Gaslighting in America - That No-Good Friend with special guest Emily Powell Gilliam

This episode came about as our friend Emily was "Goodwill Hunting" and our conversation that began on Gaslighting in America. We laugh and we get scared and we ultimately feel empowered to live a good life, one in which we support each other and are mentally, physically, and socially healthy and good and we laugh again.

Join this conversation about gaslighting, existential guilt crisis, how to deal with gaslighting at work and with friends and family, and also poop emojis.

You will LOVE your new friend Emily Powell Gilliam!

Emily Powell Gilliam is a designer of play objects and founder of Why & Wiser, creating artful games and gifts for clever kiddos and their grownups. 

To reach Emily:
http://www.epgdesign.co/

http://www.whyandwiser.com/

https://www.instagram.com/epgdesignco/

Transcript

[00:00:00] Emily: I had lots of ways of dealing with her. And for four years that was enough. And then, you know, I S I just like, it wore me down and my own, like physical, well, mental first health, and then physical health, just like, you know, went over a cliff, like, and told that if I wanted to be considered for promotion, I needed to work on being softer, use shorter words, be less aggressive. And that I intimidated the owner basically like be more female.

[00:00:47] Matt: See that that's weird because , when you were describing it, I was like, oh my God, where are you coming across as, too passive?

And that's why they didn't consider you for a manager because they didn't see you as a manager type, but they just saw you as a rabble rouser, and a troublemaker, but then why not just, can you, I mean, it's, it's a weird thing.

[00:01:04] Emily: Well, if they

canned me, they would have to pay unemployement. and my twin, is far less straightforward as a person because I'm not,

[00:01:14] Matt: you're not a shrinking violet.

[00:01:16] Emily: I'm

not even a violet, I'm like a thistle

My husband was like, you can't, you can't stay there.

And then my therapist was like, you're literally doing physical damage to your body from the extended, stress of dealing with this

[00:01:35] Fawn: This is why it's important to have friends. Yes, because Emily, I never would have suspected that anyone would treat you like that because you were so sharp and a bright light at the same time. To me, you encompass, you embody all of the beautiful traits. You're lovely to be around. You're funny. You're very sharp. You're very smart. You're very witty. I, a

[00:02:03] Emily: lot of people are threatened by that.

[00:02:06] Matt: Well, very much are threatened. Traditional gender roles still exist. It's, it's, it's a little frightening.

Um, and you know what, I'll be honest. I go through my own cavortations about it, you know, I'm currently, um, Not boss because we're not technically on the same level, their pronouns. Are they in them, bud? You, if I don't screw it up all the time.

[00:02:30] Fawn: Yeah. And he's lucky we're all in the same room together. So the kids are always yelling at him as soon and they're doing their work.

So it's so weird how they can using it now. So, but like as soon as Matt starts saying sh for she, they were like, Hey, and we're all now screaming at him. Um, Nope.

[00:02:47] Matt: Fortunately they're very cool. I've had many conversations with them and I have apologized profusely on every single occasion and they're like, I get it.

Okay. We're still fine, but still, it still bothers me. But again, traditional gender roles. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's confusing for people and people want things to be simple. So, you know, let's put the, let's put the girl in her place. Let's, you know, let's promote black

[00:03:16] Emily: or white, no grays. And

[00:03:18] Matt: there you go.

[00:03:20] Emily: Now, did your manager transition in the time that you knew them or were they

[00:03:25] Matt: always, I just started and this is all first person I've worked with closely who is a they them.

[00:03:33] Emily: Okay. So it's just like, it's almost like muscle memory

[00:03:36] Matt: and I run and here's the, here's the real problem that I have personally, and this is just me, but the, they and them are plurals.

[00:03:43] Emily: That's no longer

[00:03:44] Matt: true. I know, but that's how, and

[00:03:48] Fawn: we're going to sound like old people, but that's how I grew up. That's how I was taught. Somebody

[00:03:54] Emily: explained it to me this way. And I found it to be powerfully persuasive in, in terms of grammar. So if you were, if I was telling you the story about my manager, right.

And you didn't know if the manager was a, a male or a female, how would you refer to them?

[00:04:17] Fawn: Bravo.

[00:04:20] Matt: True. Uh, I probably keep saying the manager, the manager, the manager I'd be pathological that way. And I, it, in the context of one story, I can do it in the context of casual conversation. I can't, that's the that's the switch,

[00:04:34] Emily: but I'm just saying grammatically, it is correct to refer to an unknown gender person as they then, like, I didn't know what they said.

[00:04:45] Matt: And I get the fact that that's the rule

[00:04:48] Emily: now. And all you have to do is extrapolate that this person also doesn't know what gender they like. Obviously they know that they are not a gender. To me, it's the same concept. That made a lot of sense to

[00:05:00] Fawn: me when I heard it.

It totally makes a lot of sense. I love that. And yeah. In terms of the grammar,

[00:05:05] Emily: it doesn't mean that the muscle memory habits, aren't still it's like we were talking about speaking a foreign language when your tongue is like out of shape, like

[00:05:15] Fawn: yeah. Let's, let's remind people what we're talking about. So Emily and I were talking about speaking, different languages, pronouncing things a certain way.

Right. Emily, and then. And you, and I talk about this all the time. Like when I'm trying to tell you how to pronounce something in Farsi, your tongue, is used to exercising a certain way. It's like being at the gym, you know, if you're like a ballet person or let's say you're a muscle builder, and then you take a full-on ballet class.

Right. You know how to technically do a, plie,

[00:05:50] Matt: something like that to do

[00:05:52] Fawn: it, but you can't and you think you're about to do it, but there's no way you're going to look like the ballerina that does the plie when you're, I don't know, 1800 pounds of pure muscle, right?

[00:06:05] Matt: Well, yeah, no, no, no. That's why like out in the world, their distance runners and speed runners, your bodies are different and, cyclists have their own body triathletes have their own, like, you know, custom bodies that work best.

It's pretty.

[00:06:20] Fawn: Crazy. It works the same way with the tongue. So you have to really get limber to speak a different language, depending on the language you use different parts of your tongue. Right. And Emily described it perfectly, like, what were you saying?

You were saying the thing about a push-up oh yeah. Like

[00:06:36] Emily: I know what a push-up looks like in theory, when I go to it, don't

look like that.

[00:06:46] Fawn: But also going back, I was trying to say, Emily, thank you for sharing your story because I look to you with, so much admiration. So for you to tell that story about what happened at work.

I feel less alone because the same exact stuff happened to me once again. Sorry guys to bore you. But it happened to me in yoga total. Like, you know, I always walked in with a respect, especially because of my martial arts background. Um, I even took my martial arts background in like the respectful manner into the yoga studio where, when I walked into the studio, I always bowed, like it was the, the martial arts studio.

Right. You know, like you would never enter the room with your shoes and without bowing with

[00:07:41] Matt: respect, don't disrespect, the mat ever, right. That's not the mat me, but the mat

[00:07:48] Fawn: on the floor. So I would balance everything. What I'm trying to say is I all. Carried myself with, with that sense of, I am honoring everyone, even though when I got home, most days I was in tears because of the way these people treated me and I was studying to become a yoga instructor.

So going through many hours of training and the head of the school and all her cronies were so awful. And, you know, they were all definitely. Can I just say Caucasian? Can I say that Emily, they were all white and you know, we're in a small town in Colorado and they think because they do yoga or they studied yoga in their own American capitalist way that they are so enlightened.

And I tried so hard to have them understand my perspective, the things that they were saying, even behind my back, that I could hear, you know, they thought I left the room and they would say the most messed up stuff. Once I started to express what was going on, from my perspective saying, I don't feel supported because of a, B and C.

Can you please help me because, and to put myself even lower in that, putting myself in that lower position so that they don't feel uncomfortable or threatened, thank you, or threatened. Um, and I only did this because I mean, my, one of my best friends, Holly, who doesn't even live here, I would talk to her and she'd be like, that's where the first time I really heard gaslighting was like, she's like, they're gaslighting you.

And I really didn't know what it meant. I got the gist of it. Like what it meant, but I really didn't know for real those specifics and the dynamics of gaslighting, I just said, okay. Yeah. So she's like, just go tell them that this is not a supportive atmosphere and that you'd like to have, you know, try to fix it, like try to work on it.

And as soon as I did, Matt was saying, honey, when you go in there ex expect, no, uh, what's the word you always use expect no

[00:10:04] Matt: satisfaction

[00:10:05] Fawn: satisfaction, because no matter what you say, you're not going to be satisfied with what they come back at you with. Okay. And I'm like, okay, I can handle that. So I was, I went in armed with that and sure enough, even though I went in with that knowledge of that satisfaction. I still felt so blown away by the ignorance. And I guess by the gas lighting, because as soon as I said it, I was met with exactly what you said, Matt, total denial, complete denial. What do you mean? No. I'm like, and they were like, and then she's like, but everybody loves you. I'm like, no, obviously everyone doesn't love me because of a, B and Z.

And she's like, no, you're imagining it. It's all in your head. And then, and Emily knows more of the story actually, because I mean, it was, it was a few years of this. Right. And then she said immediately, without skipping a beat, she had that face on her like, oh, you know, you're making this way more than it is.

It's not really, you're imagining it. And in a split second her face changed. And she's like, yeah, They've been complaining about you too, you know, mind you, I was not complaining about anybody. I did not name any names. I didn't even say people. I just said this, I'm feeling this atmosphere of, disrespect

and she's like, you know, they have been complaining about you too, and let's face it. You don't have the easiest personality. You're very threatening. I'm like what? Well,

[00:11:49] Matt: it's because you're 12 feet tall and you've got, you know, 1800 pounds of muscle on you. I mean, you're physically, your physical presence is scary,

[00:11:57] Fawn: kidding.

Oh my God. I'm like the shortest person you'll ever meet probably

[00:12:02] Matt: kindest eyes

[00:12:03] Fawn: do I have kind eyes?

[00:12:04] Matt: You have kind eyes.

[00:12:06] Fawn: Thanks babe. But

[00:12:07] Emily: you know, I mean, I

had different, but similar experiences where, I'd be in a management staff meeting and the owner who's male would be going through things that didn't go right.

And processes to improve them going forward. One time I asked literally for clarification on the improvement, because it was the same process that we said we would do the year before to improve, but then come deadline time, we fell back into old habits.

Which is understandable. But I just wanted to understand what the real difference was between that suggested improvement and the current way, because there was no difference really. and the owner got all red in the face and in front of all the managers yelled at me and told me to stop my bit C H ing, and just do my job.

And I just remember thinking I could not picture him doing that to a male colleague in front of everybody. Like maybe he would be, you know, upset in the closed door meeting with a male colleague, but to also humiliate me at a table of management. I mean, I just felt fundamentally that it had a lot to do with being female; the way that he couched it, like, uh, That word is used as a female thing, like, like complaining, , but like aggressive. Right? and I just, yeah, I, I totally appreciate where our friend Coy was coming from in saying like, how do you deal with these things when you have no choice? Because it was my job! I needed it, right?

Like, and I job hunted for two or three years. I, I applied to stuff, but that's only so much under your control to be able to just walk away. I mean,

[00:14:24] Fawn: exactly to leave that job or able to abuse you because they have that upper handed.

[00:14:30] Emily: And it's the same in domestic situation.

It's not so simple as "run" for everyone.

it's complex too, but there does come a day where you've crossed the threshold into your life, like your ability to live and for how long.

[00:14:49] Fawn: I mean, we spend more time at work than we do in our private lives. Even at home now we spend more time at work than we do at home.

We spend more time

[00:14:58] Matt: working, I think, than ever

[00:14:59] Fawn: before

that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah.

[00:15:02] Emily: So with our, whoever we live with

[00:15:06] Fawn: ourselves, so now they've merged. This is why I'm always saying that's why we need to remember the art of friendship. Because when we are together, you have more support on all levels in life.

Your friend can say, "F that job come live with me," if you have to. Or "we're going to figure this thing out together, I'm going to help you or you're not alone."

so our friend coy was supposed to join us today and she can't. So what we're going to do is do a part two because Coy comes at the whole gaslighting thing in a completely different way than we all do, because like we were saying, when things like this happen, we're just out, we will disappear from your lives.

You'll never see us again. Like the other day I was saying, Emily texted me a line vector, which is like a drawing for a graphic artists. So Emily sends me the greatest texts ever. We are rolling with laughter every time the phone dings Elle and Allegra will run to see what Emily has offered us today.

And so one of the things she texted was, an image of a hand. And I guess it was an ad for soap, but nowadays that kind of swirly thing

[00:16:27] Matt: almost looks like soft serve ice cream

[00:16:31] Fawn: now is considered the poop emoji

[00:16:33] Matt: Well, it's gotta have the little face and smiley. But

yes,

[00:16:36] Fawn: but it's just like the

drawing of the poop emoji on someone's hand with stars around it, like all magical, like totally magical and sparkly. And so it's like that. It's like, you don't know what someone is offering you. It could go either way. So always be suspicious in a way, it could be one or the other. You have to be discriminating; like, what is this that this person is saying is soap. Is it really soap or is it the other thing?

[00:17:06] Emily: Is it sparkly, poop, emoji?

[00:17:08] Fawn: There's a term that says don't pee on me and tell me it's raining. Isn't, there's

[00:17:12] Matt: some, there's, there's actually a song where they're like, don't say it's raining when you're pissing down my back. Stop giving me a heart attack.

I am. But anyways, so you guys

[00:17:23] Emily: heavy

[00:17:23] Matt: metals.

[00:17:26] Fawn: Welcome to our show. Everybody. Welcome to our friendly world. As we're speaking about gaslighting, uh, guys, welcome to our friendly world. Everyone. We are here with our friend, Emily. I really want to introduce you to Emily. I want to respectfully introduce you to our friend, Emily, Emily Powel Gilliam

she, hi. Yeah. So truth be told. This is our second time recording the show. We did the show; like we had it all prepared. We talked for three and a half hours, three and a half hours. Well, some of us talked, Matt. It's hard to get a word in edgewise. Okay guys. Here's what happened. The reason why we are redoing this show and we'll concentrate on how to work with these people.

I think I love that this hour, let's just do how we do. Okay. Like how we notice what gas lighting is and we'll get into the specifics of it. And how to actually maneuver

[00:18:28] Matt: Nice.

[00:18:29] Emily: There are some people that you just simply cannot get out of your lives.

[00:18:33] Fawn: Like a family member. I'm like, well, I had to, I went through many therapists.

[00:18:38] Matt: Some people don't have the emotional distancing techniques that we've got,

[00:18:42] Fawn: but there's some amazing techniques that is needed in the world today

[00:18:47] Matt: There are certainly some people that you can't, get out of your life or can't get out of your life right now.

And you certainly need to deal with what's in your face. Uh,

[00:18:56] Fawn: so I, oh, sorry. Let me just, let me just tell our friends out there. I want you to know that if you do want to get ahold of Emily, if you want to find out more about Emily and you should, because she is, the people, I would say most people, right?

We had one person that was so awful on our show, but the people that we have on our show are all our friends. And I want you to also be friends with them and them to be friends with you and they being friends with you. My grammar sometimes, I don't know. No, no. I'm talking about PR. I know, like I still, even though I have taught our kids well and they know how to do it, I still get confused after I teach it.

Is it whom, who, who, I don't know. Whom who, who, who, anyway, what I'm trying to say is Emily, if you want to contact Emily, all her information is on our website, our friendly world podcast.com. In the search bar, put in her name and you'll get all her information. Or, the direct links are right in the show notes.

Emily Powel Gilliam is an amazing artist. She's a writer illustrator. To be friends with Emily, Emily is a type of person that in life has such a piercing Vision. She has the mind of the top comedians in the world, the really talented comedians in the world, because they are the ones who quietly notice every little detail that most people skim over, or don't even recognize.

There are people who can stop and smell the roses. There are people who can see something beautiful. Emily does that, but on a hyper level where she can notice everything from the absurdities to the beautiful things and point them out to you and, you know, life gets really busy and we go through. It's so easy to skip over things and not notice something that could be glaring at you, but you're obviously oblivious to it because you're so stuck in something. Emily

finds those things. And it's so important to just, how do I say this? Cause I don't want to sound like a one or two friends as far as the Nicomachean ethics of friendship, because I love Emily for Emily. I'm not saying I'm friends with Emily because she does this, but I just want to highlight our friend's amazing gifts. And one of the gifts that Emily has that we can all learn from is the ability to spot things in life. It could be in conversation; she'll spot speech, words that are said that you will skip over.

Um, does that make sense? Do you

[00:21:48] Matt: absolutely do case in point for me personally, at least I started really thinking about when people say it's the least I could do. Hmm. That's a terrible thing to say, just in general, just blow your mind for just a second. So I'm going to do this because it's the least I can do for you.

You know? Like literally, like that's like a bare minimum. That's

[00:22:09] Emily: terrible. That's terrible. Maybe like, no offense. I'm about to offend you like exist. I could do, because I didn't want to do more.

[00:22:19] Matt: Right. Right. And I, I, you know, if I did less than what I'd look like a bad person. Right. So it's all about me. Yo,

[00:22:28] Emily: apple friends.

[00:22:29] Fawn: Let me get back to Emily for a second.

I want you all to become friends. I feel like our show is kind of like a cocktail party without the cocktails. Maybe. I mean, you could be, anyone could be drinking anything, but we're, you know, usually here with tea and coffee, but do you know what I mean, coffeetale. People have their podcasts and it's this interview format, whereas ours, it's literally at our kitchen table.

Like you will hear the sink running, you will hear the oven sometimes. The kids will come in and you hear the banging of pots and plates and everything. What this is, is imagine you're at a party. I'm here with standing with Matt, sitting with Matt and we're talking to Emily and then you come along, you know, and I'm like, hi, I want to introduce you to Emily, Emily.

This is you out there listening. That's that's our show. It's up to you to continue the friendship. I'm not here to interview Emily. I'm not here to talk about what someone does for a living, because I hate that I, a person as a human being, they're not their job. So as soon as you meet someone, they're like, hi, this is Emily she's PhD.

Uh, she is a doctor of such-and-such. Why, why the resume? But having said that, I just, I do want to say check out Emily's work. She's an amazing designer. I'm just going to say it. Okay. So having said what I just said, I, I do here's the resume. I know, but I do want you to.

I want you to get to know Emily better, and you're going to get to know her more on our show, but I just want to say Emily Powell Gilliam is a designer of play objects and founder of Why and Wiser. Can you do that thing again? What you did with Why and Wiser?

[00:24:25] Emily: Oh yes.

So, uh, the idea behind naming my company was I just love the way that children are always asking why.

And then the wiser comes from embracing the continual path toward more wisdom. That's a very Socratic wiser

[00:24:49] Fawn: yesterday. You said, uh, you said ask why and you become wiser.

[00:24:54] Emily: Yeah, that's true. Okay. Sorry. No, you have nothing to apologize for. Nodo I just love that. Stop it. I love you have nothing to be sorry for

and ask why and get wiser.

That is good. Short and sweet.

[00:25:09] Fawn: That's another thing Emily taught me was, you know, I'm trying so hard every day to tell Elle and Allegra stop apologizing because as women, we constantly apologize for everything and I don't want them to grow up like that. So every time they say, I'm sorry, I'm like, no. And then Emily said, next time, just say you have nothing to apologize for.

And I tried that Emily, and it totally shifted everything immediately. I could tell that it worked just looking at their physical presence. It shifted everything. They're like, oh, they felt lighter. You have nothing to apologize for. So Why and wiser, you create artful games and gifts for clever kiddos.

You have such you're like the child whisper is Emily told me stories about when she was a kid in the neighborhood. Am I saying this right? Is it okay for me to tell our friends your story?

[00:26:07] Emily: Absolutely.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but so you'd be in the neighborhood and there all these kids around and all of a sudden the parents disappeared and you're totally babysitting all these kids.

[00:26:18] Fawn: Like it would happen all the time.

[00:26:21] Matt: You're the

[00:26:21] Fawn: responsible one. No, she's the fun. She's the whisper. I think she is,

[00:26:27] Emily: yes. I am highly responsible. And, but also. I have just so as a child, I always related to adults. Ironically, my father would tell me that I was born to be an adult,

as the more I grow into adulthood, the more I really just relate to children.

They're brutally honest. They're always like filled with wonder and observation. They are so good at processing with imagination and a humor. And I just, um, I don't know, they're like my forever peers. But when you approach children from that place, they feel it just like anybody does; that

you're treating them as a respected peer, that we gravitate toward each other, like two objects. We just one of us falls into orbit.

[00:27:27] Fawn: Matt and I always talk about people, are we, usually we say stuck, but stuck is the wrong word in this conversation. But we always notice how, no matter how old someone is that they are a particular age.

And usually we use the term stuck because I think when some trauma happens or some embarrassment, which is still a trauma, right. When that happens, that person freezes in time, it seems like until they clear it up. And in most cases they don't, they are frozen at that particular moment as time goes on. So they could be 40, 50, 60, 70, but they're stuck at age 11.

Do you know what I mean? But stuck is not the right word for us here. I'm going to say, what age do you operate in? What perspective of age do you operate with? , Matt is prepared, actually.

[00:28:20] Matt: I always say I'm eight years old, but in point of fact, I try and cultivate a Zen mind beginner's mind, and I try and see, try and see things fresh all the time.

That helps me in my career. That helps me with people in general. I have this deep seated belief that everybody has at least one utterly fascinating story or hobby or something. And sometimes I think it's my job to tease that out of them because I love finding these things. even the most stodgy person is passionate about something and it could be the most ridiculous or the most awesome thing, but they're so passionate about it,

they'll infect you with it maybe for a minute or maybe for a lifetime. You just don't know. People are amazing.

[00:29:01] Fawn: So would you say you're at age four and five Emily?

[00:29:05] Emily: Yes, my in, I always refer to my inner four year. Yeah. Um, I also often referred to my inner 80 year old. So

[00:29:14] Fawn: it depends on the situation.

Yeah, no know, it's interesting as a photographer, this is something I always noticed. This is how I see people, no matter what culture they're from, what country they're from, no matter what skin tone they have, I feel like babies, you know, children, young, young children and people that are, I don't want to say at the end of their lives, that's totally wrong.

But people that are way, way older that have been on the planet,

[00:29:47] Emily: amassed

more life experience.

[00:29:50] Fawn: Thank you.

That they are almost on the same level; that they start transcending any kind of, you know, like we expect someone to look a certain way.

If they are certain culture, you expect them to look this way. Like even a skin pigmentation, like everyone starts to look like a baby again. And babies start looking like old people when they're born. You know what I mean? Like there's some common thread right there where visually and spiritually, they are on the same level in a way

[00:30:27] Emily: that is so interesting.

[00:30:29] Fawn: I don't know if I'm explaining that right. You understand what I'm saying?

[00:30:33] Emily: I picked up what you were putting

down.

[00:30:36] Fawn: So like, when I look at, when I photographed some really, um, I don't want to say old people. I don't, you're the words, man. And what I will have photographs and elder, let's say in a village walking around and they have a lot of wrinkles on them.

You know, they look like a baby to me. Yes.

[00:30:59] Matt: And, you know, there's that famous saying that all babies look like Winston Churchill.

[00:31:04] Fawn: Exactly. Yeah. So, okay. But again, so I just want to point out your websites. You have to there's one https://www.epgdesign.co and https://www.whyandwiser.com/ to find more of the beauty of Emily and what she does in the world,

go there. Again, you'll see her in our show notes, all the links and everything. So let's get back to it. The reason why we're doing this episode is because of Emily. Emily spotted something. And once again, she texted me. So the reason why this episode comes to us today is because Emily went to Goodwill, right?

Emily, it was Goodwill, right? Yes. Emily goes to Goodwill,

[00:31:54] Emily: I was Goodwill hunting.

[00:31:57] Fawn: You are so ready. See what I'm talking about. I love that. So Goodwill hunting for those of you and other countries, you know, um, is a famous movie that Matt Damon. And what's his name? Robin Williams. Robin Williams. Robin. No, but the other one, not Robin Williams.

Of course. Robin Williams. Ben Affleck. Thank you, Ben Affleck. It was the first movie that he did. Was it the first movie they did, but they won an Oscar, right? So a famous movie, Goodwill hunting. So Emily was Goodwill hunting and I got a text from Emily. I look at it and I say to myself, oh oh!, This is about to get serious.

It's a picture of a book that she just found and it's the binder. And it says Gaslighting in America. Wow. It's yeah. And it was an old book. And then she's like, look at this and she sends me another text, another picture. And it's the inside.

Emily, can you please describe what happened?

[00:33:00] Emily: Yes. When I opened the book, because the cover just was similar to the binding, it just had the title. And when I opened the book, it was not what I expected. It was a historic preservation book about actual lights fueled by gas in America.

[00:33:22] Fawn: And we started laughing over here. And we started to really get into this whole thing of gaslighting.

And like I said before, I really didn't know what it meant truly. So we dove in deep we went into DBF. We went in and I started to look for what is going on after our second conversation about the gas lighting. And you, once again, this is why it's so good to have friends.

Emily pointed out to me that first of all, she didn't even realize that we're so into etymology here, but she's like, do you know the, where, where it comes from? Do you know the term, gaslighting comes from this, it was a play. I'm like what?

So there's no Greek, there's no Latin folks. It is this play that was done in 1938

[00:34:17] Matt: and later done as a movie,

[00:34:19] Fawn: twice. It was done in 1940 originally. And then there was another one in 1944 with Ingrid Bergman

[00:34:26] Matt: who won an Oscar for that, her role. See, I saw the first movie after Emily, after Emily told me about the play.

[00:34:33] Fawn: I started to try to look for as much information as I could about it. So I got into the play and then, I found a movie and the one I found was the first movie. The plate is set in 1880. The movie was done in 1940 and the play was done in 1938. And so it was just, it was fascinating to the more I started reading.

The better I could understand it all. And then we ended up having a three and a half hour talk about this on our podcast. Emily and I got so excited that Matt couldn't even say a word,

[00:35:16] Matt: not unlike today, but

[00:35:18] Fawn: , so as I was editing it, I was almost done editing the whole show three and a half hours guys, three and a half hours of excited talking and, you know, going from point a to point Z and like, boop, boop, boop, like going everywhere.

Matt is making fun because throughout this whole time stop it Matt, Matt said three things and it was, (fawn makes a ehhm sound) that's all he said. He said "ehHmm"

[00:35:45] Emily: three times,

[00:35:46] Fawn: three times in three and a half hours.

[00:35:49] Emily: Oh my

gosh.

[00:35:52] Matt: Let's let's let's come to it. Shall we? Well, uh, go ahead. Okay. So gaslighting, have you ever in your life ever told a blatant lie, denied somebody attacked somebody's fundamentals.

Tell, a person or people around that person that this person's crazy. Have you ever been someone's sole source of truth ever? You may have Gaslighted somebody's. Well, welcome to guess what I'm guilty probably of doing every single one of those things at one point or another.

[00:36:24] Fawn: Okay.

Now let's stop?

[00:36:25] Matt: Does that make me a gas lighter?

Hold on, hold on. Because we've already talked about it for like a million hours. Let me just start from the beginning. Let's just start from the beginning. All right. Let me get into it. And we're, we're all take turns talking this time. Okay.

Matt, were you practicing

[00:36:41] Emily: that in the mirror?

[00:36:45] Matt: No, no, I got a whole bunch of other points here too.

[00:36:49] Fawn: Well, we ha oh my goodness. I'm so proud of you guys. Well, what happened was when we, when our episode ended, when we started, when we stopped recording the house was so weird and I just felt like a miserable person. I'm like, oh my God, I just totally steamrolled Matt.

And then he's thinking I'm probably steamrolling you guys. And everyone felt like a miserable human being, because I'm telling you, when I watched the movie, I felt like a miserable human

being.

[00:37:24] Matt: No doubt felt very

dirty.

[00:37:25] Fawn: I felt dirty. I told, I texted Emily. I'm like, I have to take a shower. I feel gross.

You described it perfectly. Remember Emily, what did he say about, we were like, Matt, what's wrong? How come you didn'ttalk?

Yeah. He

[00:37:40] Emily: was saying

that feeling of when you're a kid in a classroom and the teacher is reprimanding another student, , and you had nothing to do with the object of like guilt, but you still feel permeated by that same feeling like empathetically vibing off that guilt and then questioning like every action you did that day, like, and it was such an accurate ...I...

Everyone can relate to some form of that. I think of getting in trouble, vicariously through somebody else.

[00:38:19] Matt: Well, or somebody gets caught for doing something that you had done 10 seconds before.

[00:38:23] Fawn: Yes. You just feel guilty. Like the guilt is, is

[00:38:28] Emily: it's existential guilt crisis.

[00:38:30] Fawn: Yes. Thank you, Emily. Yeah, totally.

So we're going to redo it. Okay. Let me just, we'll start from the beginning. All right. Let's go back to the meaning of gaslighting. And I took notes from various different sources, mostly, uh, therapists, psychologists, and everything. Let's get into it.

So gas lighting is manipulation and deception. It's a verb: to gas light. It's a form of psychological manipulation where a person seeks to make their targeted individual or group, question their own memory, perception, and sanity. So in this movie, the gas light. can you, Emily, describe to our friends out there, the way you described it to me, what the play was.

With the way you described it to me was the guy that

[00:39:23] Emily: just to be clear, I I've never watched it. I just read the Wikipedia entry. So thank you, Wikipedia. But the general premise of it is that, a husband and wife, the man is actually physically changing the state of the Gaslight in their home.

And then when the woman perceives and comments on that change, he maintains that there is no change. And basically does that to the point where she can't believe her own senses, and starts to believe that she's crazy, which is what his goal is; to make her feel crazy and take her money.

[00:40:10] Fawn: Right. And in the first movie, here's what happens and it lays out perfectly what gaslighting is. And one of the things that I've been trying to get across to people for many, many years without bringing in the whole term of gaslighting is look, we're all isolated. And I'm not talking about the isolation that's occurred because of the worldwide pandemic.

I've been saying for two decades now that there is a loneliness epidemic happening, especially in the United States. That if you really are honest, how many people out of the entire population in our society, in the United States, most people don't have friends. Yeah, sure. You may have thousands of people on Facebook following you.

You could have, I don't know, thousands of people following you on Instagram or whatever platform you're on, where you feel like you have friends, people that listen to you and maybe are supporting you. But truly if you think about it, when stuff happens, who is there, that you can walk with, that you can have an actual meal with, that you can have supporting you when you're going through something rough .

And they don't have to be right there with you in the room. Just a simple. Like you can reach them by telephone and you can hear their voice. who has that? And why is it? The last 20 years, think about all the popular movies and TV shows that people have turned to.

And why is that? Years ago there was Sex and the City and it really wasn't about the sex. It was about living vicariously through this friendship that existed. They went to brunch on the weekends. They shopped together, they support each other with the ins and outs of different relationships that they were in.

You know what I mean? They were there for each other. Like, let's takeBig Bang Theory as another example. They always ate dinner together. They went to work together. They helped each other out. They were involved in each other's lives. When Howard's mother passed away, they were all there. When someone went to the hospital, they were all there together.

Can we say that? It's a brutal truth that we have to face. Most of us unfortunately face it when we really need someone. And there's no one there, but I guarantee you. What I learned was there is someone there, there are. I'm not getting religious here, but it's like, there are angels everywhere. A friend will always be there for you.

You may not know them, but there is someone always there to help you. We are deeply interconnected. You're never really alone. Having said that though, we need to get back the art of friendship and remember how important it is to come together like that get off of the whole lie of social media and everything.

So back to isolation, I have seen, and I've noticed this as a photographer because I went from country to country and would come back to the United States and I would notice, oh my God, look at how we as Americans treat each other. And it starts with the family. As soon as a child is born, boom, they get put into daycare. Someone reaches a certain age, boom. They get put into daycare or at home, right. We separate each other. When the kids are born, they go off to school. We come back and nowadays, like we don't even have meals together. Well, aside from the pandemic, because we were forced to, right, but like there's such an, a state of isolation.

You could even be in the room and the isolation that has permeated everything that you could still be in a room together, but you're still not there. You're not fully present. I've seen this, you know, being lucky enough to become a mom. I would see it on the playground. I would see it everywhere.

Like parents are not present. Their children are screaming for attention. And the parent is not aware. The child is like, look at me, look at me, look at me. You know what I mean? Not present and that isolation is fertile ground for gaslighting and yeah, you're right, Matt. Like Emily, Emily and I yesterday were like so excited and it was such a healing time for us to talk about all the ways that gaslighting exists in our society.

And that we kind of like muffled you because I feel like we did because we, it was all from our perspective.

[00:45:10] Matt: And I was, I was having my own internal conversations. For me, gaslighting is about what's your end game. That to me is more a case of really having a clear understanding if somebody is gaslighting or not.

Cause people fall prey to so many of the different things that happen inside because, you know, man is a social animal. We seek to manipulate our environment. And if our environment is other people we seek to manipulate it, it's a question of what are we, what's our end game. What are we really trying to do?

Are we trying to dominate people or are we trying to discover and have discourse with people? You know, people disagree. So

[00:45:48] Fawn: I just realized I'm talking too much and I really, I want to hear everything. You have to say, Matt and Emily, I want you to say everything you want to say. I'm just going to finish the definition of it.

And then we're going to, we're going to roll. Okay. Promise

[00:46:04] Emily: the low edit episode today. , but we didn't account for Fawn.

[00:46:11] Fawn: So here, I, I do have a gift for the gab, but here we go. I'll try to make a quick, I just want to get just, I want to get to the different states of gaslighting. So now we know where it comes from.

It really comes from this movie. The etymology of gaslighting play comes from I'm so sorry. Yes. The play comes from the play. And when I saw the movie, the first one I realized that,, it was showing us that through isolation, this man isolated his wife from all her friends and her family, they moved to London where she knew no one.

And he started to tell her that she was doing things that she was not doing. So he would move frames from the wall. They were having a nice time together dancing, and he was promising her dinner and going out to dance and everything. And then all of a sudden he would look at the wall and go, oh, and then the, the woman would say, oh no, no, no, please, no, I didn't do it.

I didn't do it. And he'd say, you did it again. You are stealing the art from the wall. You did it again. She was like, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. He had her believing that she was doing all these things. when in fact he was doing it and he was trying to drive her insane. He was stealing from her and it turns, I don't want to give this story away.

It's really a very dark thriller. And I don't want to give too much away, but through isolation he was able to achieve, almost achieve her, completely losing her mind. So this is what gaslighters do. They sew seeds of doubt in the minds of their victims using denial, lies, misdirection and misinformation in personal relationships or domestic settings, they will often belittle, the emotions and achievements of the person

they are gaslighting. As a result, the victim's self-esteem will often suffer and they will be less likely to trust their own judgment. Instead, victims will often turn to the perpetrators as a source of truth. Many gaslighters are skilled liars and are easily able to fool or manipulate not only their victim, but outside parties.

Power is often a factor, which is like, when we're talking about jobs that the job place like, God, how do you get away from that? So, anyway, power is often a factor in the relationship between gas lighters and their victims with the gas lighter, usually being in a greater position of authority. And existing power imbalance often means the victim is more likely to believe in the truth and importance of what the perpetrators says.

We find gas lighting in politics. It's everywhere. There's so much to talk about. And I also want to talk about motivation.

They're motivated to do this. Gaslighting is a way to control the moment, stop conflict, ease, anxiety, and feel in control. However it often deflects responsibility and tears down the other person. Some may gaslight their partners by denying events, including personal violence.

Um, and it's also, it's a learned behavior. It's probably passed down from generation to generation, which is why it's often hard to spot some aspects of gaslighting or notice that maybe you are doing it because it's how, it's the only way you've seen the world. It's how you were raised.

And it, you know, since it is out in politics, I mean, especially in the United States right now, it's everywhere. I just want to point out that it's really hard to, to extricate oneself from a gaslighter power dynamic. And that's why we wanted to talk with coy. And when we do the other episode with Coy, we're just going to focus mainly on how do we deal with this?

How do we deal with it especially when we're in a position where we can't leave the job or you can't leave a certain family, even though they're all gas lighters, like how can you in a healthy way still live with this, if you're surrounded by it and you feel like you can't get out, Coy has the answers there.

So tune in for that episode coming up soon. Those who gas light most often attain greater emotional awareness and self regulation. Those being gaslighted must learn that they don't need others to validate their reality and they need to gain self-reliance and confidence in defining their own reality. And again, my belief is, that's why it's so important more than ever before, for us to remember the art of friendship to have friends, because this is what's going to help us. I don't want to say deal with gaslighting. How, how do I say it guys? When we have friends, we're able to see the light, if you will, right.

And heal from

[00:51:28] Matt: an outside perspective. Yeah. And it frees us because one of the key things that you can absolutely point to is isolation.

[00:51:36] Fawn: And also your friend will say, you're not crazy. They're driving you crazy, which is what happened with me and yoga. Holly would say, she's crazy. They're trying to drive you crazy.

[00:51:51] Emily: It's an interesting sort of, conundrum, because like, from what you just read, it's saying that they have to learn that they don't need others to define who they are. But I think the key to doing that and to breaking this isolation is to have enough points of connection with other people, with people in your life that enables you to discern the differences of those connections and which of those relationships

are building you up and which of those are negative. And then you can choose when you have multiple connection points, which of those are part of your self-definition and which of them you don't need. So it's not like you just stop relying on anybody else. It's more like you have enough points of connection to be able to choose the connections in your life that contribute to yourself definition in a positive way, instead of breaking it down until you don't know.

[00:53:05] Fawn: Now I'm afraid that we're going to come up with solutions and I don't want to take away from our talk with coy. Can we talk about all the different ways that there's gaslighting, that we may not even be aware of? What do you have there in your notes

[00:53:18] Matt: again, what you'd need in my mind, what you need to focus on is what's the quote-unquote gas lighters end game.

And that's how you really effectively identify because unfortunately, or fortunately, a lot, all of the tactics of gaslighting can just occur. It's when there's a, they're actually trying to destroy yourself worth; like that is their goal. Or, they're trying to quote unquote drive you crazy.

They're trying to make you doubt the reality that you see. Again, you know, welcome to cults. Cults are excellent gas lighters, because they get you to accept their version of reality and they are your sole source of truth,

[00:54:03] Fawn: but saying cult Colt, Matt it's. So it is so, it's so extreme that it's, it's almost a disconnect.

What do you think are ways thatare cultish that we are so under a spell where we don't even realize that there, that the wool is being pulled over our eyes? Do you know what I mean?

[00:54:26] Matt: Again, sole source of truth. Uh, somebody who would then, um, you only get praised for that. They'll praise you for things.

Yes, absolutely. They'll actually build you up, but only when you do something that serves them, like they won't say, wow, that was an interesting opinion. It's about, you're doing something that they would want you to do. So

[00:54:46] Fawn: this is a work situation for sure.

[00:54:49] Matt: Right. Act act the way I want you to act. And you, you will be, oh my God, you want to be whatever

[00:54:54] Fawn: dot, dot, dot, right guys like Emily, we were talking about being a bad student, as opposed to being a good student.

I mean, that's pretty much what happens there, right? You, if you act the way they want you to, if you behave the way they want you to, if you think the way they want you to, then you will succeed.

[00:55:13] Matt: Well, you'll get a, you'll get an a yeah, absolutely. But are you being gas lit? Was I gas lit by Mrs. Hershey in 4th grade?

No, I wasn't, but she wanted me to, you know, I got an a, if I did things, the way I was supposed to do her end game was for me to be smarter. It wasn't to tear me down. It wasn't to make me a robot. It wasn't to ...It's end game.

Okay.

[00:55:34] Fawn: Well, you know what? She was a good teacher. I've had many, many teachers who consistently told me that I was not smart enough.

I was not good enough that I was lazy. It's kind of like being told I'm crazy. Right? Well, I'm studying and I'm studying and I, and I want to learn and no matter what, I get knocked down with a D D minus and then on top of it, I have the teacher saying you're lazy.

[00:56:04] Matt: Yeah. I remember, I remember my, uh, algebra two trig teacher, Mr. Joint

Son of a.... But anyways, we had to do, we had to take copious notes and I took my notes, but they weren't in color. So he'd always give me X grade. And then when he's like, well, why don't you do them in color? So I did them in color and I got the exact same grade. At that point I said, we're done, I'm going to do what I do.

And you're going to give me the grade you're going to give me. And we're just going to kind of just ignore each other. And if you want to get into it with me, we can get into it. But there's no point. I'm done because I know I'm not going to satisfy you. And that had a lot to do with how flipping angry I was in, in high school.

I had this just like fire coming off of me the whole time that, um, you know, screw you, if you weren't going to do right by me. I had such that scent. And was that a heightened sense of self-worth or was that just me being an a-hole? I don't know, but

[00:56:55] Fawn: It was you having the self-awareness to a point where you're not going to take it, but Emily, what were you going to say?

[00:57:04] Emily: Well, I just think it's a really interesting, sort of component that Matt is bringing up of identifying their motivation. And I think the difficulty of that, right, is that, how do you identify that when you're information gathering perception is what has been put into question in your own mind?

And I think part of it is like most diagnoses processes, like whether it's depression or ADHD or physiological illness, The most successful diagnoses processes are about looking at the full symptom list and identifying how many of those are being employed or happening simultaneously and the frequency.

Right. So a diagnosis of depression, it isn't like, do you feel tired sometimes? Do you feel sad sometimes? Do you eat too much or too little sometimes, can you not sleep every now and then. It's are all of these things happening and are they happening more or less all the time for you?

And only by looking at all of the symptoms together and the whole picture, can you start to understand what you're saying, like the motivation, the end game, like the result of that, right? Because lots of people say "oh, I'm depressed" when they're sad for a week. But that's not depression.

And so I think gaslighting undergoes the same abuse, like, "oh, I don't agree with you. You're gaslighting me" right? No, it's an extended it's about duration, frequency and a cohesive list of aggressive behaviors. It's not, if you lied about somebody or one time or call them crazy one time, are you in a daily relationship with a person where you daily do a, you know, nine out of 10 things on the gas lighting list, or rather if you're the gaslightee. Are you experiencing nine of these behaviors from one person on a consistent basis. That's where you can start to understand, because I think it's hard to whole picture think like, by the time I was in my darkest depression, like I was not self-awareness, it was like not on the table for me. Like it was just survival, right.

Survival. And being able to hear my husband, the one person trying to help me and just trusting him to get me to therapy and the psychologist and to the people who could enable me to take my next right step. And it's funny, like frozen two came out during that time and likeAnna's whole like next right thing song where it's like, you know, just take a step step again, do the next right thing.

It's spoke to me. And so I think if you're in a gaslighting situation, just starting with observation, you know, don't even try to jump to the judgment of like what the motivation or the end game is. Start by observing. Like these are the things that indicate it. Like, do they happen to you? How often is it always the same person?

These are the questions that you can ask yourself because any action has to start with observation and awareness. Just the awareness, you know, start there. Just start there. Don't even worry about the step after that. Take your first step.

[01:01:10] Matt: Right. I guess I'm focused on, am I the gaslightee and you're

[01:01:14] Fawn: but it's the

[01:01:15] Emily: same process. You know, my therapist gave me a list of abuser identifications that she gives to abusers when she's beginning to work with them and they ask themselves those questions. So, yes, I think like, if you're worried about yourself, you can apply the same process from the other side.

Right? Like, do I do like of these 10 things? Did I do them all this week? And were they to the same person? if the answer is like you did two of them in two different situations, like, do you want to do some self work? Go ahead. If you want, are you, uh, evil gaslighting, narcissist? Not likely, you know, I mean, I think you can apply it both ways, like, and in most like, yeah, I wasn't an asshole yesterday.

Oh, sorry. Yesterday I was an apple

[01:02:16] Fawn: yesterday. Um,

[01:02:20] Emily: like to my husband for a fit, a 10 minute argument we had like, but am I consistently doing this list of 10 gaslighting things Fawn, that you just educated us on? Like,

no, no.

[01:02:37] Fawn: And I'm so glad you're saying this, Emily. I love you so much because not only is it important in speaking about gaslighting, but about racism. First of all, the gas lighter is never going to be questioning themselves a narcissist doesn't have the capacity to sit down and go, let me reflect on this and how am I treating? You know what I mean? They're not even going to do that. So if you're feeling guilty, Just relax and listen to everything. Replay what Emily just said. And as you were saying this, Emily, it just, it made me realize like, this is what the therapist said.

So I'm gonna read a little paragraph about what the therapist said about exactly what you just said. All right. So gaslighting is different from genuine relationship disagreement, which is both common and important in relationships. Now, gaslighting is distinct in that one partner is consistently listening and considering the other partner's perspective, one partner is consistently negating the other's perception, insisting that they are wrong or telling them that their emotional reaction is irrational or dysfunctional. Over time, the listening partner may exhibit symptoms often associated with anxiety disorders, depression, or self-esteem as opposed to these conditions. Gaslighting requires a second party, actively manipulating the perceptions of the other. Um,

[01:04:22] Emily: so not manipulating the person like manipulating, like their perceptions.

I think that's different. Cause Matt, when you referred to manipulating people, like we try to like persuade them to our way of seeing things you're talking about, like manipulation, uh, you know, of like, I think a different quality and that's where you bring in the end game, you know, whereas if you're manipulating their perceptions, you're actually undermining their ability to be manipulated, like in a persuasive sense. Like, if that makes sense. I don't know if that makes sense, but I felt like what Fawn just read was a good articulation of; well, and of course it comes from therapist. So why wouldn't it be?

Um, not that they're all winners, but,

um, that's a whole nother episode.

[01:05:20] Fawn: Totally.

[01:05:21] Emily: Y'all already did it. No, we haven't. We haven't.

But yeah, I think that's a key factor. Like manipulating their perceptions, like that is know what's true when you don't know, like what's real,

[01:05:38] Fawn: right. Because it's not concrete. It's not, it's not, you know, it's emotional.

I don't know, what is it like you can't,

[01:05:47] Emily: it's like the, if we're going to politics, it's almost like the misinformation dissemination saying, right? Like people are doing their best to intake all the information and make sound decisions, feel like they have collected accurate observations, perceptions.

But if what you're putting out is not true to begin with, how can you expect people to operate like functionally in a place of truth? that's why I think they call it political gaslighting, right? Like you are manipulating the perception. Like you're not trying to persuade people to one side or the other.

You are not allowing them to receive, to accurately perceive what is going on and thereby like you're manipulating their fundamental operation as a human being.

[01:06:48] Matt: Well, no, absolutely. The, you know, fun, fun lie. There are lizard people on the moon prove there aren't, you know, it's one of these, like, I can throw out the most outrageous quote unquote fact, but how can you even determine whether or not it's true, particularly if I tell you, oh, but there's a big conspiracy and nobody wants you to know this information and I have it.

I am your sole source of

truth,

[01:07:15] Emily: so, right. Totally like you combine that with layer upon layer.

[01:07:19] Fawn: You guys, did you guys see it, but, uh, gaslighting and politics. so I put in the notes, the 2008 book called "State of Confusion, Political Manipulation, and the Assault on the American Mind.

, it's just, it's interesting. There's so many things to read out there so you can understand, or like at least see all the different forms control is being had, Like, uh, and how it can come through modern communications, marketing, advertising techniques, you know, propaganda it's it's everywhere.

And I just think, as I keep saying over and over again, the more we are together in a true form of friendship, the less likely it is that someone will have power over us because we're more powerful together. We're more powerful. I'm more powerful when I talk to Emily. Right. I'm more powerful when I'm having good conversations with Matt, right?

[01:08:25] Matt: Absolutely. No question.

[01:08:27] Emily: Most powerful when all three of us are having an active dialogue.

[01:08:32] Fawn: Exactly.

[01:08:35] Matt: And then there are other things that kick it up, another notch and another, and another

[01:08:38] Fawn: notch, but talking is the most beautiful thing. And like the other thing we say is breaking bread together, eating together.

it's really important and it also feels good. It's like the, the fundamental, the basic, like eating and breathing and drinking water. It is the most basic, that is the most important.

Coming together and having someone to share life with, someone that is your witness in life, you know, I love marriage for that because you're my witness in life, Matt. Right. I mean, if we're communicating, there are, there are times where you just don't see what I see. Like when someone's being a total racist jerk to me out of the room,

[01:09:23] Matt: or you're standing right there.

I'm just not paying attention.

[01:09:26] Fawn: No, you are paying attention, but you don't have the ability or the sense that I do. My hyper aggressive, heightened sense of smelling racism. It can come in in a split. Second of, uh, look I get from someone's eyes and I'll turn to you and I'll say, did you see. But you weren't aware of it because your, your, your senses are different.

You have a different perspective. It's

[01:09:52] Emily: almost like the idea, like, you know, if like we have these really strong associations with like a certain smell or certain sound, right? Like when you link an experience with a physiological, um, like trigger like that, then it's like a more lasting association.

So Fawn, your life experiences have just tuned you in to certain turn of phrase is body language, eye contact. Like, you're just, you've have so many repeated exposures and associations with those manifestations and the things that statistically come next, that your, when you see them happen, you expect the pairing then your attuned to it because it's building on that. Whereas Matt or I may not have experienced those were just tuned to different, small gestures and things, right? Because like you associate the smell of peppermint with that with, with whatever comes next. And Matt associates, peppermint with whatever Matt's life experience builds and I associate peppermint.

Right. And it just, I don't know if that's really good analogy, like you just notice that smell differently. And when you notice that smell, you might go on red alert. And when I noticed that smell and I might associate it with like, you know, pleasant memories, like it just, it's not the same for everyone

[01:11:32] Fawn: is a perfect analogy.

And that's why it's so important to have our relationships the way we do, you know, to be friends, even if you're you're my marriage partner, we still have to be friends. We still have to communicate because yeah, it is it's, it's like a frequency it's like tuning into a different radio station. My radio station is 95.6 yours is, 97 something.

You know what I mean? Whatever it is. Right, exactly. Heavy metal for Matt. And, and so the thing is that, we're all operating at different frequencies, but as friends to come together, it's important to have different radio stations. And it's important to communicate. This is what my frequency is. Is feeling.

This is what your frequency is feeling, and you don't have to be tuned into my particular station, my particular frequency, my particular radio station. But now, you know what, because I've told you because I've, I've shared my life story with you now, you know my frequency, right? Do you know what I mean?

And now you're able to be multifaceted within your own station within your own radio station within your own way of experiencing life. But you also now have mine and I have yours because I'm listening to you and I'm listening to you, Emily. And the more we come together and the more we're so sensitive, not sensitive.

That's a, now that's a charged word these days to say sensitive, but you're aware you're, you're lovingly understanding and aware of this different frequency. Even if you don't come from it. And that is what creates a powerful situation in a good way.

[01:13:30] Emily: Well, now I really value the way that I think just there's a real, acknowledgement of the power of the way that phrasing and approaching a thought can shift your mindset.

So when we were referring to like racism right earlier Fawn, and, uh, Matt and I are two white people who are having to have that like classroom guilt, existential crisis moment. I have been reading as many, have the materials being written on changing the question from, am I racist to, what am I doing to be anti-racist right?

Like, what am I, what actions am I taking to actively be? Anti-racist because when you ask somebody, are you a racist? That's like a targeted manipulating question that automatically puts them in a position of defense. Like, are you a bad person? Like, am I duck like, oh,

And just start shifting that to what are you actively doing? What actions can you actively take to be anti-racist is a, is a process that we can apply to so many facets of our life. Like, what am I doing to advocate for others? What am I doing to form these high quality, real friendships?

What am I doing? You know, it's like the equivalent of what people are doing right now to do vision boards, your, putting your focus on the thing, the actions, the learnings, the work you can do to manifest positive results or improved results, to try and make the world a better place.

I just think that I did this like new years Soultice writers exercise recently where you write down your successes of the year to start, then you write down like surprises, things you didn't know were going to happen.

Then you write down your failures or wherever you fell short, what things you goals you had, you didn't achieve. And then the next step is you write your worst fear, biggest judgements about those failures. And it was small, right? So it was like, uh, if your goal was to like publish a book and you didn't do it, then your, uh, you failed to do it, then your judgment might be like, I'm a terrible writer.

I'm a terrible person. Like I'm never going to succeed at this. Right? Like that back of your mind, worst fear. And you write it down because then you can look at it. And your next step is to say what your heart knows to be true about that. Right? So your heart may know that the truth is that publishing a book is like a very difficult long-term goal.

And you did take these steps toward becoming a better writer toward like connecting with people in the industry. But it just may be a process that takes more time than you thought or hoped it would. And then out of that truth, you can develop learnings and actions and things that you can do and work on to take your next steps toward circling back and achieving that goal.

And I just think that process of healthy examination of asking your worst fears about yourself, and then addressing and like, no, like I know my heart knows these things to be true about myself and knowing that, here's what I can do to even be better in that area. Like that process is uncomfortable, difficult if you're doing it honestly with yourself, but so valuable.

And you really can walk out with a sense of optimism, hope, of refocusing, and you can do that with your friendships too. Like, you know, I hoped this friendship would be this, like this year. I really failed as a friend that makes me a terrible person. It makes me that asshole friend. I'm like, no, my heart knows like my mental health wasn't great

this year, the pandemic was going on. It seems a really difficult. And going forward though, knowing all of those things, like I am going to make the effort to reach out to this person and remind them that I'm there and have this friendship moved back toward where I want it to be. I mean, it's, it's so valuable.

It's hard, but if the person or the attribute about yourself or the goal is worth it, you do the hard work and you take the next right

step.

[01:18:45] Fawn: Absolutely. And it's, it's really not hard because it's coming from your heart. It's coming from a place of being genuine. Can I, do you mind if I end it here because what Emily, everything Emily said is a beautiful summit.

It's a beautiful place to go back and rehear what you just said, Emily. It is perfection. And I want to close the show. Next

[01:19:10] Emily: episode Coy can tell us

[01:19:13] Fawn: how Coy, how, yeah. Coy will be on, we're going to record another day with Coy and she will explain to us her perspective on how to actually live with this.

And without saying you're a racist, you're a gaslighter you're gaslighting me and in a very loving human way, not just deal with the situation, but , make the world better. Before we close the show off today, can I just comment on not only how much I enjoyed both of your perspectives. Thank you and Matt, thank you for being so gracious and loving.

You know, I, I, I know listening to this kind of a topic and really trigger people and thinking that, oh my God, that means I'm a bad person. Or that means I'm racist. And that means I'm a gas lighter. And, and I, I'm just not fit to be living here. You know? Like it's horrible. We, we, you know, those are, but yeah, it's terrible.

And so one of the things that you started off talking about Emily is what am I doing to be anti-racist and I've, and I've heard that too, the past couple of years, like, you know, especially white people. And I feel like that term right there is getting us into trouble. And if I may be bold enough to suggest another way, instead of saying,

what am I doing to be anti-racist? Because in a way it's like still bringing the negative on, by even saying those words, can we switch it to, what am I doing to be LOVING, Period. And then to close off this show, I want you all to remember. The world is a small town and everyone is your friend. The world is a small town and everyone is your friend.

Now not every friend is a good friend and so much like the line vector that Emily sent the hand with a poop emoji, which is actually soap. Just realize that every friend is good for you. And there are, I mean, definitely from our perspectives here today, you need to get away from these people

[01:21:30] Emily: and anything that sparkles is

[01:21:31] Fawn: not soap.

Exactly. You're not meant to be friends with everybody. And there are people out there that if they heard this podcast would probably want to call me out and say, she doesn't know how to be a friend. She's no friend. Why? Because I got away from these people for a good reason. And instead of fighting with them and getting dirty along with them and fighting with them, I just disappear.

I am done I'm out. I will not engage I'm out. It could be someone I was friends with. It could be a family member. If it's not going to change. If the person keeps redoing everything without learning, without changing, you got to go. You have things to do. So the world is a small town and everyone is your friend, but you're not to be friends with everyone.

Just take it easy on yourself and go with love. What is it I'm doing to be loving now? Not everyone will be loving back to you, but that's when you keep walking and you walk with your friends, with your true friends, Emily. I believe loves exactly. We are each other's loves. We are family. It does not have to be by being birthed into a family.

Physically. We are each other's families in and out of time. It has nothing to do with biology though, with the physical. I don't know how to describe it, but you all know what I'm talking about. Usually people say, yeah, and it's, it's like original, like spiritual birth family. Like we have known each other in and out of time.

It's not by the egg and the sperm creating you. It is more than that. So that the egg and the sperm. So everyone thank you for listening again, thank you for listening.

Please reach out to Emily, reach out to us. You can reach both Emily and Fawn and Matt by going to our friendly world podcast.com all of Emily's information and contact information and her, her links are there. And also you'll see a link for us. If you would like to buy us a cup of coffee to help support our show, that would be lovely and amazing.

And also what I would like to request is if you could go to our friendly world podcast.com and press contact us, and ask for a zoom meeting with us, I want to hang out with you. We would like to start a group where we all get together on zoom because we're all around the world. Thank you everyone for listening to us, all the countries around the world that are our family, our friends. Thank you so much. I want to see your faces. We want to talk to you. We want to have conversation. We want to bring you on our show. Please contact us by going to our friendly world podcast.com and yes, a cup of coffee would be great, guys.

We love you so much. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you in just a few days or sooner than that. Just reach out to us. Okay, Emily. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Love our Emily! Oh, love. Love you guys. Talk to you soon. Be well bye-bye bye.

Matt: So, have you ever heard of the book, Dale Carnegie's book how to win friends and influence people? It's been used by millions of people to get close, to make friends and all the rest of it. And it was used by Charlie Manson to manipulate his family.

[00:00:15] Fawn: Charles Manson? Yes. Why do you say Charlie? Like,

he's a good guy

[00:00:19] Matt: because that's one of the ways he has been addressed.

But anyways, um, yes, yes. The basically the root of evil took that, those exact same lessons, spun them on their head and used them to manipulate his quote unquote family.

[00:00:33] Fawn: Holy crap.

[00:00:35] Matt: So that's why, that's why in my head, it's about end game. It's about why are you doing this? What are you doing? What is, what is the ultimate result you would like to see from this?

It either comes from love or it comes from fear and all the other negative things. If it comes from love, go. But if it doesn't and in that case, it definitely didn't. Don't do it

[00:00:57] Fawn: guys. I'm scared,

[00:01:00] Matt: but that's just, it that's, that's the point is that, any particular tool, any particular, you know, anything can be used for the greater good or not.

[00:01:11] Emily: If you're asking yourself, if you might be the next Charlie Manson. I'm just kidding.

[00:01:18] Fawn: Oh my God. No, no, go with love everybody. What am I doing to be loving? Love. Okay. Bye. Love.