A Shaman’s Guide To Reality and Gaslighting
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“You create your own reality!” is a famous quote by psychic Jane Roberts channeling the entity Seth. According to Seth, your thoughts and beliefs form the world around you and not the other way around. Each one of us is creating our own version of the world around us like we are stuck in hamster balls of reality as we see and perceive it. When we meet other people, our realities collide in unique, interesting and (as I will illustrate later) sometimes dangerous ways.
Only you can perceive the world through your eyes. Unless you are skilled at body-swapping, you’re stuck with your perception only. Your thoughts and beliefs about the world form the way you see it and having strong opinions about the world can actually have a physical impact on those around you. As we live in a universe based on the Law Of Attraction, your thoughts, beliefs and opinions have a powerful effect on the type of life you lead. And how you perceive events and situations (even those considered negative or bad) has an impact on your health and well-being. If you view a situation as “bad” the universe will give you more “bad” situations and if you can’t see something as a positive it’s best to remain neutral.
As a shaman, I encourage people to have no beliefs or opinions in order to heal from past traumas and abuse. I also teach people to “Obey Their Own Signal” and trust their gut instinct. To not listen to other people. To not engage in gossip or rumor. To use discernment and to even take everything I say with a grain of salt because it may not apply to you. We are all existing in our own versions of reality because that is all we can really perceive. Make sure you live in your own reality and not one of another’s design. I will get into how we can get fooled into falling into the trap of another person’s reality later.
In my work I’ve come across people with such distorted views of reality largely based on the views, beliefs and ideas from others. I see people who’ve been manipulated and taken advantage of or forced into scapegoat roles by narcissistic people. Others have been schooled by television gaining their knowledge of how interpersonal relationships work by watching Reality TV. The most broken people I see are those that have been gaslit.
Gaslighting is a tactic manipulators use to distort reality in order to get what they want. According to Counseling Resource:
Effective gaslighting can be accomplished in several different ways. Sometimes, a person can assert something with such an apparent intensity of conviction that the other person begins to doubt their own perspective. Other times, vigorous and unwavering denial coupled with a display of righteous indignation can accomplish the same task. Bringing up historical facts that seem largely accurate but contain minute, hard-to-prove distortions and using them to “prove” the correctness of one’s position is another method. Gaslighting is particularly effective when coupled with other tactics such as shaming and guilting. Anything that aids in getting another person to doubt their judgment and back down will work.
As I write this I am in rehab for alcohol abuse. I am here to face reality and get some perspective on my intense shamanic initation and also heal from PTSD of being pursued by my ex-fiance’s drunk insane mother who convinced a group of people I was a danger to her son that I loved very much. Her gaslighting tactics were transparent to me but not so much to my fiance at the time. She gossiped, spread rumors and worked very hard to convince his friends and the authorities that I was a danger to him to the point I actually became one as we were forced to be on the run from this insane situation.
Since I am aware of what happened (and was aware the entire time) I knew I was battling a family intent on keeping their little scapegoat well within their grasp. We met because he was seeking a shaman and he was getting better and learning how to emerge from his emotionally abusive childhood. But eventually I had to give up and move on because the death threats wore me down and stressed me out and I eventually had to choose between taking care of myself or taking care of both of us. She had chosen me as the enemy and she was relentless in preserving her version of reality. If I had stayed with him, we both might have been killed.
She has effectively gaslit him and now he believes that I had evil intentions. I know how much I loved him. He told me time and again how crazy his mother was. I have loads of documentation of her harassment and threats. I also know the time we shared was filled with happiness and joy so her gaslighting didn’t really work on me. I am quite aware of how reality works and if she’s convinced my ex that my love for him was dangerous, he now exists in her reality and not his own.
As I was raised by Narcissistic parents, I learned later in life how gaslighting works. When I got sober in 2010 a therapist told me that as a lifetime drinker I had never faced reality before and as part of my recovery I was stripped of my anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications. In total sobriety the problems with my upbringing (and thusly my interpersonal relationships) were brought to light. I attended an intensive Life Skills course and did tons of work on myself. After three months of this I had a mental health assessment where the counselor said that my depression and anxiety problems were a normal reaction to the insanity all around me. That essentially my life had been a lie and that I was just fine as long as I stayed sober and stayed away from my family.
In my parent’s view of reality I am mentally ill, broken and troublemaker unable to get his life together. When I got sober I discovered that I was not the problem and their intense gaslighting had given me a distorted view of myself and of reality. I had had many successes in my life but to my parents those things were non-existent. To a narcissistic parent their children cannot be successful or happy or even exist as an independent person. They use their children as scapegoats and dumpgrounds for their unwanted psychological garbage. 99% of scapegoated children never escape this distorted view of reality and of themselves. Many, like me, turn to alcohol or other drugs including anti-depressants to make the world make sense. Because the things narcissists do make no sense so in order to function in their reality you’ve either got to be drunk or medicated.
When the child of a narcissistic parent or the victim of an abuser starts to get better, this exposes reality for what it is. Unable to face reality, the narcissist or abuser will stop at nothing to keep the true version of reality from seeping into their toxic one. They will actively cause events and scenarios to hinder the recovery of their children or their victims by continuing to distort facts until the child or victim simply gives up or backs down. And while my ex-fiance was unable to handle the relentless attacks from his mother, I decided to get sober and face reality once again.
As both of our lives were destroyed by her machinations, he was forced back into her reality as a means of basic survival. With me lying in a hospital bed after suffering a seizure over the stress of it all, he had no choice but to go back to that version. And the reality he chooses to believe is that I intentionally set out to hurt him which is rather heartbreaking since I cared for him so very much. I entered rehab to heal from this trauma and also get help from specialists in both PTSD and how to recover from Narcissistic Victim Syndrome. I intend to make this my last encounter with people such as these thanking God I did not marry into a family who solves problems with death threats and kidnapping.
As my form of surviving this, I have chosen to view it all as a very painful yet powerful lesson in reality. And how we as humans can co-create realities that serve our basic needs, wants and desires. Healing my broken heart and in therapy over it allows me to weigh the accusations made against me with the advice of an independent third party. Of course I would never set out to intentionally hurt someone but to those who exist in a framework of reality where love=hurt than I can definitely see how that could be perceived. If he feels that I intentionally hurt him then I cannot change his perspective. For that is how he is choosing to heal from the trauma his mother caused.
I have also chosen to not participate in my ex’s version of reality where the people who truly love him are the bad guys and those that abuse him are his friends. It took me years of therapy and counseling to overcome the gaslighting and reality distortion of my own toxic family and friends and perhaps someday he will find his way out of the matrix. I did not truly heal from this until I was 41. Traumas like these take time.
As a shaman must heal himself before he can heal others, I am using my time in rehab to finally understand and accept that reality is totally dependent upon how you perceive the world around you. Being able to view things for what they are and not what you want them to be allows you to harness the creative power of your own being. For many of the other residents here with me, they view being in rehab as a defeat. They are perceiving the reality that they are broken or hopelessly incurable. They are terrified of life outside where the temptation to drink or use drugs will be overwhelming. They have been convinced that something is wrong with them rather than view this situation that everything is finally going right.
To truly sick and crazy people, those of us who are genuine and honest are the threat. A narcissist builds their reality on a carefully constructed nest of lies. There’s a saying that “Hell hath no fury like a narcissist unmasked” and I have unmasked more narcissists in my life than I care to count. They all react predictably in various ways and my experiences with them, though painful as they were, have led me to understand the absolute nature of my own reality. That I am a loving, strong, capable and kind person who has no ill intention towards anyone. That someone could perceive me as a threat is more revealing as to what’s going on with them. And since I am a shaman, I have taken a vow to only help the people of this world with spiritual matters. If someone perceives that as evil then you have your answer about the reality they perceive.
And what reality you choose to live in is up to you. Is your reality filled with paranoia and people out to do you harm? Then don’t be surprised if you start to attract that type of energy. If you think that people set out to destroy you, they will. But if you trust life and know yourself, you can enjoy the reality you’ve created for yourself. For the shaman understands that everything placed in your reality was chosen by you to learn and grow from. Even the narcissists and enemies you attract are all about discovering who you really are and what you’re all about.
The path of shamanism is of knowledge and self-discovery. And when you know yourself 100% other people can accuse you of things that don’t really fit with reality. You can say “I am not this thing you think I am” with conviction because you know the truth. And as a sober shaman in recovery I am quite sure the reality I am in promotes healing, truth and wellness. And that’s where I prefer to dwell.
Much love from your friendly neighborhood shaman,
Patrick John Coleman
ALL THINGS GO: How I Became A Shaman
In April of 2013, Author Eric Durchholz had a near-death experience followed by a soul transfer. As a result, he died and was replaced by a new consciousness named Patrick John Coleman. A new soul in a full-grown body… much to the confusion of his friends and family. As the new age concept of a walk-in soul is relatively unknown to the mainstream, a growing army of walkins are coming to this planet in a “Divine Invasion” to set this polluted and hateful world back on a course towards peace. As Coleman struggled to find out where he came from and what happened to Eric, he turned to the great psychic researchers Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts and Esther Hicks for answers. In doing so he found he had uncanny connections to them while also uncovering a plot by his family to keep him silent. The book also includes several hours of specially produced video footage including reenactments of key events linked via QR Codes so keep your smartphone handy and get ready for a mindbending, soul-expanding thrill ride. To Purchase, click here
