depression
Tell-Tale Signs You Are Being Gaslighted
You’re crazy, that never happened. Don’t be so sensitive. I’ve never had this problem with anyone else but you. It was never my idea, it was yours! Come on, you’re imagining things. Everyone else agrees, except you. You’re just making things up.
These are just some of the things you might hear when someone is gaslighting you. It usually happens whenever you confront them about their bad behavior, only to have your reality twisted in return…in ways that can really make your head spin!
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse that most often shows up in toxic romantic relationships, but it can also manifest in dynamics with friends, coworkers, employers, family members, and even neighbors and landlords.
At its core, gaslighting is the manipulation of your sense of reality, leaving you confused, anxious, and doubting yourself and your own perceptions. Sometimes it’s very obvious and unmistakable. Other times, it happens so subtly you may not even realize you’re being manipulated.
The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1938 stage play Gas Light, which was later made into the 1944 film of the same name.
In the story, a husband tricks his wealthy wife into thinking she’s going crazy by making small changes to their surroundings, like dimming the gas lights, and then denying that anything has changed. His goal is to make her doubt her own sanity, so he could have her committed to a mental institution and gain control of her inheritance.
Honoring Yourself In Difficult Family Relationships
Family dynamics can be tremendously complex for many of us. These relationships are multilayered and deeply ingrained, often playing out across generations.
Many of my clients seek psychic insight about family matters. After matters of love and romance, and then business or career, family is often the most emotionally charged subject.
In readings, especially with empaths, intuitives, and highly sensitive individuals, I hear countless stories of family pain. Many carry a sense of never belonging, of being misunderstood or scapegoated.
These emotional burdens are often the heaviest that people bear because they are tied to the people they loved first and still love, despite the hurt.
When control or finances are interwoven into the family structure, the complexity of these relationships multiplies.
For many, family represents a love-hate relationship or a deep bond that carries deep wounds. While we cannot choose our family, we do have a say in how we interact with them, how we respond, and whether we continue to engage.
Severing family ties is a significant and often heartbreaking decision that is never taken lightly. By the time someone considers taking this step, the drama or emotional abuse has often been ongoing for decades and is sometimes rooted in a vividly painful childhood.
Are You Holding On To The Wrong Person?
Many of the questions that callers ask me during readings have one thing in common: how another person is affecting the their health, happiness, and peace of mind.
Despite the differences in the details, the underlying story is often the same: the person’s inner light is dimmed because they have been giving too much power to another person’s choices, moods, or shortcomings.
Many people seem to be in the wrong relationships. They hold on, waiting for things to change and hoping for the best. They postpone plans, silence their own needs and preferences, and test the limits of their patience, believing that a breakthrough will come tomorrow.
However, that is usually not what happens. People do not change for another person, and if they do, it never lasts or works out in the long run. A change driven by the need to please someone else rarely survives the stress of real life. As soon as complications arise, old habits resurface. People can only change for themselves.
Spirit’s guidance on this is always very clear: hanging onto the wrong person — whether a friend, family member, spouse, partner, lover, or boss — prevents us from experiencing the best life has to offer.
When we’re busy monitoring someone else’s actions, we have less capacity for our own personal and spiritual growth. This prevents the amazing blessings waiting for us from coming in, not because the universe is ‘stingy,’ but because our time and attention are fully booked.
Navigating The Sacred Journey Of Grief
As a psychic medium, I have spent decades bearing witness to the immense and complex journey of grief.
Over the years, I’ve learned that grief has many faces and forms. It is not only about death and dying. It can arise from various types of loss, such as the loss of a pet, the end of a relationship, a change in life path, the loss of a job, or moving away from a beloved home.
My clients often tell me, “My heart has a hole in it,” or “It feels like my heart has been torn apart.”
These aren’t just metaphors. Grief can feel so intense that it seems like a physical injury — like a ‘heart attack’ of the soul. Grief reverberates through our heart, mind, body, and spirit, leaving no part of us untouched.
One of the most important truths I’ve learned is that grief is deeply personal. No two people experience it in the same way. There is no “normal” way to grieve or a fixed timeline.
Some people begin to feel a little lighter after a few weeks or months, while for others, the sorrow lingers for years or even decades. And that’s okay.
Grieving means you loved deeply, cared sincerely, and connected profoundly. It is not just about saying goodbye, but also about building a new relationship with their absence — one that carries forward the love in a different way.
Embracing The Shadow Within
When I first began to intentionally and consciously walk a spiritual path, I remember doing so because it just felt so right. Every step I took toward ‘enlightenment’ in this lifetime seemed to bring more brightness into my life, and so many more blessings.
In those early days I was really rolling! I was expecting this to be an easy ride – all joy and light and love. It was wonderful.
What I hadn’t expected was the inevitable emergence of my shadow through as a result of all my spiritual work. And it was not something I was going to be comfortable with – admitting I had places of darkness within me, unloved aspects of myself, disowned pieces of my soul which had been abandoned and in such pain.
Through a series of, what seemed like, unfortunate events, I was given opportunities to face my shadow side. Challenges in relationships with friends and loved ones arose. I couldn’t understand it at first, and felt very alone and misunderstood. I was shifting the blame for this onto the people around me, instead of going inward.
Going inward, into the light, was totally okay, but going inward into the darkness was terrifying. My ego-self raised every defense to keep me from going there. Eventually, I could avoid it no longer.
My life at this point had endured tremendous change in the course of only a few years- so much so, that the entire landscape of my existence and the people in it were now different. While many of the changes were positive, the magnitude of the differences between my ‘old life’ and my ‘new life’ forced me into robust self-reflection.
Protect Yourself From Toxic Emotional Influences
A client I read for once told me that he chose to be a loner because people always wanted something from him. “People either want money from me or they want to bend my ear with their problems,” he said. This statement struck a deep chord with me.
Over the years, I have noticed a significant increase in clients asking how to protect their energy. I find more people are becoming aware of how they are spiritually affected by others, especially those who bring negativity into their home or work environment.
I have had callers tell me how they come home from work exhausted – not from work, but from a toxic work environment. Even a simple telephone conversation can be draining if the person on the other end is met with an outpouring of worry, complaint, or anger. I dare not even mention the many toxic energy pitfalls of today’s dating scene!
I firmly believe that the influence of toxic energy on our systems is vastly underestimated in our daily lives. Our endocrine and nervous systems are particularly affected by our thoughts, actions, and interactions with others. A lack of emotional balance and a concern to avoid unnecessary toxic energy has undoubtedly become a priority.
Years ago in South Africa, I consulted a brilliant homeopath for what turned out to be an overactive thyroid. He diagnosed my condition using reflexology and his medical intuition. After the diagnosis, he said to me: “I’m going to give you some muti (a Zulu word for traditional medicine used in southern Africa). But until you sort out your emotional situation, it’s probably not going to make much difference.”
What To Do When A Lost Love Lingers
Many of the readings I do are about love and relationships, and a good percentage of them are about past relationships that continue to linger in the hearts and minds of some callers.
For some people there are often constant, even obsessive thoughts about a former partner, a longing for a second chance, or bitterness and regret for time and energy that now seems wasted. The longer and more intense the relationship, the more battle scars and wounds there often are.
If it was a soulmate or twinflame connection, the aftermath can be especially devastating. The relationship has ended and the connection has been severed in this lifetime. This can be very painful. You know you gave it your all. You hung in there for years, or you made heroic efforts to ensure the survival of the relationship, but it did not work out as you had hoped.
If you are highly sensitive and intuitively aware, you may still be picking up the energy of your former partner, which can be very painful, disturbing and disruptive. Unresolved energetic connections can keep you stuck in a repetitive cycle of repeating the same pattern with that person, or put you on hold, unable to move forward in peace and confidence.
I am often asked, “Is it really over?” or “Does he still have feelings for me?” Of course, the answer depends on the unique circumstances.