Listen to the full unedited version of Quashing Gossip with or without the Wisdom App: https://join.wisdom.audio/WdQK
The description to this August 17th, 2022 Insight Timer live event and subsequent notes:
Pretty much all considering joining this already know they’d like to gossip less so let’s dig into some teachings to really drive home the importance of quashing our gossip as we interactively share questions, feedback, contemplate, reflect and explore solutions
- Recently uncovered levels of shame so forgive me if any of this where notes written beforehand comes off as shaming
- I’m obviously not beyond gossip yet but am more interested in events and ideas so I’m kind of like an alien overhearing gossip at cafes then observing, contemplating, getting insights and “downloads”. Glad for this though and not everybody tethered to devices.
- I’ve been out of traditional workplace for awhile which is a different more dangerous dynamic
- Not to take to other extreme of avoiding discussing uncomfortable occurrences or keeping secrets only to perpetuate harm
- relationships built on gossip
- enlivens life
- compassionate potential in weird way
- comparison / ego involvement
- how much is reflective or indicative of the degree to which one values and validates one’s own life and behavior?
- Seems so juicy, important, irresistible, but what is the intent and reasons for involvement, even if just talking about someone?
- How much are we trying to control other people — via judgements and advice — and not wanting it to happen to us or avoid that we may still do the same thing?
- Can and how much of (unusual/foreign-like) drama of others points out what’s missing or not understood about one’s own relationships? How much do we learn from what others are going through and how can we do so better without getting addicted to and fueling unhelpful drama?
- What do we find idle chatter and boring? What do we find juicy? How much of our assessment is person specific?
- How can societal importance on an event affect how related, or involved people are gossiped about i.e., extra chatter from a “news item”?
- Recall a gossip session. Recall for a few moments what was:
- emotionally triggering
- emotionally amplifying
- a release, a relief
- gratifying and a reinforcement to repeat this and/or other gossip
Ways to master gossip
- feel what’s happening in and to body
- after identifying some of the unskillful, unwise, unwholesome, unhelpful aspects (we’ve explored) consider the choice to stop feeding them
- “Don’t respond to drama and drama won’t respond to you”
- Notice where the value and worthiness is, where it’s coming from or where and how value and worthiness is missing
- How can life be enlivened in the moment, especially with (former) gossip pals, without always relying on external stimulus?
- How can we identify what gossip games and programs, old and new are running? How can we develop new healthy habits to replace them.
- Old fashion: Males bond more around shared interests. How can males gossip less around shared interests? Female tend to bond more around relationships. How can females gossip less while still deeply engaging in relationships? Perhaps being more absorbed into the present helps both
- Identify common, easy to notice landmarks and reference points to help recognize patterns and traps when gossiping that shout, “hey this is now happening again. I see it and now can choose differently.” Then what are some of those better choices?
- “What we notice about others is what we’ve already addressed in ourselves”
- Talk to people not about people
Listen to the full unedited version of Quashing Gossip with or without the Wisdom App: https://join.wisdom.audio/WdQK
Audio: Quashing Gossip [Unedited]
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
From Matt Kahn’s 2/27/2024 newsletter ‘How to Eliminate the Tendency to Gossip’:
Are you sitting down? Don’t worry, you’re the first to know. But you cannot tell anyone. You’re never going to believe what they did next! How many times have you heard the breaking news alarm blaring within your social circles as you hope you are near the front of the line to get the latest salacious update on who did what? In a world where many define trust by how ‘in the know’ they remain with the juiciest details of someone’s life, the tendency to gossip continues to pull on the fabric of a society that often prefers talking about one another over talking to each other.
Fundamentally, the need for gossip has a few levels of motivation. At its core, gossiping is intended to be a way for people to process their feelings or gain the support of loved ones during times of difficulty. The oversight that turns sharing into gossip is discovered in where our focus is placed. While it is natural to share details about our experiences, when the focus is too consumed on ‘who did what’ along with deciding ‘what do we think of them as a result,’ the healing power of processing halts in the face of personal judgment.
As a way of seeing through and eliminating the tendency to gossip and judge, it is important to remember emotional processing is most effective when the focus of your sharing is centered more on how you feel than on the vilifying of another. Of course, if someone has violated your personal space, it is important to let people that you trust know to help advocate for your well-being. While confiding in someone you trust about the abuses you are ready to be freed from requires talking about another person, there is a palpable level of intention that makes a cry for help a much different experience than talking behind someone’s back.
Even when the energy just needs to speak disparaging words toward the character or people associated with your wounds, it is of equal importance for those holding space for your process to witness your sharing without feeding anyone’s ego through reflections of judgment. When operating from states of unconsciousness, it is common to believe you are offering companionship to others in pain by adopting their enemies as your own. While you don’t have to degrade the value of a person who hurt someone you love, it is equally unhelpful to correct someone in pain, who may need to accuse, criticize, and condemn a character, in order to move the layers of emotional energy that guide them further through their own healing process.
Since it is common to overlook the value of emotional companionship needed when holding space is invited, it can be nearly instinctive to partner up with others, in an attempt to become spiritual detectives intent on figuring out the motivations of another. Instead of focusing on ‘who did what’ or determining who was right or wrong, space holding is more so a willingness to be present for the versions of truth each person perceives, as it relates to the feelings that have surfaced to be healed. Even though people’s perceptions of reality can vary, shaped by their life experiences and internalized pain, it’s crucial to recognize that everyone has the inherent right to experience and navigate their emotions in their own manner, provided it doesn’t inflict harm on others, without being judged for the validity of their feelings.
Rather than fueling the fire of someone’s judgments or even trying to correct them, of fundamental importance when holding space is to honor how someone feels, no matter the narratives attached to each feeling or memory. In order to do so, it is important to resist the temptation to dig for information, even when the other person wants to give you updates, show you text threads, or troll someone’s social media pages in your presence. Instead, it is important to distinguish yourself as an ally of their soul and not an enabling haven for their ego to hide in. This occurs by maintaining a focus on someone’s emotional journey no matter how steeped in envy, jealousy, wrath, judgment, or rage they may need to be.
For example, let’s say a friend in pain says, “How could they have done this to me?” In all honesty, you can say, ‘I don’t know’ because the truth is, you don’t. You may have strong suspicions in one direction or another, but because you haven’t lived a lifetime in someone else’s shoes, you couldn’t assume to know anyone’s true motives without living out their history of pleasure and pain. Even when your intuition says, ‘I know exactly why,’ it is important to distinguish the ego’s belief in being intuitive from the true beauty of intuitive knowing.
When co-opted by the ego, you are likely to confuse the impulse of snap judgments with a sense of higher knowing—as if knowing why anything happened the way it did offers some degree of relief. Contrary to the ego’s ‘intuitive’ need to know, the soul’s version of intuition is knowing the right question to ask and the right things to say to help someone face themselves with supportive connection and compassion. In truth, relief is not a matter of knowing why, since there are always endless versions of why waiting to be answered. Instead, true relief is found in facing how we feel, whether in time spent alone or through the support of loved ones.
To help you deepen your ability to hold space by eliminating the tendency to gossip, please consider the following tips:
• Gossip is an unconscious way of feeling special. When we know details that others don’t, we are momentarily freed from beliefs in inferiority and fears of rejection by being ‘in the know’. Because gossip creates an energetic phenomenon known as ‘triangulation’, there is no redeeming healing benefit for any person involved when the sharing of feelings becomes the ridiculing or accusatory nature of talking behind someone’s back.
• To the best of your ability, choose to replace ‘what do I think about this’ with ‘how do I feel about it’.What you think about things is mainly an extrapolation of judgment that gives you no greater ability to feel or uncover the next most empowered steps you may need to take. It’s simply how the ego derives a false sense of power from the circumstances it has felt disempowered by. Since the ego doesn’t know how to make courageous decisions without making someone else an enemy to reject or avoid, you are better off focusing on your feelings, along with the changes in environment, relationship, or lifestyle that only have to be right for you and the journey you’re on.
• While you may be present when gossip ensues, trying to correct anyone’s behavior helps no one heal. In order to move from victimhood into empowerment, one must be permitted space to give words to their feelings. Gossip is a judgmental free-for-all where everyone engages in this expression with no one holding space for another person’s feelings. As this occurs, you can sit quietly and hold space for the emotionally-fueled sharing of others. Although, it is only helpful if it’s a space you willfully desire holding. Sometimes gossip can become so toxic that you may choose to remove yourself from the spiral of projection. When this occurs, you can politely excuse yourself without any need to correct the behavior of others, allowing it to naturally correct on its own as their healing deepens. This may help remind your inner healer that while you may be capable of space holding, it can only be a powerful gift to offer when holding space is a choice instead of an insistence or obligation.
When connecting takes precedence over correcting, we are able to hold space for the healing occurring in ourselves and others without adopting anyone’s narrative or creating energetic patterns of triangulation. Since the aim of personal integrity is to treat ourselves and others the way we wish to be treated, one of the best ways to heal lingering wounds of rejection, abandonment, and betrayal is to refuse playing that same hurtful role in someone else’s life. From this space of mindful compassion, the elimination of gossip becomes instinctive versus effortful and can occur for everyone’s mutual benefit.
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