Backchat, the business, chitchat, chatter, gabfest, table talk, small talk, spilling the beans, tete-a-tete, or the tea…

No matter how you name it GOSSIP BURNS.  I can safely say, that often gossip doesn’t start out with evil intent toward the target. Often gossip comes from a place of hurt, disappointment, self-loathing or fear within the person delivering the damaging news, and is a reflection of him or her rather than them or they.

The thing about gossip though, like a cold Coca-Cola on a hot, August day, is that once you get a taste of it you just can’t stop and the more of it you have the more of it you want. Gossip can be dangerous.

We all do it, or have done it. We’ve shared celebrity news, passed along some juicy tidbit about a friend, spread some damaging information about our enemies, delighted in sharing the trials a family member was going through, whispered in a corner or stolen moment about the adversity of others, written about the affairs of others on social media, or gone the route of prying instead of praying about an unfortunate situation that might have come into our sphere (or ear).

Gossip has this innate boomerang ability to isolate the person that’s known as the chatterbox. It can figuratively knock the chatterbox out of the box…so to speak, as it relates to their relationships with others. People simply don’t like dealing with the drama that often goes along with gossip. Strangely enough, people often talk about the gossip in a sense of not trusting him or her or not liking to be in his or her company for fear of interrupting the flow of positive with junk. Anyone with good, wholesome sense knows that if a person talks to you about a person they will talk to a person about you.

The truth about gossip is that gossip doesn’t only hurt the persons being discussed. It absolutely does hurt the target of the talk. But it also GREATLY hurts the gossiper, more than they know…and those wasted words are simply not worth it!!!

-Angela Moore