GOSSIP
Words are powerful; humans are the only ones that can speak. Animals cannot speak words, yet we carelessly toss words around and spray them like poison potions. Words have a double edge to them. They can create such beauty, peace, and tranquility, or they can destroy everything and people within moments.
We can use words to accuse, blame, abuse, or verbally assault others, or we can use them to lift up others, encourage them, and help them through whatever happening they are trying to walk through.
Gossip is like black magic, its emotional poison we learn from adults as we are growing up. More often than not, people suffering in their own lives, within themselves don’t want to suffer alone so they spread gossip. Some spread words for concern or pray. Others spread gossip to destroy. They embellish the stories before they repeat them, and if they can make themselves look better than who they are talking about they are more than willing to add to the sad mixture. The truth about gossip is, you need to ask yourself if you know for POSITIVE what you are repeating or creating is real, or is it something you believe because you are upset or angry from within and rather than own your mistakes, or mishaps, you choose to take the light off yourself and slash someone else.
Gossip cuts to the core and can change the lives of an individual in moments. It is harmful. It is MALICE with intent. Words have too much power over us. Gossip is a big audience grabber; it plants a negative seed, that SOMETIMES, PEOPLE can’t handle, cannot recover from, and take a permanent solution for a temporary problem. (suicide). It is not a laughing matter how many teens, women, and men have taken their own lives because the gossip or bullying about them was more than they could handle. They did know how to cope, didn’t reach out to anyone, and were powerless to survive the black storm.
SLANDER-Is when you spread something you heard or believe without proof about someone else, their life, or their behavior. Its pettiness and bitterness squared! When you believe something told to you by someone else and you repeat it, you receive a twofold lesson. You know that the person sharing the juicy gossip isn’t trustworthy, so anything you tell them will most assuredly be repeated elsewhere. Also, you have now become a part of the vicious gossip triangle without being consulted first.
Gossip is a way to HOT-WIRE a quick friendship, like having a common denominator. “If you have nothing nice to say, sit next to me. We can share stories. The bond is built on gossip and mistrust. Yes, folks, it has a name. It’s called CLOSE ENEMY INTIMACY. What you share is NOT real, it’s based on hating the same person, and that’s just plain counterfeit.
We need to be mindful of and remember this: Words are powerful, and when you gossip or slander another, you are hexing yourself, for if you do it about someone else, it will surely come back on you. Gossip takes the tension off of you for a moment, you are creating all these “juicy half-truths” around someone else, and it takes the eyes off you and your situation or troubles.
If we own what is going on in our own lives, stop pointing fingers and blaming others, if we honestly look at ourselves from time to time and look at our “MESSES,” we won’t have the time or the energy or the inclination to be engaged in other people’s business, or partake in idle gossip.
When we choose to gossip, we have no idea how far the ripples will go, how far the damage will go. In the movie “The color purple,” when Celie says, “Everything you have done to me has already been done to you”. I believe that. What we put out into the world will come back to us. Instead of spreading negativity, spread something positive. Navigating through this life is difficult; though we all are on different paths from time to time, our journeys still come down to the same thing. What matters most in this world is to GIVE LOVE AND RECEIVE LOVE. Share goodness. You have the choice.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: ASSUMPTIONS
We can create so much emotional poison just by assuming we know something. Only GOD knows everything and everyone. Assumptions lead to our version of gossiP, our own version of the truth AS WE SEE IT. When we assume something, we suddenly believe whatever we think is true. Then we blame and react by sending emotional, poisonous words out of our mouths. Its as though we have just written a script for a new movie; we have it all planned out, how it goes, what will be said, how it will end when the TRUTH IS…you could be way off base and be left standing in an empty studio because no one else had the script to go by. They don’t understand anything that is going on. Most sadness and drama in our lives has been created by assumptions.
ASK ASK ASK…..TELL TELL TELL. Ask the questions when you want to know. Dont always expect someone else to KNOW what you want, tell your people exactly what you were hoping for or needing or wanting. It will cut out a bunch of unnecessary heartache and drama for you. Most the time, when the truth is revealed about something we have assumed, it has made an “ass” of you and me, its wasted precious time, and may have caused a great deal or hurt to someone else.
Making the assumption that your love changed a person is not true. If they have changed in any way its because they wanted to. They saw room for growth within themselves. Your personal love doesn’t to have that much power. Though wouldn’t it be nice if it did, imagine how much easier the world would be to live in.
REAL LOVE is accepting someone exactly as they are, without trying to change them, without beating them up senselessly with harsh words, or trying to control their every move or word with your physical sighs, your eye rolling or your angry words. Love is not supposed to be binding or toxic. It is supposed to be accepting and forgiving.
Real love comes to the front line when you are under attack, and fights beside you. Fights with you and fights for you. What you wish for and need will come so easily when your spirit is allowed to move freely within you. GOD BLESS the ones who learned this lesson early in life, to love people as they are and not be their judge or jury. Those are the relationships that we should all strive to have. We should be giving love with an open heart and open hand, not a clenched fist, and we deserve to receive that same kind of love back. Open hand to come and go, to live the best life we can, and an open heart to feel and express as we need to.
WE ARE ALL DYING. SOME SOONER THAN OTHERS. LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE, DON’T LIVE BENEATH ANYONE’S BOOT OR DWELL IN A CORNER BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS SPREAD THEIR POISONOUS WORDS ABOUT YOU. What they do says MORE ABOUT THEM THAN IT DOES YOU.
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