GAS-lighting
By Jennifer Goi | She/Her/Hers
Originally Published: May 11, 2020
Gas-lighting-- it's typically seen as a form of emotional abuse to cause the victim to question their personal morals and beliefs because of degradation by the gas-lighter.
For example, say you are in a relationship. One day, you have your favorite outfit on, and your partner says, "You look ugly in that shirt. You'd have more friends if you didn't wear it so often." After that comment from a beloved, you start thinking about their comment, every time you see the shirt. You don't want to wear it again, so you throw it in the back of your closet.
And then one day, the two of you are going through your closet, trying to donate old clothes and trinkets, and you come across the shirt. You put it in the box and your partner says, "Why are you throwing that away? You are beautiful in it."
"No, you said I looked ugly," you reply. They deny it, calling you "crazy". You don't understand. You've been avoiding this shirt, your used-to-be favorite, for nothing? Maybe you thought looked ugly at one point, and that's why you decided to stop wearing it. You leave it in your closet.
And when this keeps happening in different situations, you start questioning your own reality and what you believed. Did I want a cat? They brought one home and insisted I wanted one; I mean, they have always wanted a cat. They said I did. Why would they lie? They love me. Maybe I forgot. Maybe my reality, what I think, is wrong-- I need to depend on they're reality to see what is real. I need to trust them.
You are now insecure and doubtful of yourself; but this isn't just between two different people. We do this to ourselves too.
When growing up in the church and going to Dharma School, you learn about three aspects of human desire, called GAS, which are:
G - Greed
A - Anger
S - Stupidity/Ignorance
These three things are literally gas-lighting ourselves. It's kinda similar to the Disney movie Inside Out. The film is about a 12 year-old girl who moved to San Francisco, and she misses her hometown. One of her memories is of a really fun day, and the memory, an orb with a picture inside, is colored yellow for a happy day. But when one of her personified feelings, Sadness, touches the memory, it's blue because it remembers how Riley's hockey team lost a big game the same day. It's similar to that. Our experiences become clouded by sadness, in this case, because of an emotion that took charge of us.
Similarly with G.A.S., when we are greedy-- we want the last slice of pizza at a party-- our perception of what really happens can be destroyed. So, someone else beats you to the last slice, and you become angry. You wanted it first, so why should they have it? You only ate one, and you were looking forward to it. Now a really fun party with some friends turns into a "I deserved it" turmoil.
You end up playing a pick-up basketball game with everyone and you just have this anger built up, so you are ruthless. You don't laugh when your friend makes a stupid shot. You just want to win, wanting the other person to suffer defeat. You foul more than you really should. You get mad at your teammates when they mess around.
And then you look back at this party: you were so angry. You remember seeing your friends laugh and just being annoyed. You remember before the party, you were so excited to just be with your friends. But one of them did something slightly angering, so you just focused on that one little detail which ruined your whole night.
And we do this over and over again to ourselves. We are GAS-lighting ourselves.
“…we need to learn and deal with our GAS. We need to stop letting it control ourselves and our perception of life.”
Of course, this doesn't deny your right to emotion. You will be sad or mad or annoyed or frustrated. You may make selfish choices or bad decisions. But, it's how you react to it.
If you're frustrated, do you understand that they maybe didn't realize you wanted the last piece, or do you let it ruin your night? Do you understand, basically, the world doesn't revolve around you? When we think it does, when we think other people's actions and feelings should center around us, we gas-light ourselves. Our greed, anger, and stupidity hurts our enjoyment in life.
So, in order to live a life of gratitude and help reach enlightenment (or just happiness), we need to learn and deal with our GAS. We need to stop letting it control ourselves and our perception of life.
This is exactly what the Four Noble Truths tell us. Let me lay it out.
The First Noble Truth: We are all suffering.
The Second: We are suffering because we are greedy.
The Third: In order not to suffer, you need to stop being greedy.
The Fourth: In order to not be greedy, follow the Eight-fold Path.
This seems like it's common sense, right? Don't be greedy to end all suffering. But then, you're hit with the last one. What's the Eight-fold path?
“The point of being "right" is to correctly see the world as it is-- to not be clouded by skewed judgement.“
The Eight-fold Path is all about to be "right". More specifically, right view, right thought, right action, right speech, right mindfulness, right meditation, right livelihood, and right effort. You know you got all of them if you could eight. Because, you know, its the Eight-fold path.
Anyways, it's not saying to always be "right" or correct. The point of being "right" is to correctly see the world as it is-- to not be clouded by skewed judgement.
For example, there's this show called The Good Place. It's about a girl named Eleanor who was a very terrible person on earth. But, after she died, she went to the "Good Place", which is basically heaven. This seemed like a mistake-- when ever someone tried to correct her, she would insult them. Eleanor did things she wasn't supposed to, and she hurt people to get herself ahead in life. To be able to stay in the Good Place, her roommate taught her how to be ethical. She started to do good things to keep herself in paradise.
But that was the source of her problem. This question was raised: was Eleanor really a good person if what she was doing was to benefit her? I mean sure, she apologized to someone for wronging them, but would she have done that if she wasn't in danger of leaving the Good Place? Would she still be kind and helpful?
This is exactly what being "right" is in Buddhism. If you are being selfless to people but only to get a promotion, and you being morally correct? If you apologize to someone because you don't want to miss out on the next party, are you truly kind? Sure, it seems as though you are being nice. But, you don't have the right intention.
This comes into play about gas-lighting ourselves-- we limit our ability to achieve enlightenment. When we are "fake kind", it's because we want some kind of moral reward, which is our greed. We are so greedy that we are only nice to others if it benefits us. So, when the result we do not want to happen does in fact happen, we become angry, our "the world revolves around me attitude".
“You reach nirvana by being kind to be kind. You are not driven by moral reward. There is an award, but you don't want it.”
You may argue that Buddhism is literally to want to achieve enlightenment. That's true and false. We are supposed to live a life of gratitude by not having GAS. This allows us to achieve being able to go to nirvana. That means we want to be selfless, which is greed to not have greed, right? Not exactly. You reach nirvana by being kind to be kind. You are not driven by moral reward. There is an award, but you don't want it.
Plus, the very point of nirvana is to be able to go and be okay with not staying. You are grateful for the opportunity.
But our corrupt intentions that cause us to be greedy, we hinder our judgement of the world, we cannot live the life of gratitude or achieve happiness. Our soul will be starving of moral goodness and our fun, our parties with really good people and pizza, becomes memories we aren't fond of. And why would you want that?
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