It’s been a long time since I was advised to end my habit of gossiping, but such is being human. From eyeing People Magazine at the check out counter to rolling my eyes at a friend in knowing disbelief at another’s snafu to voicing frustration about how a project is being lead to another team member to talking about a friend’s sister who clearly married the wrong guy, I have partaken in gossip.

Gossiping is wrong, right? We know this intellectually. But finally, finally, I got it in my bones. I saw on the face of a friend, felt in my gut, heard through her clear response, how in my telling of another’s story I perpetuated the feelings of discomfort I was feeling onto her. Though not in breach of anyone’s word, and staying inside the lines of cultural integrity, the situation still went south.

The consequences stacked up: over four hours of recovery conversations, feelings of discomfort for several people to process, deeper heartache for still others. I had innocently passed around a toxic soup of words, information that was not mine to know, and ultimately amplifying a challenging narrative in the lives of other people.

The conversations we keep – whether in our heads or among friends – are what make up our lives. They are the words, the ideas, the use of our breath. Conversations forge or nick at relationships; they bring intimacy or cause pain. Conversations are the smallest unit of all that is interpersonal and interdependent.

Gossip is not just spreading ill will. The Hebrew tradition, lashon hara has a broader context: Speech is considered to be lashon hara if it says something negative about a person or party, is not previously known to the public, is not seriously intended to correct or improve a negative situation, and is true (Wikipedia).

What is the line? I could make myself crazy, I know. Do I never speak about my children, or my mother, stories that are so linked to me they feel like mine to tell? But are they? What is the line when I made a very innocent attempt at conversation that turned into a terrible situation that I now label gossip?

Telling stories is all the rage. Psychology Today featured a whole article about the power of stories last year (Gruber, Peter, March 2011). Hollywood makes trillions from visual narratives. Corporate America continually embraces narratives as a way to teach, to sell, to inspire. At Seven Stones we tell stories, the stories of ourselves and other, to illustrate how living in sufficiency looks and works, and how the weapons of scarcity conspire to harm.

If nothing else, how we tell a story is critical. Novelist Chimananda Adichie speaks about the danger of the single story in a July 2009 Ted Talk, a way we can pigeon hole and stereotype a person, a community, a country and a whole continent, by telling partial stories. Telling a story can turn into gossip in a number of ways: By not having permission, by having ill-wil, and in my case, by simply not being fully conscious of potential harm.

For now, I err on the side of less is more. Less telling, more listening. If a story is not mine to tell, gently invite a inquirer to speak to the original party. If someone has an inspirational story dying to be told, get permission first. The power of stories is real, for better and worse, and gossip is a big fog of gray area. Let consciousness be the guide to light our way and harness what is good.

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