Gossip is about judging others.  It’s about deciding what’s wrong with somebody else, so we feel better about ourselves. Gossip is not about kindness and love.  It’s about judgment and fear.

Gossip is everywhere.  It’s all over the news.   It’s on entertainment and reality shows.  We have magazines dedicated to gossip, like People and Us. Gossip permeates our culture.  It’s easy to get sucked in. 

Gossip is about looking outside of ourselves for validation and wanting someone else’s piece of the pie.

The top three reasons to avoid gossiping are:

What goes around comes around

What we judge we become.  When we gossip about and judge someone that is exactly the kind of person we are going to become.  

It may be dressed up differently, but we will find a way to manifest the very thing we disdain in our lives.

Gossip reinforces ‘lack and limitation’

Gossiping keeps us small and focusing on, consciously or subconsciously, everything that is ‘wrong’ with us. 

It keeps us in fear and out of the love we so greatly desire.

Gossip keeps our hearts at war. 

When we are in judgment and gossiping, we have a heart at war, not at peace. 

Gossip keeps us in conflict, frustration, anger and sorrow. 

It reinforces everything we ‘hate’ about the world without looking inside and filling ourselves with love.

When others around us are gossiping, we don’t have to participate. 

We can ignore the conversation, change the subject or leave. 

It’s about choosing a new way of being, regardless of the reaction of others. 

It’s about choosing love.

We are never too old to try something new.

I put on skis in my 30's

I tried yoga in my 40's, and

I started painting in my 50's

I thought I would never enjoy going down a mountain with no handrails.  I was wrong.  Something happens when you persevere, choose to do your best and start by following excellent (and kind) instructors down slippery unknown terrain.

I thought I would never enjoy anything as much as running after my body was injured and in constant pain from overuse.  I was wrong.  I learned to breathe, stretch, and strengthen my body in a new way.  I gained a community of friends who enjoy taking care of themselves on many levels.

I thought I didn’t have a talented bone in my body.  I was wrong.  Something happens to you when you have a wonderful teacher and allow yourself to fall in love with what you are painting.  I learned that with practice, talent can blossom and grow in quite unexpected, amazing ways. Painting has opened my eyes to beauty, appreciating colors, hues, and shadows.  Wondering whether this photo or that will make a good subject for my next endeavor.

It’s never too late to expand our horizons. Winston Churchill wrote a wonderful book about painting, called Painting as a Pastime, in which he poetically describes a hobby that lifted him from depression and rewarded a nation with a treasure trove of work. Art Therapy has helped many suffering from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.  Being part of a creative process and making something which you and others can enjoy is healing for the mind, body, and soul.

Give something new a try.  You might be surprised by how much fun you have and what you learn and create in the process. Life can be an adventure, no matter how heavy things feel in any moment.  There is always the next breath and another vista if we are open to new possibilities. We are never too old unless we choose to be.

I love tiny homes and have even joined several 'Tiny Homes' Facebook groups.  Touring room by room through tiny homes inspires me and touches my heart.

Designing, building, or living in a tiny home takes creative problem solving: How to scale everything down to the bare essentials for economical and flexible living. Actually, it’s a lot more.

Tiny homes can be mobile, energy efficient and located in the most beautiful places.  It feels like the creators and designers of tiny homes tap into their inner knowing and create a small living area that suits a more pared down and way of life.

The tiny homes mirror their owners like our dogs, cats and horses mirror us.  Creators and designers of tiny homes seem to be genuinely curious with a love of exploring, finding interesting solutions and discovering new ways of being.

When you live in a tiny home you strip living down to the bare essentials, to the core of what you really need, and that appeals to me. 

And there's the same appeal with van life.  I love to watch how people have renovated vans, buses, emergency vehicles to be their home on wheels.  What they have to do to survive in the cold and heat, where they shower and wash up, how they cook and car for themselves, how they find places to park to the next or a week or several months, sometimes for free, the places they see, the adventure they have, how they make money on the road to take care of themselves and the ones that they love. 

There's a common thread, and it's one to ponder.  How would it be to get to the core of what we need to lead a content, fulfilled life.  What are we willing to give up?  What would or could we gain?  It's a fascinating line of inquiry to really know ourselves better and make changes to our lives, other ones besides these ones of course, that could change our experience of what life and living means.

Why do we beat ourselves up?  We are never going to be perfect.  We will continue to make mistakes; they are just opportunities to learn and grow.

And regarding mistakes, I have found something on my own personal journey that’s amazing. There are bits of me as a mom, daughter, and wife (for example) that I never loved.  I locked them away as bad and froze them in time. I avoided and denied that they existed because I was a 'good person'.

What I have found is that those trashed bits don’t go away.  They fester and pop up if not dealt with.

And the cool thing is that the cure is simple.  It’s all about acknowledgment, dropping the judgment and love. When we acknowledge these bits and stop judging them (really stop judging them, not just say we are) and when we sit with them in acceptance and love, magic happens.

It’s like pulling up a chair and sitting next to a crying child or upset teenager.  They may not want you to touch them or even speak, but your very presence helps.

Maybe it’s the first time this bit of us has been loved.  How cruel and arrogant of us to banish bits of ourselves from love. When we do so, we teach our children that bits of them are unlovable and unredeemable as well.  Children pick up on these things, even if the words are never spoken. They feel them in us and may be confused by our words that don’t match up.