A client of mine wanted to take a closer look at his habit of Gossiping, not being happy about it, but still resorting to it from time to time. A habit he shares with many many people on the planet.
Our working definition for gossiping was:
Talking bad about someone (not present) in a group of people
My initial thoughts? Don’t do it, it only hurts yourself and it’s something to be abolished if you want to reach a higher level of being. Let me quote from by book Imagination: The Secret Nobody Talks About for you to see where my attitude towards gossiping comes from:
“Your thoughts of others are registered in your subconscious mind through the principle of autosuggestion,” (Napoleon) Hill wrote, “thereby building your own character in exact duplicate.” Hence: “You must think of others as you wish them to think of you.” So, this tells us that, via the principle of autosuggestion, all the thoughts that we routinely think get woven into our subconscious, our mental landscapes and pictures of reality.
And of course our words, our gossip, count even more than our thoughts.
Anyhooo, luckily I refrained from cutting the process short with my made up mind and I asked my client what is good or beneficial about his gossiping. Why does he do it? He came up with:
feeling powerful, lofty
having allies (the fellow gossipers)
a feeling of “I know it better”
things are brought up and get voiced
Things are brought up (to the surface) and get voiced?!
That’s not bad at all, actually.
And then it hit me:
Gossiping is a very natural impulse (that’s why so many people do it), but we usually stop with it before it gets really beneficial, before we reap its full, reality-changing benefits.
Our old and usual way of gossiping is an aborted motion, stopping midway, keeping us stuck in low emotions. A pendulum that makes no full swing, that ain’t coming full circle.
What could we actually do after gossiping things up to the surface and voicing them?
…If we don’t want to get stuck in an endless, boring, repetitive cycle of negativity, which hurts no one but(t) ourselves (think of the above mentioned principle of autosuggestion)…
first, we could take a stop at the golden middle, and look at the person with some neutrality and objectivity (beyond our hurt feelings)
then, we can think about what kind of behaviour/beingness we would prefer from the gossiped about person
then, we can muster all our courage, go to this person and actually talk with and not about her. Confront them with their old behaviour and explain to them what we would prefer instead
to finish strong, we could pull Jesus’ signature move and actually forgive them
So, the next time you find yourself in a group, tearing your mouth and someone else apart, try to let the pendulum swing to the other side. Come full circle, be creative, courageous and use your gossiping to your benefit.
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Very helpful resource:
“Levels of Energy” by Fred Dodson