“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss people.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
When life humbled me, I stopped gossiping. I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I thought was just an innocent girl’s conversation with my friends was actually a way to escape my own shyness and insecurities.
I had this quiet, constant feeling that I wasn’t measuring up personally or emotionally. Gossiping about someone else provided me with a temporary escape, because it helped me focus my attention on someone else’s behavior. Every time I did it, I felt guilty and embarrassed, but I never thought too much about it.
It wasn’t until the morning I was suddenly fired from a two-decade career that left me feeling angry, sad, frustrated, and extremely worthless, that I began to look at “innocent gossip” very differently.
I spent the first few weeks, actually several months, crying a lot. I struggled to find my place in a world where my job not only paid the bills, but it also provided me with structure in a crazy world.
I remember sitting on my couch, feeling like a vulnerable, exposed child, when I realized that my friends, people I thought were my support network, were casually discussing my recent difficulty as if it were the weather.
I felt exposed and betrayed but determined to persevere.
In that moment, I realized that gossip was a way to momentarily control a story when my own life got out of control. I turned to it when I feared the orcs were getting smaller, but it was just a mirage, leaving me feeling even more empty each time.
In my loneliness, I saw a friend who was always wallowing in negativity, turning every conversation into a complaint, always talking about others. And it made me wonder, if she was so free to gossip about them, what was she saying about me when I wasn’t there? But I did the same to him too.
Something changed when she finally admitted she was tired and at her wits’ end. In that moment, I realized that I had often filled the blanks with judgment rather than curiosity. It was easy for me to gossip about her, to live in the shallow comfort of speculation, to ask her how she really was, or to simply sit quietly with her.
What I had labeled neglect suddenly started to feel like survival, and I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t the friend I wanted to be.
Now that I’ve come to the other side, I understand how quickly words can hurt. I promised myself in that very moment that when I spoke, I would speak with empathy and care, knowing how deeply words can hurt.
I don’t mind telling people I don’t gossip anymore, and I know it has driven some friends away. And I have no problem with that because I am no longer bound by those old patterns.
My own battle eliminated the need to judge, speculate, or speak carelessly about others. When you’re brought to your knees by loss, illness, or fear, you begin to understand how fragile the human heart truly is and how heavy careless words can weigh on someone who is already drowning.
I learned that compassion is not the moral high ground; This is knowledge gained through pain.
As my life slowly unraveled, I began to learn what it felt like to navigate a world misunderstood, judged based on appearances while privately struggling to survive. As I was drowning, every whispered comment, every sudden decision felt like a weight was dragging me to the bottom of the ocean.
It was that private space where gossip stopped feeling harmless. It began to seem irresponsible and careless to speak about the wounds without knowing how deep they were.
Gradually, I began to see how much wasted energy gossip demanded and how little it gave in return.
The growing gossip was not about being better than someone else; It was about being the best version of me. It became about protecting my own heart and choosing empathy instead of mindless, useless words.
My healing requires space, silence, and the courage to speak only what nourishes rather than hurts. My own pain taught me that each person is pushing a story forward well enough without my judgment adding weight.
Choosing silence and compassion changed the way I moved through the world.
Just last week, I found myself thinking about joining an acquaintance in conversation, but I quickly stopped myself. In that pause, I realized how much more free I could be, no longer burdened by old habits. I listened more, judged less, and found joy in connecting with people rather than analyzing them. My energy is no longer drained by the toxic burden of gossip, and my heart feels lighter, more open, and more at peace.
Gossip only kept me small, but now I choose to move beyond it, devoting my time to what truly nourishes the heart: kindness, connection, and understanding.
About Lisa Ingrassia
Lisa Ingrassia is a former HuffPost blogger and Belief Net writer. She is a monthly contributor to Family Christian and has also appeared on Her View from Home and The Mighty. She is currently working on her memoir, after amenAnd shares thoughts on life, grief and love through her social media pages, a daughter’s love. When she’s not writing, Lisa is a devoted wife and obsessed with her puppy, Nitro.
