Dear Dr. Yael,
I know with Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in our midst I must work on many middos, but particularly on my need to speak to my mother, mother-in-law, friends and family too much lashon hara. Part of my problem is that people find me so charming with my wit and personality and they jokingly tell me, “We love having you around! You say what we think, but would never dare to say!” I have a good life with a wonderful husband and children and many friends, but I am not happy with the example that I am setting for my children.
I know underneath my fun, supposedly strong, carefree personality I really feel insecure and my parents who had many children never seem to have time for me. I do understand that I speak too much lashon hara and I gossip since I end up getting a lot of attention from other people when doing so.
Please give me ideas on how to stop this unhealthy trend.
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
I am impressed that you yourself are identifying this problem that we all struggle with in our lives. It is so tempting to share gossip, and people are generally interested in these types of stories, so it can be a huge nisayon (test) for many people to keep quiet instead. I don’t think you are alone in this struggle. Perhaps you can learn something that will help you and your family and friends stop talking lashon hara. If you can set up a time with various family and friends to learn daily halachos of lashon hara it will help you tremendously. The Chofetz Chaim foundation has many daily books or you can even sign up for daily emails that you can learn without needing to buy anything. Learning the halachos with family and/or friends can aid you in achieving this goal.
The fact that you realize this need is exacerbated due to your struggle with self-esteem is helpful. What else can you do to build your self-esteem, your husband’s and children’s self-esteem so that they will join you in spending time in a more productive manner? Are you getting pleasure by doing other things like getting involved in chesed, exercise, helping your family by giving them positive attention, compliments and love?
It is challenging to build your self-esteem when you did not get it in your formative years. Unfortunately, we tend to make the same mistakes our parents make. By being so busy gossiping you may not be focusing enough on your own parenting and building your children’s self-esteem. Perhaps this makes you speak more negatively instead of focusing on your children’s positive traits. Making an effort to focus on the positive things in your life and in those around you will help you stop speaking lashon hara because you will start to see the good in everyone instead of being critical or seeing negative things to talk about. Focusing more on positive things and helping others will also give you a deeper satisfaction in your life.
Perhaps you also need to work on building your own marriage and working with your husband to improve this middah as well. Have a date night where you exclusively focus on your marriage and the brachos Hashem gave you. Building your husband up while he at the same time tries to help you feel more comfortable and secure in your life are healthy ways to get attention. It would also be helpful to make a list of all of your positive qualities and read them to yourself daily. This sounds weird and will feel strange at first, but you need to teach your brain all of the positive things about yourself, so you start thinking these positive things about yourself automatically. The hope is that the more you read these things about yourself, the more your brain will accept them and will start to believe them. It is imperative that you become your own cheerleader and whenever you “hear” yourself put yourself down, you must stop the negativity and replace it with something positive.
It appears that you enjoy your relationship with your mother and mother-in-law. Maybe you can forge better relationships with them by including them in your desire to speak less lashon hara and learn with them so that you continue to spend quality time with them and you conquer this cycle of gossip.
I know this will not be easy for you to do as we all fall prey to this problem on some level. However, if you work on these issues you will ultimately be successful. I wish you hatzlacha with this problem that we as a community struggle with in our challenging world. May this huge undertaking be a zechus for you during this auspicious time.
