Gossip destroys relationship and undermines community. 

Long ago I committed to speak only positively about people behind their back. Or at least to bring my judgments to them clearly and directly.

Each week I tell too many to bring their backhanded critiques to the person directly, and to stop hurting themselves and others through cowardice and desperate grabs for power.

Always, this confrontation makes this person trust me. More than if I had let the judgement happen. 

When I bring my criticism to another, I have the chance to own it and make a request or offer it as a gift in service to this person's deep and universal need for growth, closeness, and mastery. 

Or a better boundaried relationship that is rooted in discernment or understanding rather than in rejection and spite. Something natural, good and right.

Sometimes it is hard. Always it is right.

Ironically, this pattern is rife within the spiritual community, that usually lacks healthy masculinity and integral village morality.

One who habitually backtalks has never metabolized the pain of true social exclusion. Once felt, this deepest tribal pain catalyzes the deepest compassion prevents exclusion, rejection, or backtalk to happen ever again for long at all.

When I do border into gossip, I stop and correct myself. I apologize. And commit to the courage of facing the person or problem directly.

This is integrity, respect, and a pillar of healthy culture.

Remember the Golden Rule:

"What I like in you I like in me. 

What I don't like in you I don't like in me".

And end gossip like your community depends on it. It does.