The Toxicity of Gossip: A Heavy and Dark Path From Which to Learn

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We don’t think about it very much but perhaps we should.  Engaging in or propagating gossip is toxic for both the bearer of it and the receiver.  I hear gossip constantly and while I understand it deeply at a psychological level, I have to tell you that there is something within me that sinks and cringes whenever I hear it.  Now, having said that, I think there is a difference between momentarily venting when you’ve missed those Nano seconds to seek true understanding and have taken something into self and engaging in something wholly unhealthy due to pure psychology.  The Oz Principle, by Roger Conners talks about giving yourselves a moment to vent below the line, realize you are just venting and then bring yourself back above the line.  With Senn-Delaney (the culture shaping firm) concepts, which I also love, they acknowledge that as humans we react at a certain level in the negative when under stress but can bring ourselves back up to a level of curious which is neutral.

I wish more of the populace had exposure to these principles and guides so they would better understand why we operate the way we do.  I have to admit that I love these two specific sources of understanding that I’ve mentioned.  I also have to say that we can go deeper with our understanding by just cutting straight to the heart of a few things about life:

1.     No matter what we go through, we are going to experience something only from our ego’s very limited perspective.  That limited perspective is formed by our environmental psychology and its resulting conditioning.

2.     The ego seeks to protect itself first and foremost so will deny it’s part in any wrong doing, make assumptions and seek revenge if it feels in any way threatened by its conditioning even if passive-aggressively.

3.     The level to which you are affected by or engage in any of these things depends upon your own personal growth and development.  Everyone operates at a different level, please understand.

4.     We seek these experiences on purpose to learn from and hopefully some day, transcend.

At some point when we tire of the toxic engagement and stop doing the same things we’ve always done just to receive the same result, we may seek understanding instead.  Once you understand that your perspectives and assumptions are not truth, you’ve just lost half of anything there is to gossip about or become ensnared with.  When you reach for understanding and take the next step, setting boundaries for your own level of engagement, you realize you neither have to engage in the toxicity of gossip or take it in to you (as Mooji might say) when someone brings it to you.

Please understand, that gossip, assumption from skewed perception, victimizing thoughts and revenge all come from a wounded space of the armor that is our own egos as well as the ego's conditioning.  Just understand that and realize you don’t have to do anything about it.  The ego judges its safety and security by the level at which everyone else is perceived to reside within.  The ego does not, however, perceive the truth.  Thankfully within you there is the alternate experiencer who bears witness to all you see, hear, feel and engage in and seems quite separate, the observer (as Eckart Tolle and many other luminaries write about).  From that watcher or observer, if you will, stems true feeling once you learn to tune in and listen to it.  Your own inner voice is no voice at all…but is rather a very wonderful inner guide in the form of feelings (sometimes physical ones if need be) that exists as part of your being.

The next time you engage in gossip or receive it, I want you to pay very close attention to your solar plexus area or your heart area…does it feel a bit tight?  Does it feel like it’s sinking?  Does it feel like there is something not quite right like fear, dread, anxiety, or even a faster heart beat? Provided you do not suffer some form of sociopathic tendencies, you’ll notice that feeling and that feeling is a message.  That message is trying to tell you something – that something is either to stop blaming, victimizing, comparing, contrasting or trying to make yourself better at the expense of someone else you have most likely inaccurately perceived, or you are sensing what someone else is bringing you is just truly toxic and no good for you.

I dislike gossip.  I do not like how it feels.  I am a human being also and if I miss that Nano second to grab understanding instead of the ego’s perception, I’m going to need to vent my emotion just like the next person.  The only difference is that I find even as I begin to speak, my own body starts to tell me I’m wrong.  It starts to tell me through feeling that I’m not seeing the whole picture and so what I have judged may be inaccurate and that I may be missing an opportunity to get calm and centered and seek truth through real understanding rather than assuming my own assumptions are facts.  What I begin to understand is that my emotion is based on an illusion and so, may not be necessary.  That emotion must be understood better before acted upon.  Emotion based on assumption cannot be fact until validated.  Assumption, if left unchecked forms belief. Belief engages egoic emotion.  Before long this process leaves you with a mess of anxiety, anger and hurt feelings.  Understanding that belief is untested hypothesis, assumption is only deduction from information without the facts validated and that you can free yourself from generating or taking in toxicity is one of the key modes of self-actualization.  When we face these egoic emotions, the better cause of valor is to stop all action and go for a walk, breathe in and breathe out – repeat until the egoic emotion stops and we recenter ourselves in normal reality whatever that is for each of us.  Then, with a calm and cool head, go validate the facts and respond accordingly with  a compassion for self and understanding for others (this does not mean be a doormat - this means seek the truth and respond in a healthy way for you and others).

So, we are human in form at the moment.  We seek out interactions from which to learn.  We grow when we understand the life lesson presented over and over again.  Gossip is an opportunity to learn.  You can hear it and not let it in.  You can stop yourself from engaging in it by being accountable and honest with yourself about assumption and perception.  If you can do this, you can learn to operate from a healthy space of compassion.  This is an optimal state from which to learn and live positively in a way that helps you create and learn differently.  It takes change to learn and grow. Why not shift your own perspectives into a higher gear and steer clear of the one thing that will drag you down like cement shoes?  One more thought I’ll leave you with, if you, like me – tend to be the receiver of gossip, instead of taking it in, ask questions about the assumptions others are making.  The payoff of gossip is not worth anything the ego might think it will gain.  Just food for thought.

Blessings of higher love, compassion, healing and understanding beautiful dreamers!

 

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©  2015 Jaie Hart

Blazing Light to Life

I love the stillness in the cool of morning.  Darkness still shadows familiar things until the birds begin to gently sing.  Soon the sun will climb over the horizon setting the sky ablaze with golden light.  Pale blue sky and clouds will gently be replaced by slowly brightening colors of life.  Anticipating the beauty is it's own gift, I think.  The days are always beautiful in life to me but I see things differently often.  Mired of late in this mental state of weeding through thoughts to glean the remaining bits and pieces of lessons learned has left me yearning for the simple beauty that only nature can provide.  As I sit here thinking over a delicious and warm cup of coffee, my mind wanders back through a beautiful memory.  It was a warm summer morning with all the makings of a very hot summer day in gentle progress.  Already I could smell the scent of the grass, summer flowers in bloom and a gentle breeze straying from the ocean.  A butterfly flew across my field of vision and I watched her land on the daisies right next to me.  I was lost in the patterns and colors on her wings, enchanted by the glowing core of the flowers and tasting the freedom of a day with no school.  Childhood memories can be the best and the worst sometimes but that is all a matter of perspective and that which we wish to call to and hold within us.  I choose the light as my point of focus and always patiently await it's appearance.  I am never disappointed in that regard for the light of life is everywhere and in everything.

I step out onto my patio sensing the coming of the sun's first rays.  Under the now dimly lit skies I see my own flowers glowing in the darkness.  I think I feel them more than I see them but the effect is no less mesmerizing to me.  I love Mother Earth's beautiful displays that tantalizing open and waiting senses.  Such beauty is part of what makes this place draw souls like butterflies to beautiful daisies.  Life, is purely amazing.  Life, so rich in color, depth and experience.  It's hard to imagine not holding gratitude for the opportunity just to be present incarnate.  Like a child on a warm summer day do I greet every single day of my life.  You may not think to find freedom in the grown up drudgery of work and obligations but I find great joy in my responsibilities and pure pleasure in taking accountability for my wants, needs and actions.  I've come to a place where victim thinking cannot take hold to one ounce of the light within me.  My light shines so brightly it burns such darkness away.  I am aware of the thinking as I spent most of my life there and then I realized that the happenings in life are not so personal as if to serve only to deter, demean and diminish us.  Life's happenings are meant to test our constitutions, our resilience and beautiful creativity.

This day holds for me opportunities as yet unknown but I hold no fear nor worry at all.  I have agreed to take life as it comes and appreciate every scene as if it were a petal of a beautiful flower unfolding.  The further I go, the essence and fragrance becomes part of my existence.  My energy, my vision and my dreams are alive and I abide not one moment in negative or destructive thoughts.  My heart craves the love and the light and within there is more than an abundance.  You just have to see and look, train your eyes to recognize the beauty, the patterns and love hidden sometimes in the seemingly mundane.  Exit the restless self-aggrandizing ego and embrace the feeling in the soul.  We are by far more powerful than sinking lowly souls crawling for crumbs in the outside world to lift us up by bringing others down, stealing away power and pushing people down.  Unnecessary tools for dishonorable and painful existence are these.  We do not need them.  At any time, any soul can stand up tall and be embraced by the light of love.  Layers of pain and lies may have to be gently peeled away but the love and light are there.  Beneath the surface, like diamonds in coal.  We need only train ourselves to see what is there in all regards and choose our experiences accordingly.  It's so simple that it seems impossible sometimes.  Having crawled on my belly more times than I can count in life, I know the beauty of that moment when you realize no one holds you down or back but you and your own uneducated thoughts. For more than forty years have I studied this ability in life.  I have watched the struggles and the successes...the origins of darkness and light are the same and it is our perception that shapes our actions and they repeat with the same results until we change our view and learn.  Then we can take new action in line with new lessons learned and reach beyond the illusory aspects of our past thinking that seemingly held us down.

We have an infinite ability to rise above and to transcend lower-level thinking and action.  For some the realizing may take much effort and even require assistance at times but the beauty in life is that what ever you need and passionately hold in your mind, conscious creation will manifest just what you hold most for you.  When we stop creating in fear, life becomes so interesting.  I think back now to that sunny summer day as a child of 9 born to observe in this life, with a knack for looking always for the light that etches even the dark things in some form of beauty.  Time passes so quickly now and I'm grateful for every warm summer day, for every dark and rainy one too.  I have lived in a beautiful world and had many beyond beautiful experiences.  For 40 years have I studied, for a few more yet, have I just observed and I smile now as even more memories coalesce in my conscious vision. And then it comes, the first rays of the sun.  I'm going to sing her up into the sky along with the birds here in my own way.  For no other reason than the fact that I'm so very glad to be here, so glad to be alive and so honored to see these colors blazing light to life on another glorious day of my life here on Earth.  ~Blessings.

(c) Jaie Hart 6/12 (Photo, random but so beautiful fortunate internet find)