In this episode of The Gaslight Effect Podcast, Dr. Robin Stern welcomes Dr. Elisha Goldstein, clinical psychologist, speaker, and author of Tiny Shifts: How Emotional Health Transforms Stress, Relationships, and Longevity, for a practical and deeply grounding conversation about how small moments of awareness can change the way we move through stress, overwhelm, relationships, and even gaslighting.

Elisha shares the simple but powerful framework at the heart of his work: Recognize, Release, Refocus, and Reinforce. Together, Robin and Elisha explore how emotional loops form, why stress can narrow our access to wisdom and choice, and how tiny shifts, like noticing tension in the body, or softening the shoulders can create space between stimulus and response.

They also connect Elisha's work directly to gaslighting, especially the self-doubt loop that can take hold when someone else repeatedly distorts your reality. Elisha offers a way to pause, return to the body, listen for what you know to be true, and begin reclaiming agency from the inside out.

This episode is an invitation to stop waiting for a dramatic life overhaul and begin with the next small moment. Because sometimes the path back to clarity, calm, and self-trust begins with one tiny shift.

To check out this and other episodes, head over to robinstern.com.

Don't forget to subscribe to The Gaslight Effect Podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to leave us a review to let us know what you think. Until next time, remember: healing is a journey, and you don't have to walk it alone.

Dr. Robin Stern's Social Media Links:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/drrobinstern/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dr.robinstern/

Twitter (X) - https://twitter.com/RobinSStern

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-stern-220b403a

Dr. Robin Stern's Books:

The Gaslight Effect

The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide

Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on The Gaslight Effect Podcast do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

In this episode of The Gaslight Effect Podcast, Dr. Robin Stern welcomes her longtime friend Margot Magowan - parent coach, writer, speaker, and former co-founder of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership - for a deeply personal conversation about parenting, power dynamics, and how easily gaslighting can show up at home, even when parents mean well.

Margot shares how she moved from leadership work to Nonviolent Communication (NVC) after her oldest daughter struggled with serious behavioral health challenges. What began as exhaustion, self-blame, and a sense of "I'm failing" became an awakening. She realized that emotions aren't problems to solve or debate. They're signals. Together, Robin and Margot unpack how NVC helps parents shift from "fixing" to connecting, and why naming feelings and needs can restore trust, autonomy, and safety in the parent-child relationship.

They talk about the difference between a request and a demand, how fear can lead parents to control their children in ways that undermine confidence, and how the culture of patriarchy and capitalism sets mothers up to feel inadequate while devaluing emotional life. Margot also describes what it looked like to bring NVC into a real household with three daughters, moving from "therapy robot" scripts to an authentic, grounded way of relating, and the long-term impact - siblings who can repair conflict and stay connected without escalation.

This episode is a hopeful reminder that you can learn new skills, change old patterns, and build relationships where everyone's needs matter, without losing boundaries, authority, or honesty.

To check out this and other episodes, head over to robinstern.com.

Don't forget to subscribe to The Gaslight Effect Podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to leave us a review to let us know what you think. Until next time, remember: healing is a journey, and you don't have to walk it alone.

Dr. Robin Stern's Social Media Links:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/drrobinstern/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dr.robinstern/

Twitter (X) - https://twitter.com/RobinSStern

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-stern-220b403a

Dr. Robin Stern's Books:

The Gaslight Effect

The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide

Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on The Gaslight Effect Podcast do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

What happens when a parent keeps lying, and the whole family teaches you not to ask too many questions?

In this episode of The Gaslight Effect Podcast, Dr. Robin Stern sits down with journalist and author Francesca Fontana to explore what happens when the stories you inherit about your family, and yourself, begin to unravel.

Francesca's new memoir, The Family Snitch, traces her lifelong search to understand her father: a larger-than-life, mostly absent presence in her childhood who became even more mysterious when he went to federal prison. With few answers and a clear message to keep family matters "private," Francesca grew up with gaps, contradictions, and unreliable narratives, learning early that her father's promises often didn't match reality. As she got older, she stopped taking his words at face value, but the deeper questions didn't go away: Who was he really? Why did he lie? And what does it mean to love someone you can't trust?

When Francesca becomes a reporter, she returns to the mystery with a new toolset, determined to follow the facts and reclaim her reality. But the investigation becomes more than a story. It becomes an emotional reckoning with hope, shame, self-doubt, and the painful pull of wanting a parent to choose honesty. Along the way, she confronts the hardest possibility: that the person she's searching for may not want to be known, and that choosing her own life might require closing the door she kept open for so long.

Robin and Francesca talk about the psychological toll of living inside uncertainty, the seductive nature of "maybe this time," and the courage it takes to grieve not only a relationship, but the hope of one. They also discuss how writing the book helped Francesca integrate her past, build trust in her own perceptions, and step out of the "disease of doubt" into something steadier: agency, clarity, and self-respect.

To check out this and other episodes, head over to robinstern.com.

Don't forget to subscribe to The Gaslight Effect Podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to leave us a review to let us know what you think. Until next time, remember: healing is a journey, and you don't have to walk it alone.

Dr. Robin Stern's Social Media Links:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/drrobinstern/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dr.robinstern/

Twitter (X) - https://twitter.com/RobinSStern

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-stern-220b403a

Dr. Robin Stern's Books:

The Gaslight Effect

The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide

Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on The Gaslight Effect Podcast do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.