Deconstructing Gaslighting™

Since I know we all love our “wrapped” info, I thought it would be a fun way to end the year, and season two of Deconstructing Gaslighting®, the podcast. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m your host, Sarah Morales. If this is the first time you’re listening to the pod, welcome! Since I’m going to be taking a break from podcasting for a hot minute, I invite you to go back to the beginning of Season 1. Th...

Almost a year ago, on winter solstice (which is this upcoming Saturday), I wrote this in a social media post. I said: Winter Solstice marks the day with the longest amount of darkness; it marks a SHIFT - the symbolic death and rebirth of the Sun; the gradual waning of daylight hours is reversed and begins to grow again. Death & rising. Darkness reversed into Light...What other imagery does thi...

Here we are, in the middle of all of the end of the year holidays. It’s this weird time that’s a juxtaposition of feeling all the nostalgia, and often romanticizing childhood, AND coming face to face with the jarring reality of the toxic patterns we see in our society, our religious systems, and in our family of origin. Today, my guest and I are going to talk about the different responses people h...

Many, MANY years ago I discovered this blogger whose blog was called Momastery. There were so many things that drew me to this writer. There have been a number of phrases she said that absolutely changed the way I moved through the world. And one of the things I loved about her the most was how raw and vulnerable she was with how effing hard life is. It was one such time that she said these words:...

As we head into the holidays, life can get really, really tricky. Family pressure. Cultural/societal pressure. Internal pressure. Pressure to put on a smile and be happy. And this month especially – pressure to have “an attitude of gratitude”. And yet – for so, so many of us, this can not only feel fake, but actually add to our struggles. So today, I’ve invited an amazing human to come on the pod...

Register for the workshop here ! The holidays bring a *special* challenge for MANY of us... 🍂Parallel parenting with a GASLIGHTING ex 🍂Toxic family gatherings where old patterns take you right back to feeling like that powerless child 🍂 Triggers and GASLIGHTING responses between intimate partners where betrayal trauma has happened If you resonate with any of these situations, and know - far too...

Fear. It’s a topic I revisit often on my podcast, because it can be a confusing one, especially since fear can sometimes be a helpful emotion. For example, fearing the pain that will happen if I touch fire helps alert me to the danger of fire. While it’s an important emotion that can alert us to pay attention to what’s going on around us, it is also something that can misguide us. For example, whe...

Gaslighting and our children… this is such a huge, heavy, and important aspect of so many people in life that while I planned on having just one episode on the topic, I ended up having two. In the last episode, my guest and I addressed the question: Am I gaslighting my kid? In this episode, we’re going to address the questions: Did my kid just try to gaslight me? What does that mean if they did? H...

Gaslighting and our children… is there any place that feels more critical than this for those of us who are parents?  Have you ever wondered about any of the following? Am I gaslighting my kid? Did my kid just try to gaslight me? What does that mean if they did? How can I help my kid be “gaslighting resistant”? I’ve heard every single one of these questions over the years and asked myself eac...

It’s back to school season, and as such, this month my two podcast episodes are going to be focused on supporting all the parents out there. One of the most difficult places we can experience GASLIGHTING is when we are having to “parallel parent” with a GASLIGHTING ex. The stories I’ve heard throughout my career of how this has played out would break your heart. So today I’ve invited someone near...

I saw a picture of a sign that read, “better to admit you walked through the wrong door than spend your life in the wrong room”. I felt that. There have been big and small ways I’ve LIVED that. We ALL have ended up walking through the wrong door a time or two in our lives. Being able to recognize when we’ve ended up in the wrong room is crucial to living in alignment with our values in a way that...

Life can be really, really hard sometimes. Trauma. Betrayal. Gaslighting… fear, pain, abandonment… it can be immobilizing. It’s not surprising that these things can (and often do) lead to depression. I remember being in some pretty dark places after the discovery of my ex’s deviant sexual behaviors – especially in the early days. One thing that I learned, quickly, that had the possibility to bring...

Along my journey of deconstructing and unpacking all the ways gaslighting had impacted me throughout my life, there’s one key lesson that, if I hadn’t learned, I don’t think I’d ever have found the ability to stay connected to my authentic self, nor live from the place of authentic power. That lesson can be summed up in these three words: sacred self-responsibility. Welcome to Deconstructing Gasli...

There are a lot of words these days that are misunderstood. “Triggered” is one such word. It’s also a very important word, as it’s one of those words that can help us both recognize what’s happening to us, as well as help us communicate to others what is happening to us. So today, my guest and I are going to help bring clarity to the things surrounding the experience of being triggered and leave y...

Where on your list of priorities is doing things to care for yourself? How much time and energy do you put into things that bring you joy or “fill your bucket”? How you answered these questions likely reflects your beliefs – conscious OR unconscious – about self-care. And of course we struggle to give ourselves permission to do self-care. We’ve been told that self-care is everything from “selfish”...

A few years ago, I had my founding members group for my Empowerment program. Before we began, I asked them to share the songs that helped bring them back to themselves. Some truly amazing songs came of that. One of the songs that I found that captured the journey the group was going on was Masterpiece, by Jessie J. The chorus says: I still fall on my face sometimes and I can't color inside the lin...

Have you ever seen that Dove “Real Beauty” sketches campaign video – the one where the women met a stranger, and after some time talking, that stranger gave their description to an FBI forensics artist. Then the women described themselves to that same artist. AND THEN, they had the big reveal of the difference between the stranger’s description and their own description. WITHOUT FAIL, the more acc...

Do you remember what your dreams were when you were a kid… or maybe when you were a teenager. How about as you entered into your mid-twenties? Were you encouraged to dream, or told dreaming was foolish or a waste of time? And here’s the big one: were your dreams crushed by betrayal and/or gaslighting? Any number of these things can disconnect us from this thing I believe all humans have initially...

Have you seen those social media posts that go something like this – and I quote: “After all that she gave him, imagine what she’ll be able to give to the next person…” and then it says, “Not a thing, because he broke her.” I HATE that picture. That belief that somehow, because of the trauma that I or my clients have been through, we’re somehow now “damaged goods”; as if what we went through is no...

Have you ever had that little nudge – you know, the one that tells you something isn’t right. Or the one that alerts you to some bad energy from the guy over in the produce section? And how many times did you talk yourself out of listening to that little nudge? Why do we do that? Well, today my guest and I are going to talk about the ways we do this, the reasons WHY we do this (ahem, self-gaslight...

As a child in the 80’s, I remember being at the skating rink and playing Limbo on skates. Yep, I was that kid. LOL The song, “Limbo rock” would start, and EVERYONE knew it was time… every limbo boy and girl all around the limbo world… la la la la la la la… limbo lower now… limbo lower now … how low can you go? And the competition would begin to see who would get the bragging rights of being the on...

Do you “should all over yourself”? I remember one of the first times my wise mama said something to that effect. “I try not to should all over myself.” It wasn’t until quite a few years later that I connected the dots to that saying and self-gaslighting. Here’s the thing though, while I try to avoid using the word, “should”. It’s not ALWAYS self-gaslighting. So, when IS it self-gaslighting and whe...

What comes to mind for you when I say the words, “Self-Gaslighting”? For some of us, we automatically resonate, and know that we have, indeed, done this to ourselves. For others, the old definition of gaslighting we may know brings resistance, as we can’t help but hear some sort of victim blaming. In my practice, the MOST powerful transformations have happened when people have understood the way w...

Did you experience gaslighting in your family of origin? While most of my clients find me to help heal from the gaslighting they’ve experienced in their intimate partnership, almost every single one eventually begins to see how the gaslighting they’ve endured goes all the way back to things that happened in their childhood. Today, I’ve brought on an old friend and colleague whose experiences in th...

When you stop and do the math, what consumes most of your time? When you think about the relationships that may involve GASLIGHTING , what makes the top of your list? Was work your first or second response? If not, it might need to be. So today I’m going to talk just a little bit about GASLIGHTING in the work environment. I’m Sarah Morales, the host of this podcast, and I wanted to let you know ab...