A few weeks ago I was speaking in a training workshop for emotion regulating skills. One of the participants anxiously asked what I thought about gossiping, and a lively discussion started. All the group members agreed that they never felt good about gossiping, and that gossiping could often backfire; they themselves could easily become the victims of the intent to tell stories at another’s expense. There is the element of malice or even wanting power in one’s peer group that seems to drive this behavior. And anxiety and hyper-vigilance are not good for us.
I was reminded of the way the social media perpetuates stories and can bully vulnerable teens. I also thought back to all the times when willfulness to let go of the situation (often really petty) made me hold onto a grudge for a long time. Remember the generations of some families who feud against each other and even kill each other over grudges!
It’s time as consciously evolving humans that we focus on other ways to get our needs met.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT for short, developed by Dr Marsha Linehan (see www.behavioraltech.com) is learning how to hold two or more things in balance which may seem in opposition to each other, but both could be real and true. DBT says we need to find the Middle Way between extreme opposites and learn how to act in ways that are effective in our lives. In my workshops I teach Mindfulness ( how to stay in the Present Moment without judgment- and gossiping is all about judgment), Emotion Regulation ( how to balance our emotions with our Reasonable Mind ( helpful when those grudges magnify our resentment) and how to make effective decisions about how to proceed in communication with difficult people (Interpersonal Effectiveness). Anxiety (which brings up grudges and gossip) does not lead us to skillful decision making in the world and often hampers our development.
People in my groups and in individual sessions often wonder out loud why these skills are not taught beginning in elementary school! I would agree. These are essential skills for “a life worth living” (the DBT mission).
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