“gaslighting” happens when someone tells us we should be different than how we are, and we react by doubting ourselves.
here is a (mild content) example; “I’m going to take the day to myself.” “don’t you want to hang our with me? You spend too much time alone.” And then the person who is told this reacts by questioning whether they spend too much time alone and wondering how to change that about themselves instead of realizing that they are just introverted by nature. in this example, someone is judgmentally Persuading someone else to think or feel differently than they do. If the person receiving these judgments doesn’t have a strong sense of their own identity, they may doubt and invalidate their own feelings. If the person receiving these judgments knows their truth naturally and simply, they will recognize that the other person is projecting onto them instead of understanding where they are coming from. They might feel disconnected from the other person, but their sense of self won’t be affected. if we have repeatedly been judged and criticized by authorities as children, we might internalize gaslighting and do it to ourselves unconsciously. we might tell ourselves that we should perceive, think, or feel the way that other people or cultural norms do. We might project our inner authority onto others and believe them to know more than we do about what is right, even with regards to ourselves! In this culture, the externalization of authority is normal as we look up to doctors, teachers, etc. and aren’t necessarily taught to tune in to our own intuition and self-validate. The term gaslighting itself was originally meant to mean someone who is intentionally telling someone else things that aren’t true in order to have power over them or make them feel crazy. It came from a movie where a man would turn on or off a gas lamp and tell a woman that she was the one who did it. She would think that she was going crazy, instead of standing behind her conviction and realizing that she was being tricked. This is an extreme situation, tho gaslighting can happen on a much subtler level. The Gaslighter might not have any ill intention, but simply be excessively strong in thir paradigm so that they’re not able to see outside of it and consider anothers’ paradigm. The person receiving the gaslighting is excessively passive in their paradigm. Instead of standing behind their own convictions, they doubt themselves. This is a classic codependent—narcissist dynamic where the narcissist has an overly strong sense of their own subjective reality and the codependent passively yields so that their own subjective worlds bends to contour to the opinions and perspective of the narcissist. The lesson for the narcissist is to take an interest in other peoples differences and set their own desires of the other person aside out of care for the other person. The lesson for the codependent is to strengthen their sense of identity and feel boundaries and pride around their sense of self.
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“by whose mere opening and closing of the eyes of consciousness, there is the appearance and disillusion of the world”
Around sunset especially, I feel pulllleeeddd inwards to melt deep deep deep inside my closed eyes it is like a trip comming on (I do not take entheogens ever) as the veil vaporizes and set and setting become super important… am i in a city? or with people who don’t understand who are pulling my attention outwards? or can i go into a warm dark closet or, best, a gentle evening secret nature spot. my body melts and twitches and my eyes flicker and my forehead gets hot. and so often i am struck by the density that is expected normalcy for adequate functioning in society… the stiff posturing and smiles of the worn extrovert… whate a farce to place such weight on just this one dimension! what a contracted consensus reality! I drink no coffee I don’t even smoke pot! I am simply open sensed and connected with the earth. I value sensitivity even though so often here it hurts me! I still cultivate it because I find it shows me Truth palpably when I let it melt me! melt me into a misst, blue twilight, I relax into you every time you nudge me to! but gosh golly this past three weeks in Santa Barbara have been such a wreck for a nervous system… people here are so friendly they don’t recognize that when I close my eyes in nature I’m not interested in saying hi. It’s a huge distraction while I’m getting my traction in the earth. The consciousness here is so extroverted! Maybe better for Leo season. thank you to my new friend who I feel so seen by and gave me this review: “you are a pioneer and the way that you perceive things.” What a compliment to counterbalance the amount of invalidation I have faught off in this lifetime lol. Open your senses more and more. It’s so available to you if only you will listen humans of Kali Yuga! I wish we may all Be blessed by nurturing environments to listen to! Contemplating continuity
The white thread Needled from one plane of the fabric Of the universe, Unaltered, through to continue… Yesterday I ran the faucet for the first time in a month, and a whole colony of ants fell out and spiraled down the drain, a whole colony, and I dreamt of being out in the ocean, and as my body consciousness drowns, all the fear, the struggle… and then What happens in that moment? An existential somersault I still Continue through on the other side… Returning Home, to silent stillness, the deep inward tide, Drown my outward pulls and tries Resting ever subtler eyes On Autumn’s horizon Remembering remembering the power of
FORGETTING When IT pops into my mind to start obsessing or fretting I catch the cue to tune in and tune out distraction Catch my traction with mantra Find my footing in intentional-mental-action! Was rushing
Lost my keys! Then recieved Strong memo To grapple with FOMO Take the day solo Drop into the unknown Because without center, Noone goes where I go, Beside myself in unknown Distracted by the outgo I know the lights out there are attractive and bright
and the people in the town dance straight through the night, but if you close your eyes and walk into the night, find a Cedar throne, and melt into its side Cedar will take you deeper inside, Relieve the stardust from your eyes Remind you that splendor sparks from your center Introverting your vision to Render ignition When a pink-purple cloud catches your eye mid-deliberation,
Accept the invitation to melt deep into relaxation, Opening yourself to divine inspiration Welcome Mars retrograde! Beginning tomorrow, Oct 30, Mars will station retrograde in Gemini, in a square to Neptune retrograde in Pisces. To me this energetic influence is ultimately here to say, “Surrender your thoughts, choices, and actions to be moved by an intuited and synchronous Truth beyond what your mind might grasp.” You don’t need to understand, things don’t need to work according to plan, people’s minds change with the winds, loosen the reigns, no expectations, redo it if you need to, let it fall through, let it go, all is well. Neptune can bring confusion and uncertainty to Mars who wants to take Decisive Action. As a default of this energy, the human embodiment of this influence may overthink, try unsuccessfully to achieve conceptual clarity and decisiveness, need to talk it through with someone multiple times, change directions multiple times, need to redo, think twice, say something one day then take it back the next, head in multiple directions simultaneously, where’d I put my to do list? Take action, then regret, forget what we are thinking or talking about, be caught in the mind, then become mindful, pause, rest, take a nap, meditate, relax, and receive inspiration beyond human imagination. I love that this transit is beginning as Mercury (ruler of Gemini) ends its transit thru Libra and enters Scorpio to join the Sun… in Scorpio this Mercury wants to go deep, in pursuit of Truth, of what intuitively feels right, and this less-logical logic of felt, sensed intuition will bring synchronous gifts eventually, even if it is preceded by confusion, uncertainty, ambivalence, or disillusionment. I don’t need to know which why to go, I trust in the Knowing source from which my mind and action spring forth! “Stay the course, don’t disperse”
These words came to me this morning with the shift into Virgo season, concentrating expanded energies back into what is most calling for our focus now. All of the external pulls, possibilities, entanglements, gossip, flings, and drama are less interesting distractions as we yield to rest back within ourselves The party isn’t over, Venus is still in Leo, though with the sun in virgo, now it’s time to reintegrate self-care, work, and intentional energy applications Into our Leo-heart expanded personality. Earth, even in this injured age, still provides a wild buffet
To the quick, strong deer, the big wooly bear, To the eagles, ravens, and flys of the air, To the rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and mice, But what of the humans? And how of the housecat? In what forest does the feral child habitat? Are we the top of the food chain? But starve in the wild? We carve, domesticate, culture Our food stamp upon her? What pride in Hard Work and what virtue? To sweat storm and labor, when we could just graze her? Adore and praise her? Can we? Where’s the humans modern day earth-buffet? In sky-rise office buildings, where we make grocery earnings? In the mono fields we planted with our own proud hands? Or in the jungle, somewhere hidden behind the thorns....? “I feel” does not equal “my position on this matter is...”
feelings are fluid! We can allow ourselves and others to articulate what sensations/emotions are present, and then allow them to change! “The remains of a dying sunlike star have formed the Butterfly Nebula (M2-9)… Our own sun will likely meet a similar fate in a few billion years” (Gendler). And what’s a few billion years to a sun? To an Earth? There we were, concerned with global warming… and then the lights went out! There I was, young , wild and free, but what ever was me before my mom pushed me out?! I'm not saying to downplay the Now, but to expand the WOW! Wow, what happens when we hit the diameter of our frame, the bubble of our experience encapsulated atmosphere surrounded by Wonder (or water, if it’s flat earth). Oh dear Wonder, what AM I?! What IS all this? What has designed me, space, time, this and that universe? You’ve gifted me Wonder, without any answers in sight, just feelings, magnitism, and solstice night!
Beliefs and Stories Flowing Through the Mind, Some Staying For a Time: Gemini and Sagittarius Dance7/15/2022 Concepts at their best are kept alive, contouring to our ever fluxing, lived experience! Beliefs stagnate when they are believed to be Truth, and dogma begins when static belief is spread as Truth. A healthy Gemini mind offers Infinite possible answers to the Sagittarian pursuit of Truth. With such a variety of angles available, Sagittarius can rest in the great mystery, the height of the Gemini mind, unknowingness. Gemini and Sagittarius are mutable signs, indicating an open mind whose concepts and beliefs fluctuate to align with lived subjective experience. So to keep the mind open and flowing, I hold Mystery as the Absolute Truth, and I allow concepts and beliefs to be held lightly, as living experiments that change over time!
who do i want to be? where do I want to be? do i want to be? i want to be! want to be! to be be Is it necessary to know the "underlying cause" of the challenges we experience in order to actualize a healed reality now?
In reaction to the Western symptom-based medical model's shortcomings, an alternative paradigm for physical and emotional healing emphasizes the importance of treating the root cause. I've been into this paradigm for years, though I've recently recognized that I've adopted the "root-cause" story as an assumption that I hadn't questioned. Does the cause of symptoms need to be accessed in order to heal? Is it always possible to know what the core cause is? To access the core, do we need to go back into our early childhood forgotten memories, according to the psychodynamic paradigm, or farther back in to our past lives, and from there, can we access what that trauma was that catalyzed a pattern that still iterates now? Is that always how it works? I wonder if it is even possible for a human to access the core, the root, which is now appearing more like a root system, a network of inextricably intertwined factors of individual, environment, ancestry, experience... (when) is it (always) necessary to know the cause in order for healing to take place? is it (ever/always) possible? How did the perception that it is necessary to go into the past in order to access healing now come about? I know Freud was into the childhood stuff... what about other cultures and using plant medicines? maybe just, love How often it is we find ourselves in slightly awkward situations! We don’t know how to respond, things don’t go as planned, or we are left wondering what is going on for someone else… I want to offer a conscious communication tool for these times! Acknowledgment! Acknowledgement is a way to connect with someone briefly and close the loop of an interaction. It’s a touch base with someone that offers a feeling of completion within the moment of the interaction. It offers a kindness like a wave and a smile.
Here’s some examples of acknowledgment and times it can be nice to give an acknowledgement: Some fellow dancers and I had casually planned to meet up to jam, but when I arrived at the spot where everyone was meeting, I just saw two dancers and they were both on their phones. I briefly hugged one of them hello, and then went on my way and did my own thing. It was fine, no big deal, though a part of me was left hanging. Were we still going to dance later? If I left could I find them in the same spot? A bit later that day, the dancer who had hugged me hello sent a message saying, (I’m paraphrasing) “ hey, I just want to acknowledge that we were going to meet up to dance, but when you arrived at the spot, we were on our phones.” It was a good feeling to receive this acknowledgement. The acknowledgment resolved the disconnection I felt when I was left wondering whether dance was happening or not. The acknowledgment gave completion and closure to the interaction. Another example, I was going to pick something up at my neighbor’s house, but I forgot. So, I sent him a message, saying, “hey just acknowledging that I was going to come over today, but I forgot so I will come by tomorrow.” Instead of leaving him hanging, leaving him possibly wondering if I would stop by today after dark, or wondering why I didn’t come over, I offered this little gesture as a period at the end of the sentence of our unfulfilled arranged connection. Another time it can be nice to offer acknowledgment: Maybe you and someone you were close with are taking space, though you run into one another at a group gathering. You are both there, you both see eachother and are aware of one another’s presence. It could be nice--depending on the situation--to say, “hey, just acknowledging that we are both here”. Another example: Maybe someone surprises you with some words: They are angry at you, or they confront you, or they accuse you, or they want you to make a decision, and you aren’t sure how to respond. It can seem like an easy escape to become small, say nothing, and retreat into ourselves because we don’t know how to respond. Acknowledgment is a way to maturely complete the circle of communication. “Hey, I heard what you said, I care about you, and I’m not sure what to say yet.” Or, “I want to acknowledging that you said some words to me and I’m not sure what to say yet so I’m going to take some time to feel into myself and how I’d like to respond. I want to acknowledge that I heard you, I heard what you said, I heard what you shared.” Acknowledgment is an invitation to be a little bit vulnerable. It’s allowing attention to be brought to a feeling of mild tension, or to that things that didn’t go as planned. It can take a little bit of courage, a little bit of an inner push. It’s so easy to not respond or to let things slide when we receive a message from someone who is angry at us or we forget to do something. Instead of brushing these things to the back of our mind, wondering how the other person may be affected, acknowledgment is a way to complete the interaction with someone else. The flipside of acknowledgment is checking in. When we are the ones left wondering, instead of assuming or coming up with stories about what’s going on for the other person, we can simply ask them! For example, I could have asked my dance friends whether we would still be dancing and my neighbor could have asked whether I would still be coming over. Bless! “RIPTIDE”
this time you see the warning sign and so you don’t test the waters you swore you’d resigned seductive eyes suction at your root but you but you recognize the compulsive feeling as not-true-to=you, tollerable, and in disguise as rapture that doesn’t last, much to the contrast, it’s ice cream in the freezer, his text from a new number, heroin in the drawer you’ve been down those rabbit’s holes before, your old footprints right in front of you, trailblazed the way, but this time you choose to STAY, root DEEPER, even as your limbs may quiver and sway, and your mind drifts way back to those impossible rapturous days… the trailhead that once said “right this way! enjoy your stay!” now says “RIPTIDE” in red! You station, re-route, and right your direction instead yes, yes YES! Mercury stationing direct conjunct pluto in Capricorn: an opportunity to pause, redirect, self-reflect and choose self-respect. Breaking addicitons: Those times we felt powerless to the complusions of apparently inevitably magnetic pulls to transcendent bliss-outs, now aren’t shimmering like they once were. We are strong enough to let the glossy promise of pleasure fade, to mourn the loss of that was once worth throwing dignity out the window for. We see the way out and we choose to go with Saturn. Now Mercury can apprehend that karmic signature feeling, the desire to lose onesself to the object of desire. Now we have the strength to tolerate the feeling of compulsion, of being seduced by a black hole, now no longer yielding to sexy gravity, now sturdy and strong in our mind, persistent, balanced and poised like a mountain goat on the edge of a cliff. |
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