What is gossip?
Melody Cofield
Gossip is a speech habit that exists when a person is incomplete about something. When this happens, we tell stories by repeating circumstances, issues, and points from the past. Repeating the story perpetuates the incompletion. How many stories must we tell to sustain the habits of our pain? What drama gets cultivated? How much time will we spend gossiping because we are not at peace with ourselves or with something that happened in the past. It is not the they out there, but the me in here. Gossip is a way of highlighting our weaknesses and the weaknesses of others. Gossiping is our way of keeping everyone focused on our incompletions. Collectively, gossiping become the social management of all our incompletions. As such, we keep the pain or the incompletion alive not only within ourselves but as a burden out in the world. You could say all our social ills comes from the collective incompletions of all people. It doesn't matter if what happened is real or true, but that it continues and remains incomplete. When left to fester, we unconsciously live off the adrenaline or the "high" we get from the pain we feel. Repeating the noise is our way of promoting and keeping the pain alive.
The best way to handle your gossiping habits or the habits of others in the short run, is best suggested by the simple advice: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
The best way to end the the gossip for ever, is to get complete with the person or persons you are find challenging. Share your incompletion not as a complaint, but as a way of forgiving or a way to be at peace. Remember, incompletions are the source of worry.
Share your experience(s) or comments on gossiping. Let me kown how gossiping affects your world, and what kind of stories do you or others keep alive? What would it take to be complete or at peace with what is at the heart of the story? Consider the stories you have regarding people who are different from you. (i.e. race, economic status etc..) What would be possible for you, others and the world if we all started confronting the incompletions in our lives rather than promoting them by our stories that we share in the form of gossiping?
Gossip is a speech habit that exists when a person is incomplete about something. When this happens, we tell stories by repeating circumstances, issues, and points from the past. Repeating the story perpetuates the incompletion. How many stories must we tell to sustain the habits of our pain? What drama gets cultivated? How much time will we spend gossiping because we are not at peace with ourselves or with something that happened in the past. It is not the they out there, but the me in here. Gossip is a way of highlighting our weaknesses and the weaknesses of others. Gossiping is our way of keeping everyone focused on our incompletions. Collectively, gossiping become the social management of all our incompletions. As such, we keep the pain or the incompletion alive not only within ourselves but as a burden out in the world. You could say all our social ills comes from the collective incompletions of all people. It doesn't matter if what happened is real or true, but that it continues and remains incomplete. When left to fester, we unconsciously live off the adrenaline or the "high" we get from the pain we feel. Repeating the noise is our way of promoting and keeping the pain alive.
The best way to handle your gossiping habits or the habits of others in the short run, is best suggested by the simple advice: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
The best way to end the the gossip for ever, is to get complete with the person or persons you are find challenging. Share your incompletion not as a complaint, but as a way of forgiving or a way to be at peace. Remember, incompletions are the source of worry.
Share your experience(s) or comments on gossiping. Let me kown how gossiping affects your world, and what kind of stories do you or others keep alive? What would it take to be complete or at peace with what is at the heart of the story? Consider the stories you have regarding people who are different from you. (i.e. race, economic status etc..) What would be possible for you, others and the world if we all started confronting the incompletions in our lives rather than promoting them by our stories that we share in the form of gossiping?
I really enjoyed hearing very succinctly about what gossip is and why it is so damaging. I am going to include it, if it is okay with you, the Community Facilitator training program which I compiling. My dream is to teach 10,000 people to work in neighborhoods to help them create and carry out a shared vision for a thriving, caring community.
I have heard that gossip is the number one cause of communities failing, and I heard of a community that was so strict on the no gossip rule that if you violated it, your were kicked out. That's pretty intense--yet it worked, and that community stood the test of time.
I wonder why it is that it is so hard to get out of the habit of gossiping. I remember it was 12 years ago when I was exploring a community possibility, and we talked about a no gossip rule. It seemed so ideal and so right--yet we just could not seem to pull it off. It made for a lot of conflict!
Even though speaking well of people is important to me, it was recently easy to develop the "us against them" syndrome with some folks. I feel sad that I fell back into that habit, but like you said, I had incompletions. Because the people were unwilling to communicate, I felt justified in talking behind their backs.
Finally, I realized what damage I was doing to myself and our neighborhood. I told the folks who encouraged me to gossip, that I would no longer be willing to say negative things about our neighbors. They got so mad at me! They called me controlling. I wish I could have listened to their pain and tried to resolve with them, but then I got mad and asked them to leave.
I did go to them, asking forgiveness because I got mad at them, so we are more complete--but sometimes it is so hard to deal with our rationalization that "for this reason it is okay to talk about people negatively behind their backs."
You have inspire me through your writing to make this guideline a very important one for Community Facilitators, and to develop or find a whole curriculum on how to prevent gossip. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm and your wisdom.
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As a middle school teacher, I find that students are very entertained by gossip, which I discourage. I wholeheartedly agree with your comments. They are relevant for adults, but also children. People really should explore what is at the root of their interest in gossip and also their interest in gossiping about certain individuals. By doing so, they can learn how to overcome an obsession with gossip and replace it with something more productive and empowering in their lives.
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Here's to less gossip! The older I get, the more "sinking" the feeling when I find myself engaging in it. Isn't there some quote about great people talking about ideas, average people talking about things, and small people talking about other people?
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Could gossip be misinterpreted by our young people as jealously or worse, low self esteem? Could gossip be the escape-goat - "I wish I could look or be popular like her, I want what she/he has" or "It's not fair he doesn't have to study and has an A.
I'm in agreement our youth are consumed with and by gossip. The means in which they gossip are beyond whispering among their friends, they can now write it and be seen by the person they gossip about. A few months ago, I witnessed my daughter's My Space page where one gal wrote about another. The other gal wrote about the one who started it and for everyone to see in her My Space page. Using your imagination, they are not shy about the language in which they write and eventually the mothers had to step in and settle the problem.
Hearing my oldest child (whose 21 now) getting caught up in the gossip chain and she knows that is one of my pet peeves and had to remind her many times not to get caught up in the gossip chain. It's so easy to then become the next person they talk about.
If you're not in tune with it, it's hard to get and keep away from gossip.
You all write some interesting comments. Patricia, I can so relate to your sharing of the neighborhood situation. Same here. Unfortunately, the gossipers turned into lies and people got hurt. My neighbor and I were victims of the situation where we always kept to ourselves. We didn't bother anyone and we liked it that way. The gossipers felt it was appropriate to say we said something about another neighbor when it was the person who said it was the problem. The neighbor that we supposively talked about won't speak or acknowledge us. It's a shame.....
Gossip leads to confusion too
(hope the example makes sense above)
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