#219 – It’s Time to Stop Gaslighting Ourselves with Amy Taylor Kabbaz

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Welcome to the Happy Mama Movement Podcast.

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I'm Amy Taylor-Kabbaz.

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I would like to start by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Aura nation

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on which this podcast is recorded, as the traditional custodians of this land.

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And pay my respects to the elders past, present and emerging.

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And, as this podcast is dedicated to the wisdom and knowledge of motherhood, I

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would like to acknowledge the mothers of this land, the elders, their wisdom, their

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knowing and my own elders and teachers.

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Welcome back Mamas.

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Today I want to explore an idea with you.

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Something that has been permeating within me ever since I had a divine

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conversation with someone just recently.

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If you haven't listened to it yet, I have a recent podcast episode with Nicole

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Matheson on her new book, The Beauty Load.

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Episode number 211 and recently she was in Sydney and asked me to host her

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book launch, locally at a beautiful little bookstore here in Sydney.

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And during that conversation we talked about how we often gaslight ourselves

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and each other when it comes to the beauty load, this, uh, heavy load we

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carry around the way we should look.

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The way we should present ourselves, the way we should be viewed and seen as women.

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What this sounds like is, Oh, I hate my hair.

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It just isn't working for me today.

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And your girlfriend, your sister, someone with all the right intentions

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says, no, you look beautiful.

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I love your hair.

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I always love it.

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Now, that's what we've been taught to say.

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And so there is no guilt here or shame.

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But actually when you look at the definition of gaslighting, it is

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when you make the person who has stated something question their

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own reality, memory, or perception.

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In other words, you silence them in some way, making them feel the thing

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that they've just said isn't true.

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And as Nicole said in this conversation, in the bookstore, actually, we need to

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start acknowledging that when a woman says, Ugh, my hair, that is what she's

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feeling in that moment, and instead of dismissing it, we don't wanna say,

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Yeah, don't love your hair either, but acknowledge that that's the feeling

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she's holding about herself at that time.

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Ever since that conversation.

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I have been thinking about this over and over again around motherhood, and how we

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both gaslight ourselves and each other.

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The way we gaslight ourselves, I have heard this, I would like to say hundreds

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of thousands of times over the last decade from all the women I've listened to.

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I don't even know if I could put a number on it.

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It sounds like this, but I'm so lucky that I get to stay home.

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But I'm so grateful that my baby was healthy, but I'm so lucky

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that I fell pregnant in the end.

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So many people have it so much worse than I have.

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And in that moment, we're dismissing our own feelings.

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In that moment, we're questioning our own feelings, our memories,

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our perceptions, and our reality.

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We're not allowing ourselves to be heard, even within our own

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heart, even within our own head.

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And then if we are to share outside, if we are to say to anybody around us how we are

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feeling, we're also often, unconsciously, let me say this, unconsciously gaslit.

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Oh, but it will pass, and these will be the best years of your life.

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Oh, she's just a animated little one.

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Oh, that's just what motherhood is about.

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Oh, why don't you just sleep while the baby sleeps?

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All of these little dismissive moments.

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None of this is intentional, I'm sure.

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It's what we have all been taught to say to each other.

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As women especially.

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We placate each other.

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We try to make each other feel better.

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We try to remind each other that it's all good.

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I've been there too.

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You're beautiful, you've got this.

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It's a mixture of gaslighting and spiritual bypassing, and

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it's time we need to stop this.

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And so I said in this conversation, what do we say instead?

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What do we say to someone in front of us who is trying to show us a

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glimpse of what they're feeling?

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And our automatic reaction inside of us is to say, Oh, but you're such a great mum.

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You're doing such a great job.

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I know it's so hard, but you know, these are the best years of your life.

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It goes so quickly.

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When in fact she feels like this is the worst and longest time of her life.

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Oh, do I remember that?

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Those days, it just felt like months within 24 hours.

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And everybody around me would say, Oh, but it goes so quickly.

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And yes, in hindsight it kind of did.

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But in that moment, I felt dismissed.

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I felt like my reality was wrong.

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I felt like I was thinking about this the wrong way.

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So what do we do?

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How do we stop gaslighting each other and ourselves?

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I think it has to start with when we listen to each other.

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Can we make this promise to each other here right now?

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No matter what it is, whether as my friend Nicole Matheson talks about

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in her book, The Beauty Load, and one of your girlfriends or your sister

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or your daughter says, Ah, I don't feel good in the way I look today.

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Instead of just dismissing it and putting a bandaid over the top of it

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and say, No, I love the way you look.

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Can we just pause and take a breath and say, Ah, I know those moments.

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I know what that feels like.

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Doesn't feel good, does it, personally, I think you look awesome, but I know

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what it feels like to not feel that.

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And can we do that to each other in motherhood?

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Can we please, please, please stop dismissing the struggles of, well,

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at least I have a healthy baby.

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When the birth was incredibly traumatic.

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Can we stop saying things like, you're so lucky you get to stay home when

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she's actually deeply struggling with her loss of identity in her work.

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Can we just meet each other in our truth and try not to rush into the next step?

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You may have heard me say this many, many, many times before, but the change we

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want to see in motherhood begins with us.

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It will be us.

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We are the ones who begin to change the way we talk about this.

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We acknowledge it, we fight for it, we speak about it.

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The way we acknowledge it in each other and the way we

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acknowledge it within ourselves.

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And that means when you hear that internal dialogue, or I like to call

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it the inner mean mama, dismiss your feelings by internally gaslighting you.

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Oh, but you should be so grateful that you get to do this.

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Can we come back to that voice and say, actually, you know what?

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This is hard.

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I get it.

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It's hard.

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It probably will get better one day soon, but right now, I'm sorry, it's hurting.

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I see it.

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I think that's how we start to turn this conversation around,

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both externally and internally with each other and with ourselves.

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I hope that lands.

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Until next week, Divine Mama Community, thank you for being here.

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Thank you for continuing to have these conversations with me and with each other.

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Truly, this is an act of activism to have these conversations and be

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open about how we are really feeling.

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Thank you.