Hi there, you're listening to Take Out Therapy, short weekly lessons about all things mental health that you can take into your life and use. No topic will go unturned. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter.
My day job is a therapist, and we don't really just tell people what to do. We listen a lot and validate and help people reach their goals. But in the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations.
Yeah, I am going to teach you about how to have a higher level and more functional, happy life. While I'm a therapist, I'm not your therapist. If you need a therapist, go get one, friend.
But listen in as I open the door to my office in an exploration of things we all struggle with. And if you have little people in the room, you might want to throw on some headphones unless they already know all the swear words. I'm grateful you're here.
Thanks for showing up. Hi, friends. I'm excited about today's episode.
It is pretty juicy. So today I'm going to talk about gossip. Am I going to gossip? No, I'm not going to gossip.
I'm going to talk about what gossip is, why we gossip, why we talk about other people, why we kind of shouldn't and why it's like doesn't work, and what might work better for us in our interactions. And so let's dig in gossip. Gossip is a human thing.
So if you're a human and you're listening to this podcast, you have probably had the experience of discussing another person's personal life with someone else besides that person, right? That's kind of what gossip is. Gossip is basically when we, I'm just kind of using the blanket statement of gossip, this word, right? It's kind of when we talk shit about people. It's kind of when we talk about people in a way that like if they hurt us, they would have their feelings hurt, right? Maybe we're talking about their personal situations.
Or maybe we're talking about how we don't like their behavior or we don't actually really like them. So we do this, right? Like why do we do this when we know it's so damaging? Well, we do it because we're human. And so part of the functionality of being a human being is looking around us at the other human beings.
So there's comparison happening and we live in a comparison culture. And Brene Brown has done a ton of work on this subject and it's good work and you ought to look into her if you haven't ever heard of her, B-R-E-N-E, Brown. So gossip is kind of culturally appropriate.
And so yeah, we humans, we talk about other people. And some of the reasons that we do this is because when we talk about other people, we feel like normal, right? Or we like normalize that life is hard or that people aren't perfect, right? And even if we're like kind of talking shit about people, we're still sort of making a statement of like, we're all messed up. Isn't she so messed up? Look over here, right? The other reason that we gossip is that look over here, look, look over there, right? Don't look at me.
Let's talk about her, right? Because if we talk about me, then things get painful. But if we talk about her, then things are OK, right? And so there's this part of gossip that's really an escape act from talking about ourselves and dealing with our own crap, in my opinion. It kind of makes us feel superior to other people.
It kind of makes us feel good sometimes to talk about other people's stuff. And whether that's because we feel like we can normalize their experience, right? Say, an example of like talking about somebody who doesn't keep their house very clean or somebody who's dating somebody who we don't like or whatever, right? We can sort of talk about that and then we can feel better about our own situation and our own crap without even ever having to talk about it, which is amazing, right? And we do this also to belong, right? We all wanna belong. We all wanna be seen.
We wanna be here and we wanna have people in it with us. And one of the ways that we try to bond with people is by talking about the other people, right? And so this doesn't work, you guys. Gossip doesn't work.
It doesn't achieve the goals that we set out to do because generally, after a good gossip session, I don't know how you feel after you spend an hour talking about somebody else, but I have a kind of a hangover. Like it just doesn't feel good. And sometimes I'll even circle back and be like, my God, that was so inappropriate.
We should not have done that, right? There's that guilt, right? And also, if the intention is to sort of bond with the people that we're talking with, I'm telling you, it's creating the opposite, right? Gossip is not good for relationships. And I just think that it's really important that I express this fully. Gossip is not good for relationships because if you talk about her to me, then how do I know you're not gonna talk about me to her, right? It kind of puts a burr, like a sticky little something, a stick of gum, you know, like something yucky in the middle of the whole thing, right? I'm thinking of like a chewed up piece of gum that you step on and then you're like, shit, right? So, we really like screw ourselves when we gossip, because basically it makes the people that we're gossiping with not trust us.
It actually feels like we're creating belonging, but really we're creating distance. We're creating disconnect. We're creating distrust.
So keep that in mind and keep an eye out for that. The next time you find that you're kind of engaging in gossip, just look at it, just take a look at it and say like, what's this about for me, right? What's going on here? You know, some people like gossip. There's always gonna be those people, right? That that's kind of how they operate.
And that's okay. That's just, they just haven't done the work yet, right? To see that this is not behavior that creates connection. That's okay, okay.
So if you decide that you kind of agree that gossip is not something that you wanna engage in, then you can like come up against that person in a way that's really positive and really supportive. But also like, just kind of draw some boundaries around it. Just, you know, create a statement about your value about gossip.
So a long time ago, I decided that I was going to just take a break from talking about people. I noticed that it was happening a lot in my different like work circle. It was really bad.
And then my social circle, it happens here and there. It's not terrible, but it's, you know, it's always present. You can just look for it, right? And so I just kind of decided like I'm just not gonna participate in this anymore.
Right? And so that's just what I did. And I did it in a way where I just sort of withdrew. And so the method that I used is I just created a statement for myself.
And my statement was, I'm just like not gonna do this right now. Right? And I wasn't like, I'm never gonna gossip again. Because that's just a setup for failure.
I mean, this is a culturally appropriate thing that we literally do all the time. So I was like, I'm just gonna try not to do this right now. Right? And so I would just slow down and start to notice how people were interacting.
And when the subject came around to somebody else, I wasn't like, hey, I'm Suzy Policewoman, like let's not do this. But I was basically like withdrew my participation from the conversation, which sometimes like would be awkward. Because if it was just two people, then only one person's talking.
And they really quickly get the point. And a couple times people were like, well, what do you think? Right? And then I would say, you know what? I just feel like we shouldn't be talking about this right now. And that is like so simple.
And it's a value of like, this isn't something I want to be participating in. That's like my value. I don't want to be participating in gossip.
And I'm just trying not to. And I'm not saying like, I don't gossip. Again, we all kind of participate in this from time to time.
Or I would say like, I have no opinion about this. Or my opinion doesn't matter. This has nothing to do with me.
Right? So just creating some statements works really well to just give people a heads up that you're not participating in gossip. And that is, you're right. Right? Because in relationships, you get to have boundaries.
So and then another thing that worked really well for me was something that I learned about in a podcast that I heard. And the podcast was Marie Forleo has a podcast. And she interviewed this woman, Gabrielle Bernstein about judgment.
And so Gabrielle Bernstein wrote a book about judgment. And they were talking about judgment in the interview. And she had a really good three step plan for not being judgmental.
And I thought, well, geez, this works great for a lot of different things. And the three step method is just stop. Right? Step one, stop.
Understand that you behave in a patterned way. Right? We do the same thing all the time over and over again. And so of course, we might get drug into some gossip or judgment.
Right? So just stop when you notice. Just stop. And then just forgive yourself.
Right? Meaning like, it's not that helpful to beat up on ourselves about falling into old patterns. So like, don't even waste your time. Just be like, oh, oh, yeah, I see that.
That's okay. Right? And then just pivot. Right? Do something different.
And so using the value statement of like, I'm not really, I'm just trying not to participate in gossip right now. And then using that three step method of stop, forgive yourself, and just pivot. Like, talk about something else.
Talk about yourself. Right? Because that's how we create relationship. That's how we create connection.
We talk about ourselves. So if you're trying to connect with somebody by talking about somebody else, that's not connection. And so hopefully I've given you an idea about how you can kind of move forward in a really gentle and kind way with yourself in order to nip some of this gossip.
Right? Just like get rid of it. It's totally natural. And it's totally normal.
And it's totally culturally appropriate. However, it's pretty damaging. And so hopefully this gives you some ideas about how to move in a different direction.
And if you have any questions about gossip, I would be happy to gossip with you about that. Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed this episode and I appreciate you listening. Thanks.
Thanks so much for listening. This podcast is meant to be helpful to help you learn some stuff and grow as a person and to help me fulfill my mission of opening the doors to the therapy office a little bit wider so we can get rid of some of this stigma. Life is challenging and we all need all the help we can get.
This podcast is in no way meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I recommend therapy or coaching regardless of whether you're struggling or not. It can be a great way to learn about yourself so you can navigate a bit easier. I'll see you next time.
