RISE with Angela
RISE with Angela
đŸ©¶ How Systems Gaslight Our Inner Knowing
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đŸ©¶ How Systems Gaslight Our Inner Knowing

A Midlife Reckoning—and Return to Wholeness

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There’s a quiet epidemic moving through the lives of midlife women.

Not one you’ll find in a medical textbook.
Not one culture will name.
Not one that the self-help world can fully fix.

It’s the erosion of inner knowing.

It’s what happens when you spend decades outsourcing your truth—to doctors, experts, partners, spiritual teachers, even your own conditioned beliefs—until you can no longer recognize the sound of your own voice.

And here’s the thing:
It didn’t start with you.
But it can end with you.

This isn’t about blaming systems.
It’s about reclaiming sovereignty.
Because healing isn’t about rejecting everything—it’s about remembering what’s true for you.

Let’s talk about the systems that shaped us—and how we return to wholeness.


đŸ„ 1. The Medical System

When Your Body’s Wisdom Gets Pathologized

You walk into the doctor’s office and say, “I don’t feel like myself.”
They run tests. Your labs are normal.
They suggest:
“It’s just your hormones.”
“Maybe it’s depression.”
“Here’s a prescription.”

But no one asks about the burnout from 30 years of overgiving.
No one wonders if your body is grieving, depleted, or awakening.
No one invites you into a deeper relationship with her.

Instead, we’re taught to numb the symptoms instead of listen to the soul.

You might choose HRT or medication to support your healing—and that can be powerful.
But not when it’s prescribed instead of your truth.

đŸ©¶ Your body isn’t broken. She’s brilliant. She’s screaming the truth in a system that rewards silence.

Healing is not something done to you.
It’s something awakened within you.


đŸ§± 2. The Cultural System

When Being “Good” Costs You Everything

From girlhood, we were trained to be:
✔ Pleasers
✔ Performers
✔ Providers

We learned to read the room—but forgot how to read ourselves.

By midlife, something cracks open.
The roles no longer fit. The mask gets heavy.
And the voice you buried beneath everyone else’s needs starts to whisper again.

But culture gaslights that voice.
It says:
“You’re selfish.”
“You’re too emotional.”
“You should be grateful.”

So you keep overfunctioning while quietly falling apart.

đŸ©¶ Midlife isn’t a crisis. It’s a reckoning—with all the ways you’ve abandoned yourself to survive.

This is the moment you get to say:
“I am allowed to center myself. I am allowed to want more. I am allowed to change the rules.”


đŸ§˜â€â™€ïž 3. The Spiritual System

When Light Becomes a Cage

You enter the healing world looking for truth—and sometimes find another system that asks you to bypass it.

You’re told:
“Your triggers are your fault.”
“You just need to raise your frequency.”
“Stay high vibe.”

But let’s unpack that first one.

“Your triggers are your fault.”

It sounds empowering on the surface.
But underneath, it can sound like:

✂ “Your pain is inconvenient—please manage it privately.”
✂ “If you’re triggered, you must not be evolved enough.”
✂ “You should fix yourself before you’re allowed to belong.”

This isn’t healing.
It’s emotional gaslighting wrapped in spiritual language.

Here’s the truth:
🌀 Your triggers are not your fault.
They are not signs that you’re broken.
They are invitations.
Maps. Messages.
They show you where your body, your story, or your soul still longs for care, truth, or repair.

Yes—our healing becomes our responsibility.
But responsibility is not the same as blame.

đŸ©¶ You don’t have to bypass your pain to be spiritual. You just have to be honest with it.

You don’t need to be “unbothered” to be wise.
You just need to be undeniably self-loyal.

This is where healing meets integrity.
Where you bring your grief, rage, joy, and intuition—all of you—into the room.
Unmasked.

Because spirituality that denies the body is just patriarchy in prettier packaging.


🧭 So Where Do We Go From Here?

We don’t throw the systems away.
We discern.

We reclaim the radical truth that:

✹ You are the expert on your own body.
✹ Your emotions are not inconvenient—they are information.
✹ Your knowing is not too much—it’s medicine.

Healing isn’t found in one right answer—it’s found in the moment you choose to trust yourself again.

You might use HRT and breathwork.
You might pray and rage.
You might grieve the good girl and rise in your power.

đŸ©¶ This is wholeness. This is healing. This is your homecoming.


This is not a breakdown.
It’s a sacred return.

Back to your body.
Back to your truth.
Back to your wild, wise, ungaslightable self.


Let’s talk.
👇 Drop a comment:

Which system has gaslit your knowing the most?
And what has helped you remember?

With you in the in-between,
Angela xo


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