know when um you don't want to just keep saying, oh yeah that was my fault, okay that was me and because part of um I know that in your list that you've gone your you know Instagram post is um almost always blaming yourself. So where's the difference or where's that fine line between taking the ownership and saying yeah this was my was my fault, that's on me, to then taking all the ownership and blame in a relationship. Well, we show up at most of our relationships as the same type of person. So if you accept blame with your partner, you probably do it with your friends and work at all these spaces. And it's important for us to notice a pattern. When we get into the spirit of always saying, okay, it was me just to get out of having uncomfortable conversations or having to deal with something very challenging, we have to look at that behavior because everything is not your fault. Some things are, but everything is not. Especially in relationships, there are two people that means that there's two sets of energy present. So what did I contribute? What did you contribute? Perhaps some things are on me and sometimes this thing isn't on me, but it's important to think about your patterns in relationship. And if your pattern is to always say, okay, it was me, all right, I'm sorry. That's something that you may wanna work on to be able to stand up for yourself and be assertive and say, I didn't do that. I did not do that. So let's say you're in that situation and you have the courage because I think it is brave, especially if you're in a habit for so much of your life to be taking that on yourself. When you finally say, how do you do that? Where it's not accusatory necessarily to the other person because we all know that when someone comes at you, like, hey, I didn't do this. This was you. Immediately you do put those defenses and those walls up. Arguing is a choice. Arguing is a choice. And when someone who I know, oh, I know it, I could feel it right now, I'm thinking of situations. It's like, I know this wasn't me. I will not argue with you about something being my fault when it wasn't. I won't do it. Because the argument is really, you have to agree with me. And I disagree. I'm stating that now. And I don't care how many times we go back and forth. I'm not changing my mind on that. Because there are some things that I'm just not responsible for. And there are some things that I am responsible for. I'm typically not responsible for any ways that I'm being mistreated by a person. So if you're trying to convince me that I did something for myself to be mistreated, no. We can't have a conversation about that because that's not true. You're making a choice to mistreat me. It doesn't matter why, how, what happens. I can't think of a reason you could do it. There's no justifiable reason. So you can't convince me that I am causing harm to myself in a way from another person. That doesn't make sense to me. Love that. But so many people fall into that trap. So what is it that there is it that Is it not having confidence in that area to then stand up for yourself?

Like that's so strong girl and I assume it's not a you maybe I mean maybe this is misadssumption but that you weren't always very strong and very upfront and very articulate and honest about your feelings or way. To an extent I I mean, I remember the first time, well, the first time I ever remember being given the silent treatment by someone after not acknowledging that or not apologizing for something I didn't do. They tried to say like, you know, you're the reason I acted this way and the the way they acted was terrible. It was very volatile. And it was your fault. I'm like this. No. No. I refused. And this person didn't talk to me for a year, because I refused to apologize. And I said, I'm not apologizing for something I'm not responsible for. And when they bring it up to this day, I still state the truth. That was your fault. That was not on me. I didn't do anything wrong. And you cannot convince me that I did because you don't wanna be accountable for the way you behave. I think you have to deal with yourself. Sometimes we do things that we're not proud of. And you to deal with that. When you deal with that, that helps you to do better in the future. If you're ignoring it, that means that you continue to mistreat people and to behave in ways that are unhealthy in your relationships. I'm not helping you by saying, okay, well, maybe you didn't do it. No, I know what happened. There were witnesses.

And you will not convince me otherwise

and there will not be an apology on my behalf. Yeah, damn. So how on earth do we help other people that may not have the confidence to say that? Because that is so powerful. Like I'm feeling like even more energetic just by you saying, I'm like, yeah, yeah. I want to be a cheerleader.

But like in those moments, right, let's say you're feeling insecure, you've been in a

relationship for a while, someone's been gaslighting you, you watch this episode, they hear

every- I'm like, yeah, yeah, I want to be a cheerleader. But like in those moments, right, let's say you're feeling insecure,

you've been in a relationship for a while,

someone's been gaslighting you,

you watch this episode,

they hear everything you're saying,

but it's harder than make that shift into, I'm gonna now have the confidence to stand by this. How do you encourage people? What are the things that they can do in order to stand strong in that conviction.

It takes practice.

I mean, that happened after many years of experiencing this. And I just got tired. I just got tired of it because I knew it wasn't my fault, but I've never had the courage before that moment to say that this is not my fault. But it took years for me to get to that place with that person. And once I did it, it gave me the freedom to continue to do it. Because I don't like people to revise history. What do you mean by that? Make up things that aren't true. You know, this is what happened. It is like, well, let's call these seven other people who were present to really verify that. That's not what happened. And it does benefit you to say this is how that occurred. But that's not how it occurred. And I get that, again, it's very hard to sit in the things that we do. When we're wrong people, I feel really bad about some of the things that I've done, but I'm like, I did do though. I remember someone was trying to call me out for saying something mean, and they were trying to catch me off. Well, you said this about them and I was like, I did.

I did and I stand by. That was the truth. I wasn't making up anything. I did and the person was there and they're like, thank you for saying, yeah, I don't want to deny that. I did say that. I did. Because now we're talking about integrity if I would be dishonest about what I actually said.

And I don't want you to think of me as a liar,

not dissed, as mean thing, but I don't want to be you know mean and a liar I rather just be mean I don't want to be both Because who do you call change the past right and so it's like if you didn't you did it Yeah, people are gonna look who you are now and say okay she can own it, then it does show you character, right? Yeah, I'm like, I haven't always done the best things or see if the right things are, you know, none of us have. And so, yeah, on that, maybe I didn't say that properly or maybe, yeah, I said this thing, oops, my bad. You're living living you learn and I think we have to whole space to not be perfect and to acknowledge when we are harming other people. So true I just wanted to take back it you just said something that I really want to like kind of go deep on so you said I said how did you get here and you it took a long time for me to do it. And then that was the first time that you really said it out

loud. And then that gives you the confidence and encouragement to then stick to it. What over obviously years, you know, of practice and practice, what did that really look like? What work in turn or what did you really have to do in order for you to get to that point where you You could have the courage to speak up and say that.

Are there any key things in those years of work that you had to do that other people can

take? do in order for you to get to that point where you could have the courage to speak up and say that. And are there any key things in those years of work that you have to do that other people can take and try on themselves? One thing that happened was I got tired of having these conversations in my head about what I should have said. The should have said conversations like I should have said this and when they said that I should have said this and what if I would have said and I'm I'm like

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