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Dr. Robin Stern: Welcome to The Gaslight Effect Podcast. I'm Robin Stern, co-founder and associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and author of the bestselling book, the Gaslight Effect. I'm an educator and a psychoanalyst, but first and foremost, I'm a wife, a mother, a sister, aunt, and healer. And just like many of you, I was a victim of gaslighting. Please join me for each episode as I interview fascinating guests and explore the concept of gaslighting. You'll learn what it truly means to be gaslighted, how it feels, how to recognize it, and how to understand it, and ultimately how to get out of it.
Dr. Robin Stern: Before we begin, I want you to know that talking about gaslighting can bring up challenging and painful emotions. Give yourself permission to feel them. Some of you may wanna go more deeply with your emotions. While some of you may hold them more lightly, no matter what you're feeling, know that your emotions are a guide to your inner life. Your emotions are sacred and uniquely you respect and embrace them for they have information to give you. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect podcast, you can find them at robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for being here with me.
Dr. Robin Stern: Welcome everyone to this episode of the Gaslight Effect podcast. Really thrilled today to have with me my colleague and friend, Andrea Owen. Andrea is an author, global keynote speaker, and professional certified life coach who helps high achieving women, maximize unshakeable confidence, master their mindset, and magnify their courage. Andrea has taught hundreds of thousands of women tools and strategies to be able to empower themselves to live their most kick life through her speaking, her books, her coaching, and her wildly popular podcast with over 4 million downloads. Well, that is something to celebrate about yourself, Andrea, and I hope you do it. Andrea is the proud author of How to Stop Feeling Like, 14 Habits that Are Holding You Back from Happiness. Everybody needs to hear this, which has been translated into 19 languages and is available in 23 countries. And the rest of your story, I'm gonna ask you to please share with our listeners, and I can't wait to get into it. Me too,
Andrea Owen: Me too. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Robin Stern: Andrea, tell us where you started this story about anything that relates to your saying Yes to the Gaslight Effect podcast.
Andrea Owen: Well, I, I remember we, because you were on my show and we had such a great conversation, you were so incredibly helpful to my audience, and this particular topic holds a special interest for me because when my life fell apart in 2006, which brought me to become a certified life coach, and you know, the rest, the rest is history with all of my training and experience. But before that, I was, I was married, uh, was to someone I had been with since I was 17 years old. And at the time, we had been, we'd been together for 13 years, but only married for a couple of years. We were, um, talking about starting a family and, and trying to conceive our first child. And I got suspicious that my husband might be having an affair. And it sparked a time in my life, seven months to be exact of doubting everything, of being very suspicious, trying to figure out what was going on. And back then, so this was, so it started in 2005, went into 2006. I didn't know that what was happening to me was gaslighting. I just thought he was maybe lying to me. I mean, I, I might pinpoint it as abusive, but I definitely thought I was losing my mind.
Dr. Robin Stern: What made you think you were losing your mind? Can you go back and, and kinda step us through that process? So he would lie to you and rather than thinking, this guy is no good, he's abusing me, he's lying, manipulating me, you ended up thinking you were losing your mind. Yes. So how did that happen?
Andrea Owen: It was a slow process over time. And if I could just give a, a couple of brief examples. There were sort of the umbrella questions that I would ask. I would ask directly, like, are you having an affair? It, it seems like you're having an affair. And he would not only deny it vehemently, but he would then say, how, how could you think I would do something like that to you? Um, and or are you suspicious because you are cheating on me? And, and turn it around on me? And then there were the more specific things. Like I, um, he was going to school at the time. He had gone back to college, and I had, I was suspicious that maybe he wasn't really going to his classes, that he was lying about that. So I logged in into his, um, student account and it right in front of me, it said all the list of classes. And it said, dropped, dropped, dropped all of his classes. And so I would show that to him,
Dr. Robin Stern: You're
Andrea Owen: Not going to school. And he would say, there's, there's a mistake. There's been a mistake. I am going to class. I'll go in and, and try. So it was things like that. And then what ended up happening, Robin, is I wanted to believe him. I did not want to believe that my husband was actually having an affair. I wanted to believe him. And I would think to, I would lay in bed at night and think, maybe he's telling me the truth. Like, am I, am I just totally losing my mind that it looks like this is happening and I'm seeing things in black and white? It must be me. So it was this constant push pull of, of wanting the truth, but not wanting the truth to be as it was presented. And I, and I wanted to trust this man, this man that I had known since I was a teenager. And so it was just this perfect recipe of feeling like I was going crazy, like it was my fault.
Dr. Robin Stern: Yes. And absolute gaslighting. Mm-hmm
Andrea Owen: Yeah. And at the time, it didn't have a name. I didn't know what it was.
Dr. Robin Stern: Of course, it doesn't matter. You were feeling manipulated and feeling like it was something about you. And, and, well, I shouldn't say it doesn't matter. It matters a lot that you can name it. Yes. But at the time, the experience of it and the pain of it, and the, um, confusing unmoored nature of it, uh, certainly didn't matter whether it had a name or not. It was happening to you and you were blaming yourself. And I wonder, um, in the very extreme example of, or concrete example of you seeing in black and white that he wasn't going to school. Right. And in telling you it's a mistake, they'd made a mistake. Your want to believe him Yes. Was so strong that what you thought, okay, it is a mistake in writing,
Andrea Owen: Could be like thing things. Ha technical mistakes happen. And I, and I also, I wanna Yes, to that question. I also wanna add, there were moments where he would call me crazy. And so that didn't help
Dr. Robin Stern: Yes. And so sorry that you had to experience that, but incredible that you have done what you've done with your own experience to help thousands and millions of women and generations come. So tell us how you got from your very difficult and painful experience to be being a leader in the space of empowering women.
Andrea Owen: Yeah, and I, I wanna say this too, because I think there might be people listening who experienced something similar to what I experienced years ago before the term gaslighting was, you know, in, in the zeitgeist. And when it was around 2016 that this word started to hear about it. And wonderful experts like you kind of came onto podcasts and things, and were talking more about it, to be honest with you, it was re-traumatizing to hear that it had a name and hear people describing it. So it was simultaneously validating to realize. And I, and I knew before that, like, I wasn't going crazy. I was, I was right the whole time. My gut was right the whole time. So it was, it was validating in that sense. And, and also, um, it, I had to relive it. And I, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that that was easy.
Andrea Owen: It, it wasn't, it, it was re-traumatizing. And in 2016, I was, I was married for the second time. I had two children with my second husband. I, you know, they were school age at that point. And I, and I, I wanna acknowledge that for anyone that's listening. 'cause that, that was my experience of, of having to relive it. Um, in the long run, it, it was helpful to, to have that validation, to understand that I wasn't going crazy. And it allowed me to really step into what I think is, was the most healing part, is learning how to trust myself.
Dr. Robin Stern: Mm-hmm
Andrea Owen: I think that, you know, as a, as small children, I think born with this, the, the ability to trust our own gut, to trust our own self. And as I grew older, I think as it is with many people, especially with women, we are, that's kind of taught out of us. We're supposed to be accommodating to other people. Um, we're supposed to make other people comfortable before us. Everything from having to sit on Santa's lap to not trusting our own hunger, because we wanna maintain a certain highs in shape. And so it was, it was really that in 2016 and really learning about what gaslighting was, was the, uh, embarked on my own journey of learning how to trust myself. And, and it goes beyond just, you know, in relationships and things like that. But the self-trust piece was one of the major healing points for me. And I can go in more depth around that if, if you'd like. But that was, I,
Dr. Robin Stern: I would love for you to do that because many people, um, can really resonate with the need to trust themselves and, and being uncertain and unsure about how to go about finding that place inside of themselves. So how did you do it?
Andrea Owen: Yeah. It started with acknowledging the social conditioning that we all grow up with. And I, I think that, um, it's not to use that from a place of blame and oh, it's everybody else's fault. It's our culture's fault. It's, it's, I don't know how helpful that is, but even just acknowledging that this is how we are raised, it's in, um, it's incredibly sexist. It's, it's not right, but it's, it's how, how it is. And, and really, um, even some inner child work, uh, around, you know, my, my inner teenager still is pretty angry
Dr. Robin Stern: Probably didn't mean it. Why are you so worked up about that? Yeah.
Andrea Owen: It just, it's not, it, no one's, no one's gonna wanna marry you if you act like that. Like these types of messages. I would, that's what I was angry about. And so I allowed myself the space over time to express that through writing, through music, through, um, exercise and, you know, whatever it is to sort of, um, complete the cycle, the stress cycle, as some scientists call it, complete the stress cycle more than once. That was also a huge part of it. Lots and lots of journaling, um, rage journaling around that. And also self-trust, I think also isn't, it's also, and this might be a little bit existential, but I think it's important. It's not just about trusting my gut, it's also about trusting my own resilience. So this goes beyond relationships. Like if I take this risk, if I, uh, you know, walk into a new relationship, if I start a new business endeavor, I am afraid to do that because it could fall apart. This other person that I am in a relationship with could leave me. That's, many of us have the abandonment or rejection wound. And, and I think that for me, there was a part of me that was worried I would never recover from that. If I open up Pandora's box, I might never stop crying Robin. Like that. That was a fear that I had. So learning to trust my own resilience, that if I fall down, it's gonna suck and I can get back up again. I will always be my own safety net.
Dr. Robin Stern: And where did you get that confidence in those words? I will bring, I will be back up again.
Andrea Owen: I'll be my own safety net. Looking back on things that I had recovered from, for one, and not comes from age and wisdom
Dr. Robin Stern: So important. Remembering that there were other times where you were up against it and you fell down in so to speak, and you got back up again.
Andrea Owen: And thinking about, especially for me, thinking about women who had come before me, whether they were my ancestors, whether they were, whether who I admired, um, in my real life or, you know, um, celebrities or PE people that I just, I, I really looked up to hearing their stories as well, hearing their stories of, of unimaginable heartbreak. And, and wondering what if they would've never gotten back up? I would never be able to hear their story and, and looking to them for strength and whatever it is that I needed in order to know that I could also keep getting back up knowing that I would not have been put here on this earth in this lifetime if I didn't have the power to keep getting back up and, and learning from it. Um, there's a quote I heard a long time ago, and I'm, I, I don't know what exactly, but it was something about, you know, there's two types of pain.
Andrea Owen: There's the pre the pain that can break you and make you bitter and resentful and defensive and blaming, or there's the pain that can shape you and eventually make you stronger. And I wanted the pain that eventually made me stronger. It doesn't mean that you don't feel all the feelings. It doesn't mean that you don't sit on the ground when you fall down for a little bit,
Dr. Robin Stern: So courageous and bold of you, and thank you for sharing that. I, you know, wonder when you say that you were re-traumatized when you heard about gaslighting and you, um, had to go through the pain, whether that was able to get you through those kinds of, that kind of thinking, that kind of inner knowing that you're here for a reason and that you, that you can then be a model for other people if you go through this and you lead others in that process and you've survived it.
Andrea Owen: Yes. And, and, uh, all of that, it was, I felt when it sort of resurfaced, I felt like I, I wanted to give it a purpose. And then 2017 happened and it was the Kavanaugh hearings. And I was not, I dunno about you or anyone listening, but I was not okay
Andrea Owen: That was poignant for me. And, and this is what I mean when I, when I say like, I looked to women who, um, had a bigger platform or had to do what I did on a more public, on a more, um, more public way. And I don't know if I'm really answering your question, Robin, but like, that it was, it was things like that, that I looked to and really took to heart. And in order to have what I went through, have a purpose, I didn't have to make it mean anything about me and who I was as a person. Uh, I didn't have to internalize it and say, why me? But I could take it and use it as art. Even in my writing, I could use it as a jumping off point. I could use it as, uh, a lesson and a, um, like a beacon of strength. And that's a, that's a choice. And it's not an easy one. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you, like, for people listening, like, man, just look at it as a gift. I think that can be a really crappy thing to say to someone who's deep in it and who isn't ready. But there, I do think that if you get to a place where you can look at it from that perspective, by all means run towards that and do what you need to do to choose that perspective.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thank you. Yes, I am of that same mind. Obviously since I have not only been through my own gaslighting, but also have written quite a bit and speak about this all the time in the hopes that, that I can heal and inspire people who are just coming to that place themselves. Yes.
Andrea Owen: Can I say something? Can I say something about anger and rage? I feel that many of the women that I talk to really struggle to go to that place inside of them when they have been through something like that we've been through. And for me personally, anger and even rage have been easy for me to access. And I don't think that this is the norm. And so I, I always wanna acknowledge the people listening who might be in that place where their own anger scares them for whatever reason. Maybe because it, it was traumatizing what was modeled for them growing up. Or the social conditioning, as I mentioned, of, um, you know, nobody likes an angry woman that messaging that we, or for whatever reason they have a hard time accessing it 'cause it scares them. And I encourage people to, you know, many times with, with the help of a trusted therapist or or counselor to do whatever they can to baby step towards that. I feel that anger is a gift and that it is many times a necessary experience to walk through in order to heal. And again, I I encourage people to walk in slowly.
Dr. Robin Stern: Can you say more about that? Because I completely agree with you. I mean, we're, we're much more likely to turn the experience around to try to make it into a gift where we don't have to experience the anger or a tool would accommodate to the reality where we don't have to experience the anger. Um, and so I'm really appreciative of your bringing it up for our listeners and, and wonder if you can talk about what the gift of anger was for you.
Andrea Owen: Yeah, I think that, um, it allowed me, so I take a lot away from the work of internal family systems and, and, and really what, what that is, is is looking at, um, different parts of you that are, are wounded and that also try to protect you. And so if you look at it from that way, I definitely for years had a part of me that was a protector and an IFS, it's called a firefighter. And that particular part of me, um, was an incredibly angry and the what it looked like and felt like for me, the way I describe it is how dare you mm-hmm
Dr. Robin Stern:
Andrea Owen: How dare you not only lie to me, but put it on me and make it look like I'm the villain. How dare you hurt my soul? And, and, and especially now that I'm a 49-year-old woman, I was about 29, 30 when the, the worst of the gaslighting was happening. I now, I look back at it as my, um, as my younger self, as if like, this is my daughter or younger sister, how dare you hurt this young woman? It's very, it's very protective. Um, I don't know if I'm answering your question correctly, but, but I think it, it, it can be helpful to get that specific, like what exactly are you angry at?
Dr. Robin Stern: It's very interesting that you say that. I'll share this, um, from my own experience with a good guy Gaslight, my ex-husband, uh, who when he would gaslight me, I'd be enraged at him. Mm-hmm
Andrea Owen: Yes.
Dr. Robin Stern: And to just then accept that there was no way.
Andrea Owen: Yeah. Oh, the, the, the dismiss, the dismissing of your experience. What I have come to find through expressing my own anger and lots of therapy around it is, is the, the, the thing that I get the most angry about. And not just in my own life, even when I see it outside of myself, but it, if we're talking about the gaslighting, it's, it's any kind of dehumanization. When you are being dismissive of my experience, of my feelings, of my opinions, you are reducing me to nothing. And that was sort of like the thing that lit the fuse for me. And I I it is through therapy was how I realized, um, again, what the trigger was so that I could work on that specific thing. But I, you know, for people listening who, who may struggle to tiptoe in, maybe ask yourself, what if, uh, what if even just for 30 seconds you had permission to express the anger, you don't have to yell it, you don't have to get as righteous as and upset as I do. What, if you could just articulate it, what are, what are you mad at? What if that had happened to your sister or your best friend? What would, what would you say about that? Well,
Dr. Robin Stern: What's interesting about what you're saying, um, and I think it's a wonderful invitation, uh, is to, to ask the question or what I like about it is it leads me to ask the question of all of us, why is it so much easier to get angry on behalf of your best friend or your sister than yourself? Mm-hmm
Andrea Owen:
Dr. Robin Stern: People when I ask the question will often say, well, I don't know. It doesn't seem like a big deal when it's happening to me.
Andrea Owen: Right?
Dr. Robin Stern: I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm overreacting.
Andrea Owen: Which is exactly what the gaslight's been trying to
Dr. Robin Stern: Of course. They're, they don't deserve it. Maybe I deserve it.
Andrea Owen: Mm-hmm
Dr. Robin Stern: What would you say would be a frequent answer that you would hear
Andrea Owen: Exactly what you said? That's where I, that's where I was. I was thinking how you would answer it. It's the, it's, it's, and for many, it's a worthiness. It's, I don't, I don't deserve to, or, and some people just, it just scares them. It, it, it makes them feel like, um, it's one of those full contact emotions that many people are afraid to walk towards or into because they're afraid there's no, um, there's no exit.
Dr. Robin Stern: Mm-hmm
Andrea Owen: It will overwhelm them. It will, it will change their DNA, it will change their personality. They'll become an angry person. It's too scary and unknown. I used to believe that. Especially about deep, deep grief.
Dr. Robin Stern: How did you stop believing it?
Andrea Owen: Well, my dad died in 2016 and I had to
Andrea Owen: Um, I got the word surrender tattooed on my arm. Uh, and as a reminder to myself, because for me, surrendering to the most difficult emotions, rage, grief, sorrow, uh, shame, surrendering to those felt like I might die. My, one of my biggest work in, in my own personal growth has been accepting, like radical acceptance of for, for all of my emotions. And understanding that emotions are simply a body's way of processing information. Just like having a virus, uh, that you, you know, if you get a cold, you or the flu, you sweat, um, sometimes it's gross and there's vomiting happening, you might sneeze or cough. What if we looked at emotions as the same thing? What if we looked at it as our body's way of taking care of us?
Dr. Robin Stern: My, well, I love that. And of course, the work of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence was just my day job, um, is giving yourself permission to feel being our foundation, right? Mm-hmm
Andrea Owen: 100%
Dr. Robin Stern:
Andrea Owen: Yes. And I, when I got married the second time after the, the gaslighting relationship, the, the first few months in, I was very transparent with him. And, and I remember it was the first few months we were dating and he was gonna go to a concert. And this particular concert, I didn't wanna go with him. And, and I think he went actually by himself. And immediately when he told me he was going to the concert, I didn't believe him at all. I thought my immediate response is in my head. I said, he is lying to me.
Andrea Owen: He's going out with another woman. And I told him that later. And I, I owned it. I owned my own fear and we were able to work through it then. And so 2006 was, my gosh, 18 years ago,
Dr. Robin Stern: Hmm. Wow.
Andrea Owen: Because I feel like it's still here. And she said, this, this relationship haunts you. And I said, yes, it, it feels like a, I have a Holy Ghost and it's a haunted house here. So we did somatic work and it was an, it was hugely helpful. And then in, and I don't think this is for ev everybody, but I do wanna be transparent about all of the work that I've done starting last, oh no. So earlier this year, um, in 2024 in the spring, I started ketamine therapy, um, psychedelics basically. And I let go of the outcome. I was unattached to what the outcome would be. But the long and short of it, after many sessions I had during one of the sessions, I realized, and I was in the fetal position and I was crying. I realized that the reason I was still looping around this particular relationship was it wasn't because I wanted to get, I didn't wanna have another conversation with him. 'cause I kept thinking that, I'm like, do I need to talk? Do I need to see him again? Like it wasn't that it was my 17-year-old self, my 25-year-old self, my 30-year-old self was still hoping for a different outcome.
Andrea Owen: That's what the, the, the whole, that's what the ghost was still hoping for another outcome. And I had to work on healing her. And so this is where sort of like inner child work comes and I think we hear the term inner child so much, but it's not necessarily from when we are children. Like we still have traumatic things happen to us. I was 30 when my gaslighting happened. That's what I had to heal. So it was incredibly empowering for me to see that and hear that during that particular psychedelic therapy, um, session. And, um, and also what it helped me do is truly integrate that because it's one thing to think it, it's another thing to, to integrate it into have this radical acceptance of it. And I'll tell you what, Robin
Dr. Robin Stern: That's wonderful. And I know they're doing a lot of new work right now mm-hmm
Andrea Owen: Mm-hmm
Dr. Robin Stern: Even though many people listening are probably scared of it. Sure. Um, many people listening have probably heard of it and, and have had questions about it, um,
Andrea Owen: As they should. Yes.
Dr. Robin Stern: And looking of course for the right place to do it with the right people who have the right training and can be your right guide.
Andrea Owen: Yeah.
Dr. Robin Stern: I'd love for you to talk about the five self-sabotaging behaviors that you notice that women in these challenging relationships are going through.
Andrea Owen: Yes. Thank you for that question. And this comes from my second book. How does that feeling like, um, just for a little bit of context too. 'cause I think it's, it's helpful. There are 14 of them, and it was born from, I'm certified in the work of Dr. Brene Brown. Your listeners are probably familiar with her work around shame, resilience, specifically connection, vulnerability, courage. And what I noticed is, um, and she calls, she calls this our armor. So these are the behaviors that we employ when we're trying to avoid shame. We're trying to avoid failure, criticism, judgment, those vulnerability, those types of things. And I think for women, especially in these types of relationships that we're talking about, um, many times people pleasing is one of them. So the, so the default in its poor boundaries, it's people pleasing, you know, putting someone else's comfort before our own saying yes when we wanna say no, et cetera, et cetera.
Andrea Owen: So, so there's that one. And there's also perfectionism. And, and this can come in when we are not in a great place in our relationship. And so we try our damnedest to make sure things look okay from the outside, so that this can be our appearance, it can be, um, our work, it can be how clean our house is, et cetera, et cetera. So people pleasing. And perfectionism also numbing out is a big one based on what we were just talking about. Feelings, you know, we, we don't want to feel the feelings of feeling like we're going crazy or that our relationship is falling apart, et cetera, et cetera. So we use alcohol, we can use the internet, um, drugs, et cetera, et cetera. And then also, um, isolating is a big one. And I see this when people, it, it's not a matter of, um, you know, canceling because you want to have a night of self-care.
Andrea Owen: What I'm talking about is when you don't find specific people to open up to and show up for you. So you might tell the story of what's going on in your relationship. Oh, you know, he, he lied again and he, he didn't come home all night. I call that just the facts, ma'am. So you just are telling the story without talking about how you're actually feeling about it. So that's what I consider isolating. And I am forgetting one right now. That's four of them. But I feel
Dr. Robin Stern: That's what defenses are for. Because we know that they'll work immediately, right? In the long run, not so much.
Andrea Owen: Not so much. They tend to really go against the person that we're, that we really want to be proud of our ourselves. Um, I don't know anyone who has a value around people pleasing and perfectionism. Usually it's authenticity and courage is the type of woman that they want to be. And, um, so again, I wanna just acknowledge that, um, you're not wrong or bad if you employ, I still employ these behaviors sometimes. So it's just about seeing them when you're doing them and, and doing your best to course. Correct.
Dr. Robin Stern: That's so helpful. How do you know when you are, um, when your negative self-talk is really a, uh, signal that there's something wrong with the relationship?
Andrea Owen: Yeah, I think this is one of those, um, kind of tricky ones because it's, it's sort of like the air we breathe. We don't realize it's happening because of the way that our brains work. We get comfortable in that discomfort of beating ourselves up, essentially. And I, what my invitation for people is, um, try your best to, to to hear when you're being self-critical. So when you make a mistake, you know, if someone's listening to this and think about, um, the, the roles in their life that matter a lot to them. So maybe it's motherhood, maybe it's, um, the work that they do in the world or even in, in their partnership. When you make a mistake, whether it's your fault or not, do you speak to yourself in a kind matter with lots of compassion and grace? Or do you beat yourself up?
Andrea Owen: That is such an important step. You have to name it to tame it. Mm-hmm
Dr. Robin Stern: It's at the same time. I'll add to what that list of what it takes to be able to do it. Courage.
Andrea Owen: Yes.
Dr. Robin Stern: Uh, I'll share a story with you. I was teaching at Yale, um, in, uh, the medical school somewhere for young professionals. And, um, we talked about negative self-talk. One of the things you say when a procedure goes awry, or what are the things you say to yourself? Do you say, you know, what happens to everyone? Or do you say, I can't believe I did that. I'm such a moron, I should have been paying more attention, whatever. And of, of course, to the point of this conversation or this part of the conversation across the board, everyone said something really negative about themselves. And so we invited them to turn that we talked about the power of positive self-talk and how, um, the effect it has on their bodies and on their minds and their spirits and on their work that the next operation, their walking into the next relationship, they're, they're having to enter into or interaction. And, um, it was so hard for people to say good things about themselves.
Andrea Owen: Mm-hmm
Dr. Robin Stern: That I found really, um, so remarkable and, and sad and at the same time empowering for them. Okay. So practice, practice until it doesn't feel so uncomfortable to say, I'm really good at this. Mm-hmm
Andrea Owen: Yeah. And, and I, I do, I wanna acknowledge quickly too that this, that's, um, that's the goal. And in the meantime, sort of the, the route to theirs, I encourage people to try to shift yourself, talk to something neutral first. So you don't necessarily have to tell yourself positive affirmations from the get go. But the, the work that I did and, and, um, and that what I teach is, is just acknowledge. So say you and I, um, have this conversation and let's say I bombed, I did not show up as my best self. I got two hours of sleep last night, and I just didn't answer the questions well. And so you and I hang up this phone call and instead of me saying, well, Robin probably thinks I'm a total idiot, they're probably never gonna air the interview. Why should I even keep doing this?
Andrea Owen: Uh, what if I, what I would say is that wasn't my best work and it happened. That's it. So it's just, it's, it, that step can be so helpful because it's a pattern interrupter. You are interrupting the usual berating that you do, and that matters in order to create new neural pathways that needs to happen. So sometimes just a neutral acknowledgement of what just happened can beat a, a great first step to get to the place of, I actually didn't do that bad. I'm, I'm a I had a bad day, but I'm a great interviewee, et cetera.
Dr. Robin Stern: I think that's terrific. Thank you. Thank you for that advice and that reminder that there's often a step in between just to acknowledge that it was what it was, and maybe next time could be different.
Andrea Owen: Exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah. Thank you for that. So what are the things that you would most like to leave my listeners, our listeners today with?
Andrea Owen: I think I would love to circle back to gaslighting specifically, and that I, um, and I'm, I'm sure you know, you're the expert here, but it, it, to me, it's, it's such a specific form of abuse. And I, I think maybe one of the misconceptions is the length of time it can take to heal. And I, speaking of beat, beating ourselves up, I beat myself up for a long time for continuing to think about it, for continuing and, and it would show, he would show up in my dreams, random dreams. Sometimes he was just there. Sometimes it was his family members. Sometimes I would dream that we were still married, uh,
Andrea Owen: What if it just is that, uh, that it's, your brain is still trying to heal and it's a little confused when you're sleeping? And so in, but during, you know, my conscious waking hours, I was beating myself up and thinking like, does this mean that I need to have another convers? Does this mean that I really wanna get back together with him? What is wrong with me? And I would go into these just spirals,
Dr. Robin Stern: I love that your therapist gave you that gift, that that's really, and I love that you just gave it to our listeners, because it, it is like anything you let go of, it takes time. Mm-hmm. And there is timeline. There's no timeline for grief, there's no timeline for digesting your rage or your, um, or needing to shift into neutrality to go to positivity about yourself online. It's very individual and giving yourself grace and having patience and compassion. That's, that's a wonderful place to, to pause here in our conversation. And, and just to say thank you to, to you and to ask you to tell us where everyone can find you.
Andrea Owen: Just, and also just, I wanna thank you for, for talking about this particular topic. I think it's so incredibly important. So thank you, Robin, and I'm at andrea owen.com. I have a podcast, which you have been a wonderful guest on. The podcast is called Make Some Noise, and the website is where you can find my books and retreats and all that good stuff.
Dr. Robin Stern: I, I'm sorry we didn't get into all of your books because you wrote them each with a very specific agenda, and yet they're all about empowering women. And so please go read Andrea's books and find her on her podcast. And thank you so much for coming today.
Andrea Owen: Thank you so much for having me. Bye everybody.
Dr. Robin Stern: Bye everybody. See you next time.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thanks for joining me for today's episode. I hope you found it helpful and meaningful. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect podcast, you can find them@robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. And please leave a rating and a review. I also invite you to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. This podcast is produced by Mel Yellen, Mike Lens, and me. All of my work is supported by Suzen Pettit Marcus Estevez and Omaginarium, also by Sally McCartan and Jackie Daniels. I'm so grateful to have many people supporting me and especially grateful for all of you, my listeners.