Jefferson Fisher

And I guess what's the opposite of that then?

Sometimes it's easier to understand something by understanding the opposite.

What would that look like?

And sometimes when you come up against, I mean, we were talking before we started recording about since this book's publication, what have been people saying to you and what are the chapters that have stood out the most to people?

And you mentioned that it tends to be things around dealing with difficult conversations, dealing with difficult people.

And one of the phrases that's been arguably overused a lot in society is this phrase, gaslighting.

Yeah.

And the definition of gaslighting that I managed to pull was gaslighting is psychological manipulation where one person purposefully lies or manipulates the other to make them doubt their own reality, memory or sanity.

Do people talk to you about gaslighting a lot?

Yes.

Now that you've written this book?

Yes.

And what do you think gaslighting is?

It's one of those things that's been used so often that we almost have to like pause for a second just to define it again.

So I might do something wrong and then I might come home and know that I've done something wrong and intentionally try and sell my partner a version of reality that makes them fundamentally question what they know to try and spare me the critique or to control them.

Why is it important that we don't gaslight others?

And I ask this question because everybody listening now is probably going to want the answer to the question, which is what do I do about a gaslighter?

But again, this is avoiding the responsibility that we all have a tendency or at some point in our life have gaslighted somebody else.

And, you know, I don't think my audience is just...

the gaslighted yeah exactly clearly you're also all the gaslighters right so how do um why is it important that we don't gaslight other people and is there a way for us to avoid you know getting into a situation where our backs against the wall and we end up gaslighting someone