This first week, the toxic habit we are dealing with in the Inner Mean Girl 40-Day Cleanse is gossip. Gossip has long made me uncomfortable, so I’m not one to engage in it – at least that’s what I thought. I’d be lying if I gave the impression that I never participate, especially when I take a broad view of what constitutes gossip. The easiest definition for me to live by is simply saying something about someone that you’d be embarrassed for them to hear. If that’s what gossip is, then I do participate more often that I care to admit.

As I’ve been practicing being impeccable with my word, I’ve encountered a couple of situations that left me feeling very uncomfortable.

I won’t give a lot of details of the conversations I’ve had because they are unimportant – and too many details would put me right back in the situations, anyway.

In the first situation, I was telling an amusing anecdote about a friend. Because I had asked my husband to call me on gossiping, I began the story with “This isn’t gossip because she would say the same thing about herself.” Even though I felt that was accurate, I still felt awkward as I was talking because what I was saying portrayed my friend in a less than positive light. A definite AHA moment for me; I realized that the fact that this friend would have said the same things about herself didn’t let me off the hook. I was still gossiping.

The second AHA moment came, when (a few days later) I was talking with someone about something that had happened to her – but that involved a third person. Again, that other person was being portrayed in a less than positive light. Even though we were discussing something that actually happened – not making statements of judgment – it was probably gossip. When the conversation was over, I realized that I felt very uncomfortable about my part in that conversation. I don’t really know how the person I was talking to could have expressed what happened (and her subsequent feelings about it) without bringing the other person into it, or how she could have only said positive, uplifting things and still got her point across. All I know is that I felt very bad when the conversation was over.

The antidote to gossip is “Good Talk”. I’m not sure how I could have introduced Good Talk into either situation, but for now, I’m content to have recognized both situations for what they were: hidden gossip. After all, I have to recognize what’s going on before I can change it.

I was surprised to find out that I was gossiping more than I thought I was. I’m really being more present in my interactions with others to keep them uplifting and positive – or at least neutral!