A Bright Future

Core Value, Healing, Inspiration, Joy, Life 0

You can outgrow the wounds of the past with a deep appreciation of yourself, your courage, sensitivity, resilience, and desire for a better life.  You have enormous power and potential to become the person you were meant to be.  Appreciate your strengths and resilience.  Trust your inner voice — it tells you that you do not need to have value poured into you from outside sources.  Your vessel is full and ready to “runneth over.”  As you feel the light of your core value within, you can make it shine out of you, to illuminate all your days.

— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 316

Connection Is the Key

Compassion, Core Value, Marriage, Relationships 0

Just as nothing can be more important to you as an individual than remaining true to your core value, nothing can be more important to you as a couple than your emotional connection to one another.

You cannot resolve disputes with someone you love while being emotionally disconnected from that person.  The disconnection hurts too much and feels too much like betrayal.  To have any chance of finding your way out of a power struggle, you must try hard to make connection before you even attempt to solve the problem.  Your relationship has to be more important than the content of your disagreement, as does the emotional well-being of the most important adult in your life.

— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 298

New Opportunities

Core Value, Healing, Joy, Life 0

So now you have the opportunity to keep your life gaslight-free and go on to a new future.  You have the chance to rework or leave unsatisfying relationships and choose new relationships that feed your sense of self, your vitality, and your joy.  You have the chance to become a stronger, more solid person who charts her own course and lives by her own values.  Most important, you have the chance to discover what you truly want — in your work, your home life, your relationships, and yourself.  Freed from the Gaslight Effect, you can make better choices, choices that are right for you.  As you begin this exciting new portion of your life’s journey, I wish you strength and spirit and all the luck in the world.

— Dr. Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect, p. 233

A Sense of Your Worth

Core Value, Relationships 0

The key to remaining gaslight-free is not to let your self-worth depend on someone else’s approval.  If there is even one little part of you that wants the approval of another person to make you feel better about yourself, boost your confidence, or bolter your sense of who you are in the world, then you are a gaslightee waiting for a gaslighter.  So developing a strong, clear sense of yourself and your worth is crucial to staying out of gaslighting relationships.

— Dr. Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect, p. 224

Truth

Core Value, Relationships, Truth 0

Sometimes, you have to ask yourself what you really think, and go with that deep perception.  If you find out you’re wrong, admit it and correct your error.  If you find out you were right, congratulate yourself and move on.  Either way, your starting point needs to be your sense of what’s true, not your gaslighter’s.  If you’ve idealized your gaslighter and want to think well of him, you may be tempted to substitute his version of events for yours.  But don’t.  That’s how you start dancing the Gaslight Tango.

— Dr. Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect, p. 174

Enjoying Yourself

Core Value, Gratitude, Life 0

Acknowledging your gifts and talents fills you with a sense of self-esteem — so you are not consumed by the need for approval to boost your reputation.  It allows you to own your personal power and not give it away to others.  When you have good self-esteem — which you develop by making commitments to yourself that you keep, valuing your personal code of honor, owning your gifts and talents, and letting go of false humility — you do not look for attention or validation from others….

The false modesty of ignoring or downplaying your gifts and talents is a slap in God’s face.  You received a gift, yet will not own it.

— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 240-241

Redemption

Compassion, Core Value, Forgiveness 0

Feeling badly about making a mistake is natural, but punishing yourself forever is never appropriate.

I urge you to fully examine your beliefs about mistakes and forgiveness.  Most people cannot answer this simple question:  “How much penance is appropriate to expunge your mistake?”  I have seen countless people who are continually punishing themselves in an infinite variety of ways because of a perceived transgression in the past.  Holding yourself to a so-called higher standard (others could be forgiven for this, but not me) does not make you a better person.  It only makes you a more miserable person….

It is a choice if you focus on the worst parts of you, rather than the good.  If you are having difficulty, then focus on helping someone in need, rather than wasting your time and effort on chastising yourself.  Do something positive.  Choose to ask for help — from God, your spiritual advisor, or your friends.  Be honest and admit that you are in charge of how you treat yourself, and start treating yourself the way you would a friend.

— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 230-232

Redemption

Core Value, Forgiveness, Love 0

Love means the ability to identify with imperfection and to recognize the inadequacies, weaknesses, fears and confusion in ourselves and others.  Loving what is unlovable in them is always a challenge.  It’s so much easier to dismiss people for their failings than it is to stick by them.  I wonder why it is that we are more prone to finding fatal flaws than looking for redeeming qualities?

— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 217

Guilt and Shame

Core Value, Forgiveness, Healing 0

Learn to recognize the difference between shame and guilt.  Guilt is believing that what we did isn’t okay.  Authentic guilt is valuable.  It’s a signal that we’ve violated our own, or a universal, moral code.  It keeps us honest, healthy, and on track.  Shame is worthless.  Shame is the belief that whether what we did is okay or not, who we are isn’t.  Guilt is resolvable.  We make amends for what we did, learn from our mistake, and attempt to correct our behavior.  Shame isn’t resolvable.  It leaves us with a sense that all we can do is apologize for our existence, and even that falls short of what’s needed….

If we feel ashamed because we’ve done something we feel guilty about, we convert shame to guilt, then make any appropriate amends and change our behavior.  If we decide shame is trying to enforce an unhealthy, inappropriate message on us, we change the message.  If we feel ashamed about something we cannot or need not change, we surrender to the situation and give ourselves a big hug.

— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 107-110