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)

Sister, you teach me...

Yesterday, I got a call from a very excited Sister. She was on Cloud 9 regarding a new milestone in her romantic relationship. As I listened on the phone, I felt opinions arising in me that were in contrast to what she was feeling. Thankfully, I didn't give a voice to those negative, judgmental opinions I was harboring.

Midway through her outpouring, I finally got it. A light bulb went off. The negative opinions and feelings I was thinking about HER life's events was really out of line for me spiritually. After some thought, these are the reasons why the opinions that arose in me were out of sync with who I want to be:

• She wasn't calling me to ask my opinion, she was calling me to share her news; to which if I had the time to give to her, I must be able to actively listen & to offer my well-wishing without any judgement or unnecessary emotional or mental entanglement. 
• I had a bad practice of wanting to help people and to fix their problems whether or not they explicitly asked me for help. In behaving this way, I have: (1) overstepped my boundaries in other peoples lives (2) taken on problems that are not mine to create distractions in my life (3) overburdened & overwhelmed my Self (4) misappropriated my valuable internal resources by dispensing them on external sources. 
• Being opinionated and/or judgmental is using the Voice of Ego and not the Voice of Love. In order for me to strictly adhere to using the Voice of Love, I can't listen to friend while simultaneously processing a bunch of negative opinions about their life. This is not loving or virtuous. 
• Honestly, who am I to be judgmental about anyone? 
• My Sister is a mirror, so how many times have people been on the phone with me (or even in person) & disapproved of what I was saying or how I was going about something? 
• It's not my business really. I must practice fully tending to my own business & staying in my own lane!

Food For Thought

It's not about what I can get,

It's about what I can give.