Got Gossip?

Gossip is so much a part of our culture, really. Look at the magazines we read and the television shows that are most popular. They often revolve around petty dramas, back stabbing scenarios and a spotlight on the details of others' lives. It's hard to escape in our workplace, families and even in our so called recovery and personal growth circles and support groups. Gossip is everywhere.

Personally, I've been involved with personal growth and support circles for over twenty years, some of which have been professionally facilitated and others which are not. Each circle that I have been in has asked its members to refrain from gossip. This is consistent in 12 step communities, women's circles, educational and professional trainings and various other personal development groups of which I have participated. It seems a very difficult boundary for individuals to respect, however. It still goes on in each of these environments. It's curious to me as well. I often wonder - What is our payoff for gossiping? Why is this such a difficult behavior for people to give up? What is so challenging about honoring the no gossip guideline as a value in healthy communications and relationships?

Here are some of my own reasons and thoughts about why it is so difficult a behavior to honor:

*When we close the door on badmouthing someone else, we are forced to sit with our own uncomfortable feelings about the relationship. We must look inside and sit with what is stirring inside of us rather than over focusing on someone else. With the door to gossip shut tightly, we have no place to act our discomfort out by gossiping about someone else. It is emotionally uncomfortable to sit in this emotional turmoil.

*When we want to do so, we can find agreement for our judgement and criticism about someone else. This always eliminates the need and responsibility we have to look at our own part. 

*There is authentic intimacy that comes from handling conflicts with someone else face to face. When we do this, rather than go behind someone's back and talk about them, we have to deal with our own issues of intimacy. When we go eyeball to eyeball and talk about our hurt, our anger and our judgements with the person we have the challenges with, we are forced to be intimate and confront our own internal patterns around closeness and conflict. This takes great courage and many are not willing to face their own fears of intimacy this way, breaking old, comfortable patterns of handling difficulty. It requires great courage to venture out into new ways of living, even if the old ways do not serve our values, the old ways are still comfortable and familiar.

*When we have low self-esteem and are shame-based individuals, we will do anything to avoid feeling bad about ourselves. Gossiping about someone else can be a way that we try to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. Unfortunately, this doesn't work. We are left with the original issue and on some level, gossiping about someone else will add to our bad feelings about ourselves. 

*It's easier to go away when conflict happens and use this as a coping mechanism. One will never move beyond a certain level of intimacy and connection this way, but again, it may be the payoff. Intimacy and authentic connections with others require bold and courageous hearts that look within.

*Often it seems easier to gossip about someone and make them wrong rather than see the pattern that we have in our own lives with others. We probably used the gossip pattern or running away pattern as a survival behavior when we were young. 

*We also have unrealistic expectations of those we are in relationship with. It is because we long to have someone we can trust and count on, unlike our original families where we were hurt and unsafe. When those we love finally disappoint us, which they will, we feel justified in gossiping about them and making them wrong. We do this so we can avoid the original deep hurt inside. Since our childhoods have involved hurt in relationships, without working through this internal patterns, it is inevitable that we will recreate them in our relationships. We just make them bad and wrong and go away rather than see this original pattern set up in early childhood. 

Here are solutions to apply in order to learn how to handle our conflicts with authenticity;

1) Embrace the value of no gossip. Close the back door on talking about other people behind there backs. Close the door on hurting others this way.

2) Be with the discomfort of your own internal feelings when conflict occurs with someone else. What is it that feels so painful, that is stirring inside? Be willing to look at patterns in your early life of how conflict and anger was handled in your family. What role did you play and how do you recreate that role in your relationships today?

3) Learn Clean Talk (www.shadowwork.com) or another conflict resolution or clean communication technique which teachers self-responsibility in high intensity emotional situations and conflicts. Remember that the angst and difficulty that is going on emotionally, is taking place inside of you. Instead of blaming someone else, see what is really happening inside your own emotional energy system.

4) Take the risk of ownership and vulnerability with another when conflict arises. This is a sign of growing maturity when you are willing to speak to the person with whom the conflict has occurred. Speak directly and honestly with them, owning your own part and what wound has been triggered from within in the relationship. 

5) Develop and nurture a rich spiritual life. Meditation and prayer are powerful tools for assisting ourselves in growing in maturity and emotional sobriety. Our authentic connection with a Spiritual Source or Spiritual Guides is a great resource for teaching us self-love, compassion, wisdom and awareness around our own behaviors. 

Remember, emotional sobriety means that we hold our emotions, old patterns and learned dysfunctional behavior with maturity, inside our own energy systems. We use our support structures and partners on our spiritual journey to seek wisdom and understanding about these old patterns. We practice new behaviors and take risks in being vulnerable and open, rather than running away or gossiping and making others bad and wrong.  

Emotional sobriety is a foundation of authentic intimacy and connections with others. Disciplining our own hurtful and immature emotional patterns is an necessary door to close in order to open a path for true intimate connections with ourselves and others. 

Remember, it is not easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it. And while the journey to emotionally sober and authentic relationships can be lonely, there are others on this path. The intimacy that comes out of emotional maturity is the most profound and joyful of connections. It is well worth the challenges along the way. 

With love as we journey together, 

Sally