Can I Vent or Nah?

When I first decided I needed to do a post on venting, it was sometime last year and I never got around to publishing it. Now, as the New Year unfolds, this is the perfect time. Last year, 2014, I vented and vented and vented and vented and vented. I am so tired of venting! It's crazy because all the while I was venting it felt so compulsory like something I just needed to do. As I look back on all that venting all I see is a ton of energy wasted and sent in the wrong direction. I see a bunch of missed opportunities to turn my experiences into something powerful and rewarding instead of allowing some person, place or thing hijack my mind, body & spirit with their bullshit.

So instead of doing a long drawn out post on why we vent & why we shouldn't, I'll just leave it at this: I am tired of giving my energy away, my focus away, my power away and my time away by venting endlessly about dumb shit. I am so thankful to have had Sisters (and Brothers) in my life that cared enough to listen and always had an ear to lend, but truth be told I burnt them out also and sometimes they would need to take a small break from talking with me because they were tired of my venting.

So New Year = Better Intentions. I'm tired of venting. This year I plan to spend much more time, writing, creating, reading, being silent, meditating or exercising as a way to transmute my frustrations.

Gossip Girl

Unfortunately, it has been a truth of mine for quite some time that I gossip. For as long as I can remember, I have gossiped. 

After finishing up the post on being non-judgmental, I knew there were several closely related topics or habits I would have to address also; gossiping being one of them. Although I wouldn't consider myself or the ladies (and few gentlemen) that I gossiped with particularly malicious or atrocious, the fact still remains that I am (and we were) doing it.

GOSSIP gos·sip noun \ˈgä-səp\
: information about the behavior and personal lives of other people
: information about the lives of famous people
: a person who often talks about the private details of other people's lives -via m-w.com

*I want to add that some definitions of gossip say that it is the spreading of lies, rumors or unconfirmed reports. In regard to this blog entry specifically, I view gossiping in its simplest form: talking about people without their knowledge or consent to others and revealing personal details about them or your interaction with them and often time in an unflattering or disparaging way.

Again, I know it wasn't right, but it did seem to serve some purpose. According to Wikipedia, socially, it can serve these functions:

• reinforce – or punish the lack of – morality and accountability
• reveal passive aggression, isolating and harming others
• serve as a process of social grooming
• build and maintain a sense of community with shared interests, information, and values
• begin a courtship that helps one find their desired mate, by counseling others
• provide a peer-to-peer mechanism for disseminating information

A feminist definition of gossip presents it as "a way of talking between women, intimate in style, personal and domestic in scope and setting, a female cultural event which springs from and perpetuates the restrictions of the female role, but also gives the comfort of validation." (Jones, 1990:243)