Archive for year: 2022

Historically when a pregnant lady went for her ‘lying in’ as she was in or coming up to labour she would invite a group of women to accompany her and help her through the experience. The professions of midwife came from this sort of process. However, so did gossip. The women invited to the lying in were known as the gossips. It was one of the few instances when women were able to be alone together without men and could say and discuss whatever they wanted. It was from this that the word gossip moved from the simple title given to the participants to this lying in concept to people sharing things behind someone’s back. The people most effected by this were the men who were excluded from the event and therefore the women were able to talk about them without them knowing. Eventually the word gossip was taken to describe this talking behind someone’s back and was seen by men as an exclusively female thing. If you listen to the podcast you will hear Ed admitting to gossiping with his friends. The reality is that all people, men and women gossip. That is they talk about other people without that person knowing what is being said about them. It is maybe good to mention at this point that gossip, in the sense of what is spoken about someone without their knowledge, behind their back, may not be negative. It could be that people are talking about someone’s good points and their good qualities. 

So why do we gossip? The assumption by evolutionary psychology is that creating a small gossiping group was a way of bonding the group together. The gossip would normally concern people outside of this small group that would be open to criticism. Yet, we can be a part of the group and still be the subject of gossip when we are not there. Have you ever walked into a room and suddenly it goes quiet and the question is ‘what were you all talking about before I came in?’

Is gossip a good thing? Over all I would say yes but with some caveats.

Gossip is a form of stress management. If in the workplace we have a colleague or a manager that is difficult but because of their position we feel unable to challenge their behaviour then gossiping with colleagues can be a form of active stress management that enables us to to off load and deal with the stress and frustration that we are experiencing.  Yes, it would always be better if we could talk to the person directly and give them the feedback about their behaviour, that does give them the opportunity to change. In that sense being honest to someone’s face about their behaviour is feedback and doing it behind their back is gossip. It would seem obvious that the feedback route is the more positive but not always possible in which case the stress management of gossip does have a valid role.

During my current illness and hospitalisation both Rie and I have been the subject of gossip both positive and negative. The problem for those sharing negatively has been that the people that they gossiped to have come back to us and told us what has been shared. This is the one big problem with gossip. It only works as a stress release function when it is kept within the gossiping group. As soon as it leaks out is become destructive and can wreck both relationships and even organisations. 

Social media can be a problem in this regard. We have just seen the ‘Wagatha Christie’ trial all based around who said what on social media. Both in workplaces and in family relationship the cases I am having to deal more and more to do with the damaged relationships caused what people have been saying on social media. 

In a world that has become so immediate it is important that we learn to be more aware of what we are saying and what we are sharing on social media. I would include all forms of trolling and accusations or innuendo in this as well. these can be the start of gossip that is shared and re-shared until it is believed to be the truth and lives can be ruined.

My resource for this podcast is to re-visit the first three steps of the live in the present course and consider how you see yourself and other people and decide if you need to adjust your behaviour. Remember:

If we all look after each other we will all be okay

Take care

Sean x

Ok, so what is a family? Well, it all begins with the individual as the basic building block. Then we get into sexual mathematics. One individual meet another individual and we have  gone from onto two people and we have a couple. In most cases the sexual mathematic means reproduction and then we have three as baby number one comes along. In modern society  a family is a socio-economic unit that was preferred by the government and the church. In evolution the family unit meant safety. Groups of families became tribes, became communities, became societies, became nationalities. Ultimately they became the factions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Either you are in or you are outOne of us or one of them.

Now, it would make sense for a family to be a self supporting caring unit where each persons need were met. Sadly this is so often not the case. My own natal family was not a supportive unit it was a snake pit where the individual member sort to dominate and out do the the other members to gain supremacy. I left home at the age of 15 to get away from it. When I left I had no faith in the idea of family that I saw as a destructive thing. I then went on to play out the role models that I had learned as a child and made bad relationships with dysfunctional people who supported my beliefs and understanding of what a family was.

However, over time and a lot of anguish I learned and gradually get better at it as my understanding has grown so that now I live in an amazing extended family who in the main think of each other first and look out for each other’s needs. This is really weird for me to be in a place where you do not have to look over your shoulder to see who is going to stab you in the back.

This has never been more obvious than how they have all responded to my recent stay in hospital for heart surgery when they all piled in to support both me and Rie. It all got me quite emotional to realise that these people lovers me and accepted my as on of them.  I was reminded of when I was 13 or 14 years of age and I had to go to hospital to have a large and manky mole taken out of my back which was suspect CA. It wasn’t that was good. Anyway, I walked three miles or so to the hospital on my own, no one from the family thought that I might need someone with me. When I arrived the surgeon looked at my face that also had a large mole on the chin and said ‘I’ll have that one while I am here as well’. A few hours later with both wounds bandaged I walked the three miles back home again. 

My current experience of family is mind blowing. I recently had ten weeks in hospital and the family were in daily contact, wishing me well, enquiries, food and gifts. What a difference. Back in my childhood home I could have felt abandoned. Though it is true that in extreme emergencies they would gather round and act.

It would seem that in the end I have found my family. Which is great.

I suspect that it is my early childhood experience that led me to…

…If we all look after each other we will all be okay

Family is community and community is humanity.

Take care

Sean x