Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. And today we are going to be asking the question, is my mind gaslighting me? It's kind of lighthearted, but we're gonna look at, look beneath the surface and see what's going on inside the mind today. So is the mind gaslighting me? First of all, what is gaslighting? We hear it all the time. I'm gonna define it. Actually, it refers to a pop culture reference, a movie reference. I forget the year that it was, I believe it was in the 1940s, there was a movie called Gaslight, and it was where a husband and wife were living in a house and the husband started making the wife believe that something was going on in the house, like changing the pictures around. And then when she would say, this is going on and that's going on, he would say, oh no, nothing's wrong. It's in your imagination. So forth. So gaslighting means that you're experiencing something and something is telling you that it's not what you're experiencing that's basically what gaslighting means. So is the mind gaslighting me means, is the mind telling me something that's not really true and am I believing it? So the thought I had about this is. Very simple example. You're at work. Let's say you're going to work or you're going to, wherever you're going to where people are and you're walking down the hallway, let's say work, and somebody walks by you and doesn't say, hello. So what happened was the person just didn't say hello. But in your mind, let's say something happens like what's wrong is something wrong? Does she not like me? Is she mad at me? What's going on? I wonder why she didn't say hello or something in your head Could be saying, well, she should have said hello. That was rude. I can't believe it. Blah, blah, blah. So let's do the questioning one first. Is she mad at me? This and that? Maybe she's mad at me. Maybe something's wrong. That's the gaslighting. I'm gonna call it gaslighting, because the mind is trying to convince you of something that if you look at it in reality, in sober reality is. Maybe not true. And actually if you use logic, is it true? Is it likely that she's sitting there thinking about how much she hates you and that's why she didn't say hello to you? I mean, maybe it's true, but it's probably unlikely if we're dealing with adults. So when I'm talking about the mind gas lighting, what I mean is maybe we can take a look at our mind with a little bit of a critical view and pro and maybe take a look and see, is what I'm saying in my mind true? Are those voices like really true? I've been believing them for a long time. I put down here paranoia. 'cause paranoia is a big one that you think something's wrong. Something happens and you automatically think something's wrong, and then maybe I think something's wrong with me. Why? Ooh, something must be wrong. Ooh, what does that mean? What's gonna happen now? So gaslighting means that someone is trying to convince you of something that's not true. But generally, the person who's being gaslighted knows what's true. And I'm gonna say that spiritual truth is the truth that we need to start, stabilizing in. Because the mind, for whatever reason, whatever we put in there over many, many years or whatever belief systems we have and so forth, however we were brought up, whatever social situation, schooling, those voices are there, but maybe we could start having a critical view and say, you know what? I don't know if you're actually true. Maybe you're not true. So what spiritual truth are we gonna hold onto? But before we do that, let me ask this. Is the mind trying to tell me that something's not true? And then, oh, here's another one leaving me out. Oh, they must be, they're leaving me out. I didn't get a chance to do this. My boss never gives me a chance. This person didn't give me a chance. Or you feel defeated by your job or work, or maybe your parents or something, some authority, you feel defeated, like, oh, they don't. They're not paying attention to me. They're not giving me any attention. I deserve some more attention. I can share something from my own life. There was one time where this thing that I'm not getting any attention, or I'm not getting what I deserve was really ruining my life. That thought that I deserve this. I shared in the podcast one time where I put in for a job, assistant manager job, and I was convinced that I should have this job. Like I had all the qualifications and so forth, that I really was convinced that I would do a good job and I probably would have, but I didn't get the job. And long story short, I was devastated and I suffered terribly for like five years. I suffered because I didn't get this job. Why did I suffer for five years? Someone was talking in my mind, something's wrong. They don't like you, they didn't appreciate you, they're terrible, blah, blah, blah. You can't, they're not your friend. You know, whatever. I don't wanna try to give voice to every single aspect of it, but I'm sure you can imagine yourself if you've ever had like a self-critical or negative voice in your mind. And it drags you down. So for five years, I know it sounds weird to be that upset for five years, but I was that emotionally invested, that for five years it was dragging me down. Another thing, relationships. I was in a relationship or relationships. And then when you try to break off the relationship, you feel bad and then you feel like you still wanna talk to the person. Or maybe you need to set a boundary with someone and you can't because something inside you saying, no, you still have to be a good person. You still have to keep contact. You still have to this or that, or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe you have an opportunity to speak or to get to know somebody and something's holding you back. No, you better not do that. Blah, blah, blah. So today I am calling it gaslighting. Because whatever the mind is telling you is not really true. It's to create a feeling of despair, actually. It's to create a feeling of helplessness and despair. And none of it is true, but it feels true. It feels very true because you're in the throes of the feeling like it's talking and you're like, oh, I can't believe this is happening. And for five years I was like that. I'm sure some of you can relate to it. Either it was in a relationship or when you're growing up or, or whatever, but you're in the throes of the feeling and the mind is sitting there talking to you and keeping you in that feeling, creating the thoughts. So why is this important? I remember something else happened. We were in a meeting one time and someone got up and shared that they really felt that they were being left out. They had done so many years of work with the organization and so forth, and they really felt left out. And I remember, first of all, I remember feeling that person was very courageous for sharing the truth in the group. And I found out later that some of the leaders of the group, took that person aside and tried to talk to her and tried to let her know that whatever she was thinking in her mind was not true. But it was very hard to convince her of that because she had it in her mind. It's like, if you don't get this, they don't care about you. If you don't get this, then they're not paying attention to you. If you don't get this, then you're no good because you should be, you should have be appreciated, and so forth and so on and so forth. So they were trying to explain to her, but it didn't, you know, again, if the emotions are there. Whatever words you say is not going to really help. So how do you stop this thing from happening? I'm gonna say meditation, but specifically Raj Yoga Meditation is very powerful because I'm telling myself the truth. Now, if we wanna say that the gaslighter is telling a lie, then what is the truth? The truth is that I am a soul. That is using a body right now in time and space because I'm a human being. I'm a human soul in a body living, playing out my part. And as a soul, my nature is peace. My nature is love. My nature is wisdom, purity, happiness. That's my nature. That's the truth. Now you might say, well, how's that gonna help me if I'm in the middle of a fight? Or how's that gonna help me? Well, maybe it won't help right in the middle of the fight, but if I practice this every day consistently for a period of time, it's gonna build up another it emotional, energetic reality other than listening to that gaslighter tell me how everything is so bad and how I'm so bad and they're so wrong. And I'm being left out and I'm lonely and they're, they hate me. And whatever else that thing is saying, usually it's some version of something's wrong. Is anything really wrong? Ask yourself that right now. Right now, as you're listening to this, is anything wrong? What's wrong? What is wrong? Is wrong actually a thing. Is there anything such thing as wrong? I mean, I'm getting a little philosophical here, but as we get more understanding of the truth, we start to question even right and wrong or good and bad or all these things that we learn. Now, that's not to say that, I should say, if somebody, you know, punches somebody in the face, I should say, oh, there's no such thing as right and wrong. I'm not saying it like that, obviously. We're gonna work within the context of living, and I'm gonna say that violence is inherently not spiritual. Let's say. I'm not gonna say violence is wrong even, I'm just gonna say that it's not spiritual. If you are peaceful and loving and gentle and pure. There's no way you're gonna be violent. You're going to be sensitive to others. You're gonna wish the best, and you're gonna wish to be in such a way that everyone is peaceful and content and fulfilled. That's a natural thing. So violence wouldn't be there, reactions wouldn't be there. Paranoia wouldn't be there. Fear wouldn't be there. If somebody doesn't say hello to me, I'm not gonna react. I just have good wishes for everybody. Does that happen overnight? No. But at least there's a chance of getting over the gaslighting because there's gaslighting happening about all kinds of things. Bodies, age. You know, I, I shared this the other day on the podcast that this body is aging. So the face is starting to change and so forth. And I'm like looking at, I'm like, holy cow, it's happening. Then I said to myself, and then I'm watching the thoughts, okay? So there's thoughts happening, but I'm not gonna call it a gaslighter anymore because I know I have enough of the truth now to kind of give counterbalance. If you don't have enough of the truth in there, enough built up enough energy of truth built up, it's very hard to resist those thoughts. Does anybody out there have negative self-talk? Self-critical thinking. I wanna say in this conversation, that's the gaslighter. It's telling you things that aren't true, but we need power. We need some understanding, and we need some energetic buildup, some accumulation of truth of peace inside ourselves. They talk about, let's say toxic relationships and sometimes, let's say it's typically the woman who wants to leave or something, I'm just, just saying, could be the man too. But generally it's the woman that gets up the courage enough to leave. Why? Because women are are conditioned to wanna keep the family together or wanna keep the relationship together. So sometimes we'll put up with things. Men put up with things too. But in this case, I'm talking about the women. You put up with things and because you wanna keep the house together or something. But eventually there's enough pain that you say, Nope, you know what, I'm not doing this anymore. And then you leave or you stop and that's good because your self-respect is coming up. So in that case, it's like your self-respect builds up enough to break the cycle. But I'm gonna say you could have everything going fine and still be suffering from this kind of gas lighter in your head. So in that case, I recommend daily meditation practice. I'm a soul. My nature is peace. Build up. One drop every day, 15, 20 minutes in the morning when you wake up, start building up this drop. Drop by drop of peace and self-respect and truth, true energy to counterbalance that false energy. Soon, one day you'll be, it'll fill up a little bit more. You'll feel a little bit better. You won't even know it because it's like a daily practice or you're just doing it. But little by little this thing builds up and one day you'll be having, you'll be doing something and the voice will start and you'll be like, wow, that's just a voice. Whoa. The gaslighter doesn't have any power anymore. Why is that you're not fighting it, but you have some other truth to stand on. So is the mind gaslighting me? I would say for most of us, yes. It's saying things that aren't true and we're believing it because we are not strong enough in our true reality to counteract it. So what do we need to do? We need to do meditation self-care, have an attitude of self-care, and also listen to things like this that are talking about the mind, talking about the inner workings. 'cause we wanna get an idea of what's happening in here. I know I suffered for so many years and I did a lot of work on myself. I did psychology, I did self-help. I did a or anything you. I did it all. It didn't really break this cycle. No matter what I did on the outside or no matter how much I studied, or no matter who I was around or not around, I still had that gaslighter in my head that was telling me I was no good. That was telling me something's wrong. Now I can say maybe that thing is there, maybe. I wanna say maybe less than 5% of the time, it's like a miracle that I'm saying that. That was there all the time. That was my natural landscape of the mind was like that. So I'm here to say that this really does work daily self-care practice, daily meditation practice. Begin to build up your true self-respect and the energy of the truth and the energy of peace. Then you'll be able to stand up to that gaslighter and you'll be able to say, and you won't even have to fight. You'll just be like, oh, I see you. See ya. 'cause you know the truth. So I'm gonna leave it there. I hope that that gave you a little something to think about. You know, there's so much going on in the mind and we can talk about it from so many different angles. But this idea of gaslighting. I think it's helpful because gaslighting is not help, is not gonna help you. It's definitely harmful, and to be able to recognize it and to know what to do about it is also helpful. If you fight it, it keeps it going. Like in a toxic relationship, if you just keep fighting, it keeps on feeding off the fighting. But if you get stronger and more peaceful, it's got nothing to scare. It's got nothing to convince. It's got nothing to make confused anymore. Because you're already stable, so I will leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
