Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Right speech involves no third party talk.  I don't speak to you about someone who is not also present.  I fail at this all the time.  I talk about people I'm worried about with other people also worried about the subject.  I discuss being a parent of adult children with other parents similarly baffled.  I brag about grandchildren to friends with brilliant grandchildren as well.  I talk about my life, and my life includes people not living nearby and seldom present anyway when these discussions occur.

How to negotiate?  Intention is one key.  Do I want to talk about the third party in a harmful way, or reveal private information that they wouldn't wish to have known?  Well, then going down that road is going to make me feel crappy afterward. 

If, however, I want advice or perspective so that I may interact with that third person less harmfully, then I often forge ahead.  None of my friends or I know how to be appropriate with our adult kids in certain situations.  Getting feedback about how another has handled a situation gives me options and ideas.  And I can cool down if I feel hurt and realize it wasn't about me, it was a generational misunderstanding.  If I don't get phone calls and my friend says she texts, because that's the way they do it, then that helps me get connected to my kids by their cultural rules.  If a friend is behaving strangely, and I check in with a mutual friend, perhaps some important feedback will help people caring for that individual.  I have a friend who is having problems with short term memory, and two who are bipolar, and talking about safety issues and how to cope with challenges being around them is useful and makes me more skillful and therefore less likely to harm the person with such problems.

I like to worry with people.  It eases me, it eases them, and out of such speech information is shared and plans are made:  to visit the hospital, to help the family cope by preparing food or "spelling" them, by laughing during a painful time.  I need to take care of myself, so that I can be of use, and sharing the worrying leaves me feeling not alone and "seen".  I don't mean I need an audience, but I carry emotions and turmoil, to a lesser extent than the family, but still, enough to be respectful of my own involvement.  Right now, friends are visiting someone in the hospital, and sometimes we go together, or talk before or after, as a relief and as witnesses to what is so with the person.  It's a kind of "holding" of the sick person, and it includes speaking of her without her presence, but it aims at care and tenderness, not gossip.  I don't claim to know where the line is, but being aware that there is one can be determined by how I feel afterward.  If I'm comforted and able to comfort, I figure I'm on the right side of the line.