What Can You Learn From Gossip and Criticism?

Do you have a friend who is constantly gossiping and criticizing other people? And have you noticed that your friend is usually guilty of the same things that he is criticizing? Why then is he going constantly on and on about so and so's bad manners, lack of financial skills and poor taste in clothes, and getting really worked up about it?

The answer is simple - your gossiping friend criticizes the parts of himself that he doesn't like and that he keeps seeing in other people. It may be that he is completely unaware of what he is doing. Or it may be that he already knows his own faults and by talking to you about these same faults in other people, he hopes (partly consciously and partly subconsciously) that he can divert the attention away from his own negatives. But ultimately he achieves exactly the opposite. Your light bulbs go immediately and you think "Wow, my friend is delusional. What is he thinking? He is doing exactly the same things that he keeps critisizing in other people!"

But is your friend simply delusional? Or is there something else at play? Sure, if he is completely unaware of what is going on, then yes maybe he is indeed delusional. But he must also be scared, separated and disconnected. He doesn't know how to experience love and how to feel part of everyone and everything and that must be what is driving the negativism and the constant criticism that he is directing at the world.

The surest way to transform a negative person who constantly criticizes and gossips is to help them understand unconditional love and connectedness. When we feel love, when we feel connected, then we focus on the similarities between people, not on the differences between them. This opens the door to compassion, self-reflection, and healing. Your friend notices that someone has bad manners and loves them for that and looks for the same thing in himself, because he knows in his heart that we are all the same.

So how do you offer your friend a path from Separation to Universal love? There are many healing therapies that work on the level of the consciousness and that can bring us closer to experiencing love and connectedness. And by the way, if you know a friend who needs a therapy like along those lines, then you certainly need it yourself because we are all the same!

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