Gaslighting ourselves out of our dreams

& other methods of avoidance

images sourced from Pinterest

I've worked with women for almost 7 years helping them to achieve their personal and business related goals and to show up for their life in a way that is truly, deeply aligned with them.

It has not been easy as you can imagine, but all of the moments of progress, breakthrough and (their) hard won self-recognition do make the uphill struggles worth it.

One of the hardest parts about this vocation is being faced with how we as women have an undeniably, wildly creative capacity to gaslight ourselves out of what we want.

Over the years I've had women wholeheartedly believe that they did not deserve and absolutely could not find 5 minutes in the day to stretch their body.

I've had women tell me that they exhaust themselves through endless scrolling yet, say they cannot possibly stop because it's the only thing that keeps them sane.

I've had women avoid starting a book for years instead focussing on learning to become organised enough to get their mail in the post.

I've had many, many women allow the needs of others morph their purposeful motivations into a silly, vanity project and allow their deepest dreams to gather dust in the drawer in favour of giving everything over to others. This is especially heartbreaking when I know that those others don’t recognise and will likely never support that woman in her totality.

I've had women accuse me of projecting my personal values onto their goals when they're in moments of manically frustrated stagnation - luckily for me I keep strict and dated notes, you can’t gaslight yourself when your coach wrote down what you said in black and white.

I've watched in real time as women speak in circles for 25 minutes straight while winding themselves into ignorance and avoidance of their original desires.

I'm not being facetious when I say this is miraculous to watch, it truly is a sight to behold. And when I'm experiencing it I always think not ‘this person is crazy’ but this person needs to get to the Disney imaginarium and my god what would they create if their creative energy was intentionally channelled into something they were passionate about rather than talking themselves out of it.

I am not immune to this, by absolutely no means. But I am at least, most of the time, self-aware of it as a tendency. I can usually watch it play out without jumping on board it's train.

I have gaslit myself out of writing because "I have no time" (we don't have time we make it), because I'm not smart enough (no I don't have a handle on grammar), because "I am not a writer" (despite every achievement I have ever had since I was 6 years old being around something creative and usually using written word), because I'm too scared I'll get cancelled (when let's be real here I'm not famous it won’t matter), because "I had no energy" (when in fact I knew that ensuring I had time in my day and weeks for creative practices created energy - just like going to the gym makes you feel clearer afterward).

I believe the big disconnect happens for us when our life doesn't reflect our highest values - our values are usually wayfinders to what we want in life, what we're craving or what we deeply desire more of.

When our life looks like someone else’s, when we're walking around trying to be someone else, somewhere else, we find storytelling our way out of meeting ourselves to be easier than seeing things for what they truly are.

But our energy, attention, focus and mental power are some of the only things we own in this day and age. And to consciously continue giving that away to something so utterly destructive is a heartbreaking fate.

For everyone but especially for women, our desires, goals and dreams have to be safeguarded against the wants and needs of the world and others. Because if they're not held as protected, if there aren't strong walls built around these creative gardens we can be sure they will be invaded, perished and trampled. Not necessarily because the world is against us but because our current society does not inherently value those who move for themselves as opposed to as part of the whole.

And the tricky thing here is that most of the women I work with who are so adapt at gaslighting themselves out of their truest self, have goals that in the long run will benefit the collective, at times in gentle and subtle ways but often undeniably.

I don't have a complete answer for this but these things have helped me:

• knowing and safeguarding my personal values, often above all else (I made a workshop guiding you on how to do this)

• knowing myself well enough to know what I require in order to feel whole

• safeguarding the time, space and energy I need to act on my desires

• limiting my exposure to others' creations while in a place of creativity to not muddy the channel

• and above all else, watching myself, being attuned to how sneaky things like self-doubt, internalised patriarchy and others impeding on the boundaries I set to enable myself to show up can be. To not be fiercely guarded but to be fiercely intentional.

I hope this post reminds you of the sacred nature of your dreams and equips you to move toward them without talking yourself out of it so often.