Originally, it appears that gaslighting was defined as how someone is INTENT on "manipulating (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity." It came from the British play "Gas Light" along with two movie adaptions named "Gaslight".
But then in order to determine something to be gaslighting, this means you have to KNOW the INTENT of the person doing it, which is much easier to assume than verify.
In recent years, there's been an arising new definition of gaslighting which seems to be about IMPACT, in line with a desire to validate feelings and experiences of those who identify as victims which have otherwise been dismissed, denied, or silenced. This would work out great if the intent of this was strictly to validate someone’s experience. However, it appears that the definition has evolved to become some version of equating IMPACT and INTENT, ie "If I feel gaslighted (IMPACT), it means you are gaslighting me (INTENT)". The problem is, since it's obvious intent isn't always present, a new expression has arisen: "accidental gaslighting", implying that someone can be gaslighting someone else without intending it. Unfortunately, this also means that INTENT no longer matters for this to be true.
So if someone is gaslighting without intending it and someone is being gaslighted without intending it, then where is the locus of RESPONSIBILITY in the engagement?
What's interesting is, the same thing can be applied to microaggressions or any other morally important topics of today where people can have very different experiences of INTENT vs IMPACT without a real way to verify intent and without a real way to verify impact (while assuming that whoever speaks of impact would never say so with an intent to harm)
So how do we resolve these differences in relative experiences?
(click the title to read more)
This feels like a great starting point for any leader out there wanting to set things up for better leadership with their community around their own personal need for sex & love and how their position can impact others. I know I've had to engage with many of the points below as a leader/facilitator/teacher myself.
Leadership can't happen alone, so having a team to support this effort is crucial and much needed. I believe that this is greatly understated in our current paradigm where we perceive leaders to be separate entities from us rather than individuals who need support for their leadership to be effective and safe(r). To believe "it's their fault and responsibility and they need to be accountable" completely absolves us from responsibility while at the same time asking us to "do something about this" which is just another way to displace responsibility to them while at the same time feeling good about doing something.
The better approach is to show up where something is missing and bring in what is missing.
That's what teamwork is.
Here goes:
(click the title to read the rest)
by Crystallin Dion
My dear,
When you meet someone you really like, and when they make it clear that they really like you back, that's one of the best feelings ever (I get it). But if we’re being honest, you can sometimes be a bit quick to get physical, even to get sexual. Quick to be in a lot of communication, to spend a lot of time together, to use the language of “we, us, and our,” and “boyfriend” or “girlfriend." Quick to “choose” them, to call it a relationship, or partnership, or even love, and to peer all the way into a long and happy (imagined) future together.
Click the title to read the rest.
…and what might be done about it.
🖤Nearly everyone has experienced trauma or wounding in their lives. Left unhealed, this can lead to all kinds of behavior, choices, actions, emotional states, unconscious survival patterns and illnesses that end up lowering the quality of our lives and negatively impacting those around us.
🖤Every person on this planet has a different threshold for, and response to, traumatic events. What is traumatic for one person may go unnoticed by another. If it landed as traumatic to the person in question, then it was traumatic for them. Likewise, what can trigger this unhealed wounding is also different for each person. The fact that it may or may not make sense to you is irrelevant to the fact that, for them, they may be reliving unhealed wounding and may not even be aware of it.
Click the title to read the rest.
by Curt Hammer
I’m not sure where to start with this...it’s so close to my heart for many reasons. I grew up in a crazy level of privilege in terms of the race, gender, and socio-economic status of my town and school...and my family was one of the poorest in our town. So I supposed “rich-poor” would describe it.
Watching my classmates have every possible opportunity while I wondered why I couldn’t seem to function, even with a great education and many things paid for just by being a part of the town I grew up in...yet I couldn’t seem to understand why I was so...different. ADHD? Anxiety? Depression? Was I just lazy? After 30 years of bad choices and a few good ones, and MANY mixed feelings, I discovered that I had C-PTSD.
Click the title to read the rest.
by Philippe Lewis
This article was also posted on the Good Men Project.
You might have read articles about about how boys and men -- at least in the US if not in the western world -- are deprived of touch because of the scripts that narrowly define masculinity, manhood, what a man does and what a man wants (Here’s three: here, here, and here).
I, too, have experienced some version of it, and this is my story.
I grew up in Canada, a progressive country, in a progressive family. I went to schools that taught morals alongside catechism (students could pick either), personal development, and the social side of sex education (not just the biology). My parents never said to me “Be a man!”, never shamed me for crying (both of them cried in front of us), and never taught me and my sister the scripts of masculinity or femininity. If anything, they taught us what it looks like to be a family and making things work by doing the best we can and getting help when we couldn’t.
Click the title to read the rest.
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by Philippe Lewis
Sexual abuse and assault can happen to anyone. Most often, we hear about it happening between partners, but what is the best course of action when we hear that our partner was just assaulted or that they reveal to us that they have a history of trauma or abuse? For most couples, this is a challenging situation rife with triggers and hurt. This list is a simple way to begin the support process with a partner who needs it. Each item could be a blog post unto itself. If you require further support, please contact me or any other mental health professional directly.
Click the title to read the rest.
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by Philippe Lewis
It seems like everywhere the #metoo movement is leaving men wondering what to do – which is not surprising given that men like to DO things. Sometimes, of course, the incessant doing of men can get in the way and camouflage a feeling of inadequacy or a need to get attention. However, there are men out there who are truly seeing how much work there is to do and are simply ready, willing, and (hopefully somewhat) able to take action, and just need a sense of direction. Because, while this article may be preaching to a choir of clear conscious healthy men (as opposed to their pale substitute, the Sensitive New Age Guy, or SNAG or other types – and then again, even conscious men are apparently committing assault), there’s a multitude of men who are just waking up and looking to make a responsible and healthy difference.
Click the title to read the rest.
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by Philippe Lewis
There is a sensual animal in all of us, waiting to be awakened. Quite often this totemic intelligence becomes inhibited from expressing itself through us, because we can grow up with very mixed signals about touch. Touch is always a sensation, and yet often, our experiences can lead us to developing mixed signals about the inherent pleasure of touch and touching. Sometimes we need practices to rewrite our relationship to touch, so that we can expand the fluency of our ability to communicate with it, and thus, to expand the quality of our social and intimate interactions.
Continue reading article here.
by Philippe Lewis
For many of us, touch is both something we seek, and something which, perhaps due to unpleasant experiences, we avoid. Unravelling the hidden meanings we associate both with our touching others and with our being touched by others can open us to new possibilities in our enjoyment of social situations, and our feelings of safety and trust in intimate ones.
Continue reading article here.
by Philippe Lewis
We’ve all seen it or imagined it: the man or woman who is supremely confident in their ability to embrace their lover and see them immediately surrender and open. It’s as if they were able to silently communicate their desires so powerfully that their lover was instantly seduced, as if under a spell. In many ways, you are right: this person is in fact able to speak to their lover in a way that is much deeper than with any words: they are speaking with their body.
Continue reading article here.
My friend Alex Allman created this video based on a technique I originally shared at a panel discussion at Burning Man 2014.
Click the title to see the video.
This article about (somatic) balance between dance partners perfectly reflects what happens between people with secure and insecure attachment styles.
CREATING EMOTIONAL STABILITY
Secure people constantly create emotional balance for those who are insecure, and as such they *stabilize* insecure people, making them feel as if they are secure and secure -- but the truth is that they are still insecure.
On the journey of developing a secure attachment style, while it can be good to have secure anchors around us so we're not constantly struggling, it's important to go out and practice without training wheels.
Click the title to read the rest.
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by Philippe Lewis
Thank you for your trust. Like for many women, I get that it might not be easy to allow a man to get close to you, to touch you or have sex with you, that it is a big deal to let me in because even though you've developed amazing discernment skills to figure out which man is for real and which man isn't, there's still a chance a man will come in under the radar and take something from you because he feels entitled to your body or your heart. I get it's not easy to tell if I'm one of those men or not, regardless of what I say or do.
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by Philippe Lewis
Last summer, I went to a festival with a lover. As I picked her up from the airport and first saw her, something in my body shifted, a pleasurable feeling arose. I said “How do you feel?”. She said “I’m so excited to see you!”. As her words sunk in (and lips connected with mine), they met with the feelings in my body, confirming what I already knew. I asked “What would you like most for the weekend?”, and she responded “For us to dance and make friends and enjoy each other deeply! But I will need to get some good sleep too -- I had a big week!”. Again, all of her words, body and gaze spoke to me of a particular “way” that she was, right at that moment, moving in a certain direction, with some internal “destination” in mind. I was reading her with all my senses, and all that she was expressing every moment was confirming that I was reading her well. “I might need to keep you up longer than you think”, I said with a wink, and her response was, with a beaming smile, “Not if I’m the one keeping YOU up!”.
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by Philippe Lewis
If you hurt someone, an apology is the most powerful way to clear things up / dissipate karma. Here's how we do it:
1. Ask the other person to tell you the impact your actions had on them. Make sure the other person knows you really get it.
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