How can you become immune to being
gaslighted? In this video, I'm going to share with you five insidious
forms of gaslighting and what you can do to resist it.
For those of you who are new to my channel, I'm Shaneen Megji.
I'm a transition coach.
Welcome to my YouTube series on Toxicity is not your Destiny.
My mission is to help people navigate toxic relationships and environments
in their lives from a biblical, practical and spiritual perspective.
So if you like this video, please take a moment
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because every single week I'm going to be bringing you a new video to empower you
in navigating toxic relationships and environments.
So now let's get into the subject.
In my last video, I shared with you how you can know the difference between
someone gaslighting you and someone pointing out your blind spot.
So I would highly recommend that you watch this video alongside with this one.
Before we get into the five insidious
forms of gaslighting, I want to ask, what is gaslighting?
This is a little bit of a review.
So gaslighting is a form of abuse that usually happens over an extended
period of time where someone is subtly manipulating you in ways to make you doubt
your reality and to lose trust in your faculties.
Basically, they're using manipulative tactics to get you to feel like you can't
trust what you're thinking or sensing or feeling or discerning anymore.
So in the rest of this video,
I'm going to share with you five insidious forms of gaslighting and the things you
can practice in your life to become more resistant and immune to it.
So are you ready?
The first insidious form of gaslighting is when the narcissist gets you to believe
that he or she can see into you better than you can see into yourself.
And it's very easy for someone to do this
if they're in a position of authority, especially spiritual authority,
or if they're more intelligent or more gifted in some way.
If a narcissist wants to manipulate you, he or she can use their position or their
strengths to make you feel like you are in denial.
You're the one who's blind or deceived or deluded or under some demonic influence.
And another form of gaslighting is when
the narcissist abuses you in private and at the same time love-bombs
all the people who are close to you,
close to you both, who know you both or who are in your environment.
So they may be cruel, contemptuous,
negative, angry with you behind closed doors, but when you and them are out
with other people, the narcissist can be incredibly kind,
caring, attentive and generous with the whole group.
Maybe this happens when you go to church
with this person or when you're out at a restaurant with a group.
And so the narcissist is wonderful. They're helpful.
They're generous with people around them.
They're like a saint.
And you yourself are thinking, "Wow, this person's amazing.
They're so great.
Maybe I was wrong to think that they're so cruel and abusive and hurtful.
Maybe it's me.
Maybe I'm overreacting."
But as soon as it's just you and them, suddenly they're moody, negative,
cantankerous, lashing out at you and nobody sees this other side.
That's the thing.
Everybody else sees this amazing, kind, meek, generous and humble person.
So you have people around you who think
so highly of the narcissist, or the person who's gaslighting you.
And so when you share about what you are going through or anything remotely close,
you get gaslighted by the people around you and you're made out to be the problem.
You're being pinned by everyone as
the problem child in the relationship with the narcissist.
And that is a form of gaslighting because it causes you to doubt your own
perceptions, wondering if it really is true.
Maybe you're the one being difficult and overreactive because so many other
people think so highly of the gaslighter. And the narcissist is so effective because
he or she compounds gaslighting upon gaslighting.
So now that the narcissist has succeeded in having a group of people gaslighting
you, you're the one that starts to feel more crazy and more unhinged.
And so what happens is that they gaslight
you more by triggering you in your weakest areas.
So if you are fearful of rejection
and abandonment, they will do things to trigger that.
If you have insecurities, they will say or do things to trigger those insecurities.
So they gaslight you by actually doing
things to make you come unglued and unhinged and looking unstable and crazy.
So they're getting so much
narcissistic supply by their cruel behavior against you, because, of course,
all of this gives them this power and this sense of significance.
So it's feeding into them, becoming more high-functioning and looking
more stable and more put together while you're falling apart.
So, of course, you might believe that you're losing it
because that's how everyone else around you thinks.
And meanwhile, the narcissist looks as calm as a cucumber.
So that, again, is another form of gaslighting.
Another insidious form of gaslighting has to do with the way the gaslighter or
the narcissist is presenting their argument or their side of things.
The way they present themselves can sound
so confident and so strong and so persuasive.
They just present in such a clear,
articulate way that you can't help but believe that what they're saying is
true, because, of course, the best presenter of the argument just wins.
And most people can fall into a deception when they mistake the person who is
the most confident in the conversation as the one who is most right.
And that is not always the case.
Many times the one who is the most confident actually has the best exterior
shell to cover up what is lacking on the inside.
So I just want you to know that it's really important not to mistake the person
who is best at arguing their case or sounding the most confident to be right.
This skill to present the most confident sounding arguments is what a narcissist
banks on to cover their shame and also their sin.
Another form of gaslighting is when
the narcissist makes you doubt other people's loyalty or feelings about you.
They might say to you, Oh, you think so?
And so is your closest friend.
Well, they think X, Y, Z about you.
They will make it seem like the people
closest to you are confiding negative things about you to them.
And they do this to triangulate you, to keep you on edge.
I once went on a trip with some friends and we had a really great time.
At least that was my perception of the trip and we really enjoyed each other.
And so after the trip,
this individual in my life said to me, "Oh, those friends did not enjoy their time
with you and they don't keep secrets from me."
So of course, I was tempted to believe that maybe they were offended about
something and they just didn't have the courage to tell me about it.
So it really caused me to wonder what was going on.
So, of course, gaslighting throws you off
balance with people and a gaslighter can plant these insidious comments in your
mind to make you doubt other people's loyalty towards you.
So how can you be resistant to all of this gaslighting? In that particular situation,
I decided to go and verify with my friends and take a very disarming approach.
I approach them individually and I said, "I really value your friendship.
Is there anything I did to offend you on the trip?
Please be completely honest with me.
I want to hear."
Well, those friends were taken aback
and they said, no, they had a great time with me.
And I shared with them what the other
person had said to me about what they said.
And basically they told me what that person said was not true.
So I took their word for it.
I flushed whatever that gaslighter said to me in the toilet.
And this is something I would recommend doing.
If you have a narcissist or an abuser
in your life who is using gaslighting to triangulate you with your friends,
don't believe the lies and check with your friends.
Chances are the gaslighter is twisting
things that other people are saying and using things and words as weapons
against you to throw you off balance, to make you doubt your perceptions.
And what you need to do is just flushed all of that in the toilet.
A second important thing you can do to be
resistant to gaslighting is becoming self-aware.
Pay attention to how you feel.
Feelings are not meant to be your God, but God gives us feelings to communicate
with us, just like the icons on the dashboard of a car.
So they point to something.
So if you're feeling like something is off
intuitively or you're uncomfortable with what you're hearing or you're not
having a good experience of yourself around this person, pay attention to that.
These feelings are giving you a message
and you need to dig further into what is going on there.
Our subconscious mind,
which is actually our emotional mind, which is the seat of our emotional
and spiritual intelligence, where we feel life,
did you know that it processes up to four
billion bits per second while the conscious mind,
which is the seat of reasoning, the part of us that accepts or rejects
ideas, do you know that that part of us processes only two thousand
bits per second?
So just imagine that? Four billion bits
with our unconscious mind versus two thousand bits with our conscious mind per second.
so our subconscious mind picks up things at lightning speed.
And if you're feeling like something is off in your gut,
it's likely because of your unconscious, and it's likely that it has picked up
something at lightning speed that your conscious mind has not yet caught up to.
So don't ever think that your intuition is secondary.
It is actually often sharper and further ahead than our conscious thinking.
There are many scriptures in the Bible which says every matter may be established
by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Don't take the narcissist's word for it.
And if a narcissist has created a culture around himself or herself that revolves
around their way of seeing and doing, consider that entire group or culture as
one testimony because they will all say the same thing.
You're dealing with groupthink.
Now groupthink is an unhealthy conformity
that does not come from God where the entire group of people has the same blind spot.
So getting two or three testimonies
all in that group of people who have the same blind spot is pretty useless.
So it's important then to ask God to bring people into your life that is
on the outside of that circle that you can also check in with.
And maybe you'll need coaches or
counselors in the interim who carry God's wisdom from outside of that group.
There's a proverb that says, "Where there is no counsel, the people fall.
But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety."
So have a variety of counselors around you who carry God's wisdom and His spirit.
And these don't have to be literal
counselors, but just people who have that ability to give good counsel.
The fourth thing you can do to be more
immune to gaslighting is to disagree and be comfortable to agree to disagree.
You might be someone who likes to keep the peace and who doesn't like much conflict.
I think most humans are like that.
Or you might get worn out by arguing
with someone who's so insistent with their points.
Sometimes it's just easier to give
in and agree than to keep belaboring or have someone keep belaboring the issues.
But listen, if this is a pattern of relating that you
have with someone in order to keep the peace, you're giving your power away.
You're losing your voice and you're opening yourself up to being gaslighted
because gaslighting seeks to erode insidiously and subtly over time until you
don't even notice that you're in over your head.
So, there's this expression where people say, choose your battles,
but sometimes you need to battle often and maybe come across as a disagreeable
person in order to train someone how to treat you.
And I call these micro- conflicts and micro-fights.
So you might say it's not worth it because
you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
But I'm telling you that sometimes it is worth fighting on the molehill level
to prevent things from getting to a mountain level.
It's like eradicating tiny weeds in the garden before they grow up
into these full-grown weeds and steal all the nutrients in the soil.
So this is how you would tackle gaslighting.
I believe you need to fight it out on those micro-levels with another person
until they get the message not to mess with you any more on that issue because
they're not going to get anywhere with you on it.
Now, the fifth thing you can do to be
immune to gaslighting is to hold firm to your perspective while listening
to the other person's perspective, accepting theirs, not gaslighting them.
So they might say to you, "Well, that never happened" or "I never said that."
And you can come back with your
perspective and say, "Well, on this date and on this time,
I saw you do this and this" or "I heard you say this and this.
So we have two versions of the issue to work through.
We're going to have to accept that there are two versions of the same
story since that was not my perspective and that was not my understanding.
So maybe we both can go away and pray and see how God sees the situation."
And that is how you can deal with someone
who is trying to invalidate you or impose their version of reality on you and get
you to reject what you're seeing or sensing.
The six thing you can do to make yourself
more gas resistant is to strengthen yourself in God.
So be prepared for rejection and betrayal,
but know that God is your Vindicator and your Defender.
In due time, the truth will come out.
The narcissist may succeed in gaslighting you for a time through triangulation
and scapegoating and invalidating you, but just know that God sees everything.
Nothing is hidden from God.
God cannot be fooled.
He cannot be mocked and He will cut
to the truth of how things really are and He will expose things for what they
are, all the things hidden in secret that are done behind closed doors,
He will do it in his perfect way and His perfect timing.
So you can rest in God and be at peace because God has your back.
Now, the seventh thing you can do is know yourself and know your value.
Be strong and who you are.
Be confident.
Don't let people walk all over you.
Don't be a doormat.
Gaslighting has a way of diminishing your value.
If the other person is smarter or more successful or more eloquent in their
speech or whatever, it's easy to feel inferior and to back down.
But just know that God gives His grace to the humble.
He uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise.
So your wisdom and God can be infinitely better than someone else's book-
smart who doesn't know God.
So know your gifts. Know your strengths, your anointing as your calling.
All of these things helps you to be immune
to someone who diminishes you or who looks down on you.
The apostle Paul even said to Timothy,
he said, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you're young."
So in essence, Timothy had an office for teaching and pastoring.
He had spiritual authority, even though he was very young.
So he needed to know his value and his position in the spirit in order to not
succumb to people walking all over him and maybe people gaslighting him.
The other thing you can do, finally, is cultivate multiple relationships
with trustworthy, like-minded and yet diverse people.
Having many people around you in your life
can help with expanding your thinking and your perspective.
Every person in your life reflects back to you who you are for good or for bad.
The more close relationships you have
with like-minded people who are yet diverse and different than you,
the more feedback you get on reality and your reality. And the more you do that,
the less weight you will put on someone who gaslights you because you have other
voices in your life to help you to stay grounded in reality.
So I hope these tips were helpful.
If you have stories or testimonies,
I would love to hear them in the comments section.
If there are other things you would want me to teach about or talk about,
please feel free to drop your ideas in the comments section below this video.
So this brings me to the end of my video.
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struggling with how to cope with being gaslighted.
And that's it.
So thank you so much for watching.
I appreciate you so much.
And I look forward to seeing you in the next video.