You May Be A Gossip and Not Even Know It!
If you had asked me if I was a gossip and if I gossiped before yesterday, when I kicked off the Inner Mean Girl 40-day cleanse with about 6500 women, I would have given you an emphatic “NO!” I don’t talk bad about people. I don’t watch snarky reality TV and I (except for the occasional glance at People magazine at the airport) don’t read tabloid magazines. I gave that all up along my spiritual path these last 10 years… or so I thought.
And then yesterday, on Day One of our 40-Day Cleanse, gossip tried to sneak up on me. It was like I could feel it coming on like a cold, you know when you
first get that itchy throat and then all of the sudden before you know
it, you have full blown snot coming out of your nose.
During an evening phone conversation with a good friend of mine, Catherine, a person who I also consider to be impeccable with her word, I relayed to her an experience I kept having that involved another woman. I asked her a question with total integrity… to try and figure out what my block was, nothing to do with the other woman. “What am I doing to create this situation?” I asked. She answered with the truth, “Nothing, the two of you just aren’t supposed to be connected.”
And that’s when I started to feel the energy of my Inner Mean Girl looming in the background, sitting in the darkness getting ready to pounce, like an energy that wanted to jump in, take charge and “Go Rouge.” I felt this urge to ask Catherine, “Well why do you think that?” and I could feel that urge coming from this longing place inside of me… like some dark recess that wanted to be filled.
And then on the other end of me was my Inner Wisdom screaming, “Don’t do it! Don’t ask that question! You will just invite the Inner Mean Girl in and she’ll take us down the Rabbit Hole!” Now I wish I could tell you that in all my great will power, I resisted the urge of my Inner Mean Girl and followed my Inner Wisdom… but that’s not how the story goes.
The words, “Catherine, why do you think that we aren’t supposed to connect?” came blurting out of my lips but in slow motion, like my Inner Mean Girl was yanking toxic taffy out of me…
UGH!
Like a rock hitting the pit of my stomach I felt the toxin of those words and it was like I could see this big movie marquee in lights flashing “GOSSIP! GOSSIP! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!”
Now here is where I did turn things around and tap into the power of this 40-day Inner Mean Girl Cleanse. I had AWARENESS that what I was about to engage in, what I honestly started to engage in, was toxic self-sabotaging Gossip! It what I am now dubbing “Sneaky Gossip.” This variety of gossip didn’t look like blantantly talking poorly about someone or putting someone down, but make no mistake about it, in some way I was trying to make myself feel better by talking about someone else, and that IS gossip.
So I used the self-love tool of Awareness that I learned, and that we teach in Inner Mean Girl Reform School, and that SARK taught us about on our launch call, to take back the power of my words from my Inner Mean Girl – ripped the steering wheel of the conversation right out of her hands – and said to Catherine, ‘You know, you are right. It’s okay we aren’t connecting. I think what she is doing is great. And I am on the right path for me.”
And in that instant you know what happened??? That hole that had been trying to be filled by my IMG with gossip, instantly filled with self-love from the Good Talk, and I felt GREAT about me and totally unattached to everything else. Way better than I would have felt if I had gone down the toxic rabbit hole and continued spewing ick from my lips.
This experience of Sneaky Gossip caused me to write a Facebook Post asking people this question:
If gossip was a color or a substance coming out of your mouth, what do you suppose it would look, feel, or taste like?
The answers made me smile and cracked me up – and I’ve included a few of them here so that you can get a better handle on when Sneaky Gossip is sneaking up on you! Even when the gossip is super subtle, you can still feel the toxin leaking from your lips…
- Like eating too much cotton candy, looks like it might be tasty buts feels yucky and sick.
- Boogers
- When I was a kid (in the 80s) they had a toy called “slime” and it was
green and came in a little plastic garbage can and it’s sole purpose
was that you took it out of the can and held it and it was cold and wet
and slimy. That’s gossip!
I invite you to join me and over 6000 women and growing as we give up Gossip and 5 other of the most self-sabotaging habits of our Inner Mean Girls! Imagine the impact we can have on our lives and on the world.
To join us for the FREE! cleanse, go to http://www.meangirlcleanse.com
And to get more scoop on this SNEAKY GOSSIP check out our Video Blog about what Gossip really is…
Excellent post on “Sneaky Gossip”. That is, indeed, what it is and I have been the an SG queen over the last few years! It’s sorta’ like fishing for compliments, but instead you’re fishing for a way in. And you’re right: It IS all about making yourself feel better, in the hopes that the other party will validate what you’re already feeling or know about the subject of the discussion. Ridiculous, isn’t it?
I have found myself in the same situation only several weeks ago with another women from my church. It took another parishner to bring me back to reality. She told me that it just wasn’t meant to be. We weren’t meant to connect and that now I was meant to focus on the other things I volunteer for.
Since that time I have decided to not talk about others or even listen to the gossip from others. Gossiping didn’t even make feel better about myself, instead I felt crapy and it just made me make more excusses for participating, which made me even sicker.