Living Outside the Stacks

Yesterday about 6000 of my closest friends and I started the Inner Mean Girl 40~Day Cleanse.  The Inner Mean Girl Cleanse is a self~improvement workshop for women that is taught by Amy Ahlers and Christine Arylo and hosted by Stacy of The Mom Renewal Project.  The purpose of the workshop is to encourage women to rid themselves of six toxic behaviors and replace them with habits that encourage self~love and respect.

Our first assignment is to give up all forms of gossip for the next seven days (that includes tabloid magazines, news shows that focus on celebrity scandals, etc,).  Why?  Because gossip hurts.  Think about how you feel when someone talks about you and it gets back to you, it hurts.  A lot.  And, honestly, when has anything good ever come from gossiping?  Never.

So why does the Inner Mean Girl like to gossip so much?  Because it makes her feel better about herself.  But that’s only a temporary feeling.  Think about it, if they’re gossiping with you, then they’re gossiping about you.  Therefore, it’s best to just avoid the negativity.

Our goal is to speak love, truth and respect into the lives of the people we encounter, so we’re being asked to replace gossip with “good talk.”  Good talk doesn’t mean having a Pollyanna attitude towards life and the people in it, it means thinking carefully about the reasons behind our words.

My Bible truth for this challenge comes from Proverbs 21:23 (NIV), “He who guards his tongue, keeps himself from calamity.”

Will you take the challenge with me and speak only truth and kindness for the next week?  If so, leave me a comment and tell me how it changed the way you interacted with family and friends.

Disclosure:  I am participating in the Inner Mean Girl 40~Day Cleanse as a Self~Love Ambassador.  To thank me for my participation, I will receive a self~love gift from the founders of the Inner Mean Girl Reform School.

I have the research skills of a librarian, the preservation skills of an archivist, the organizational skills of a mother and the domestic skills of a Stepford wife. I have the research skills of a librarian, the preservation skills of an archivist, the organizational skills of a mother and the domestic skills of a Stepford wife. Read more from this author