What happens when people form opinions about you without understanding the full picture? We talk about it on episode 616. Inspired by Lil Wayne's “Gossip,” this episode explores how assumptions, misunderstandings, and secondhand information can affect our relationships, emotional well-being and mental health, and sense of self. We also talk about approaching others with more care, taking accountability for our own assumptions, and healing when we feel misunderstood.

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Hey y'.

All.

You were listening to another episode of the Spiritual Homegirl podcast where we better self in spirit and make peace with the day through wisdom, education and practical, easy to follow tips.

I am your host, Maria, your spiritual homegirl, who's also a mental professional.

And today's episode was inspired by an unlikely source.

I was listening to some mixtapes from my school days and Lil Wayne's gossip popped up.

And while I was listening to it, I said, oh, I haven't talked about false narratives or lies in a long time.

Let me talk about it today.

So here we are.

So people can speak confidently about situations they either know nothing about or know very little about.

Sometimes the misunderstanding of a person, whether they know them or not or a situation or a thing can become a rumor.

And that rumor ends up becoming somebody else's version of the truth because as my granny says, a lot don't care who tell it.

And the lie can go further than the truth.

And oftentimes people will believe that first story because it's messier, it has more drama, it's more entertaining, and it's more salacious.

And depending on if that person likes you or not, it keeps you underneath them.

So there's so many reasons.

So today's episode is going to talk about what a false narrative is, how it's formed, how it causes harm, and how to heal.

And everybody I know has either been lied on, no matter the severity, including myself.

So this is a topic that isn't necessarily specific to just a small group of people.

It happens to many more people.

And sometimes it happens on the most littlest and basic and most minuscule of things.

And if it hasn't happened to you, please keep listening because I'm going to tell you how to handle it if it happens.

So bookmark this episode in case you have to come back to it.

So the way false narratives get created, right, There is so many reasons.

In terms of the motives, there's a variety of motives, but from what I gather, based on the experience I've seen first and third hand, usually it's the need to assess a label or assess a judgment on somebody for others to believe.

That's usually the this, that's the need.

But the motive gets tricky because everybody is unique in the sense of why they do this.

And from what I've seen, this is not an all inclusive list.

I'll just give a couple examples for the sake of time.

But sometimes there's an interaction that goes left and people get their feelings hurt and then they tell a One sided story and get the line on that instance in terms of what happened.

The thing I've seen the most though is it's the false narrative because of insecurity.

You see somebody living their life, they ain't caused no harm towards you.

They're confident, they're happy, they're stylish, or they may be attractive, or they may have a nice looking partner, or they might not even have a partner, but they drive a nice car, they have nice jewelry, their hair is always laid or their hair is always cut or they still have hair, or they have a nice body or they have nice shoes and they have a good job or they have the position you want in life or you think you want to life because we don't know what people sacrifice to get there, right?

Whatever it is about this person.

Notice I didn't say that there was an interaction.

It's just their identity and their way of existing that makes people so upset that they're like, you know what this person, there has to be something wrong with them.

And they start making their own self worth about how badly they could sow a seed of negativity on that other person's name.

Or for some that are obsessed, how much they want to tear that person down.

Or that person might be too confident for your liking and you want to bring them down a notch even though can't nobody but God do that.

But they move like that because the sheer idea of this other person existing happily, confidently in the world causes them to feel a sense of I don't want to go that far, but I said worthlessness.

When somebody lets the existence of another person cause them that much damage without a single negative interaction to where that person says, you know what?

I feel so uncomfortable with how happy or how confident or how successful they are.

I need to go out of my way to bring them down so I can feel better about myself.

So I'm gonna make up a lie and I'm gonna tell everybody I can and I'm gonna try my best to convince them that they should believe about this person what I believe.

And I'm gonna tell whatever lie I can because I need people to validate my negative feelings for them so that I in attacking them, that is what I see the most.

And as specific as you think it sounds, it's more common than not.

A weak self esteem will have you lying on somebody for existing.

An insecure person will be hating and lying on people that they don't know that they never had an interaction with.

Also they could feel Good about themselves.

A weaker person.

Because y' all know I don't judge on my podcast, but I judge.

A hater.

A weaker person, a loser of sorts, will then go either way to recruit other people to join them in the lie.

It is a big difference from somebody having an experience with somebody that's negative and them telling their story and that's their truth of it, and that is the facts.

Because two different people can experience the same thing differently.

Sometimes people are offended and they talk about how they were offended.

The other person was the person that caused the offense.

They don't really feel it was that serious.

It's like, oh, she putting extras on it.

That's a difference.

It's a difference between telling the truth of what happened and the feelings of that versus, or the perception of that I should say, versus just outright lying about what happened during that experience, or even lying about an experience or just lying on a person you don't know in general, it's just.

It's just something special.

It's a special kind of, like, weird to me.

And also, people will like, they love to believe the lie because again, the lie sounds better.

And when the lie gets repeated so many times, people will say, oh, I didn't heard about 10 times, it must be true.

Not realizing, no, you just heard it ten times and you didn't go out your way to even determine if it was true.

And for some people, they'll just accept it because they don't care if it's true or not.

Whatever, who cares?

Some people will say that they just don't care.

Or other times there is something that happened between you and another person and you're worried about the tea they gonna spill on you if they even decide to spill the tea.

So you decide to start making up stuff just to get ahead of it in case they decide to say something about you.

It's about protecting your image.

It gets very weird.

It gets weird.

Sometimes people will make up lies to get close to you.

They will literally make up a situation and say, oh, I heard so and so said something about you.

And while we're there, let me.

Let me go off on a quick tangent.

There's different ways that people question things, and we'll get into that in the next segment.

But the way I said, there's different motives.

And as weird and as.

As borderline stalkerish as it sounds, there are people that will make up lies about other people just to get close to the person they're lying on.

I've seen it happen with romantic attraction A lot.

I have also had to deal with that on my other.

On my end, where somebody was like, oh, I heard somebody saying so and so about you.

Call me and let's talk about it.

That was their pickup line.

I. I kid you not.

And karma has handled that person and three other people.

I've seen that happen to other people.

But that is what they do.

When you're like, I'm talking about.

That's.

That's borderline.

Like, that's diabolical when you think about it.

But some people feel like the only way to get your trust or to get close to you is to make up the narrative.

Because they say if you care about yourself enough, your image enough, you're going to seek them out to figure out who said what, and they're going to dangle the carrot in front of your face and say, o. I don't really want to say who said it.

Or, you know, I'll tell you in a minute.

Not realizing they're going to try to build with you and get to know you, and next thing you know, it ain't funny, but it's weird.

You would.

You would be so surprised.

I could really talk about this for two to three hours or all the situations I have seen with other people in the false narratives and how that goes and how tricky it gets.

I have at least five times where folks have made up lies to try to get close to that person and only to stalk them or date them.

It gets very weird.

So the harm that people don't realize that false narratives can cause is, for some, irreparable.

Some people cannot get over those kind of things.

Some people have PTSD from the betrayal trauma that comes from being light on.

It's not just, oh, sticks and stones will break your bones, but words can break your spirit.

I don't care what nobody says.

Some people are like that.

And I'm not saying people that allow words to hurt them are weak or less than.

But what I am saying is that they're human.

And there's nothing wrong with being human.

People don't understand the cost that false narratives have on people's lives.

It could affect their reputation.

People that work very hard to build stable, solid careers, lives, brands, what have you.

Those things can put that in jeopardy.

Relationships within their families, where they're standing in the community, they, Their groups, their friends, their homegirls, whatever organizations they're in, friendships, marriages, relationships, engagements.

It can.

It can affect them there, too.

Trust being guarded around people thinking, everybody talking about you.

Now you don't want to say nothing because you think everybody going to run back and tell even if they're not, or you think people are going to lie on you and they're not.

And it also can really destroy the mental health and the self perception.

I have seen stories that have increased over the last few years where people are not living anymore because people have lied on them.

Sometimes that's the determining factor whether people decide to live or die.

And people don't look at how serious that can get.

I literally just seen it.

What was that two months ago where this person was already having mental health issues?

There was a story that came out, there was a smear campaign and they're no longer here.

It gets real.

Anxiety, depression, anger, ptsd, feeling isolated, feeling, feeling like you can't move on.

It is real.

And people don't think because they rather run their mouth first.

It changes how certain people see themselves over time.

And believe it or not, creating false narratives is a form of spiritual warfare too.

Like I said, if you could break the spirit, you could break anything else.

I've said that from day one.

I've been saying that for over 10 years.

Everything else is sure to break.

All you got to do is tap on the wheel one too many times and everything else gonna crumble.

Mental health, emotional health, spiritual, everything's gonna crumble.

And when people create false narratives, and if those false narratives begin to move in a way that's sweeping across wherever they show up at in their communities, that can destroy a person.

And sometimes that's what a person that's spreading the narrative wants to happen anyway.

Because like I said in the previous segment, sometimes the mere existing of you or the mere just thought of you crushes them so much or impacts their self esteem so much or starts to shake their confidence so much they gotta do something to take you out.

I'm not saying it's right because it's that.

I'm just trying to give y' all the mindset of people that move like this.

And also it causes grief.

Grief of a life they had before somebody decided to open their mouth and lie on them.

It gets real.

It really does.

Again, this is only about real stuff.

Somebody telling they true about something that happened.

Especially if you cause harm, it is what it is.

But a lie is different.

So healing.

Right, because I said that false narratives are a form of spiritual warfare.

I'm gonna always tell you to protect yourself however you see fit.

What I don't like to do is talk about ways to protect yourself because some things may be relevant Culturally or not.

Or some things might not necessarily fit and some things might be needs that some things need to be done depending on how to say this.

Like for instance, I'm from the south, right?

I'm a black girl from the south, black woman, excuse me, a black woman from the South.

So there might be things that I look at protection wise that may not fit.

So I would never tell somebody to do something that doesn't fit.

Or there might be an ancestral form of protection that was passed down to me from a relative, like a grandmother or something.

And I might do that and that may work for me, but that might not work for you.

So I've never been a person to say, oh, here's exactly how you do it.

But what I will say is whatever you do, be ethical on how you do it.

And remember that everything has a cost, front end or back end.

If you know, you know, because we've talked about it before and I'll leave it there.

You grown, you're going to do what you want to do.

But however you do it, just know there's always a cost.

It just depends on whether you're going to pay up front or down the line.

So protect yourself though.

It's a difference between attacking people and stuff like that, especially, you know, depending on the circumstances and protect yourself.

So just protect yourself however you see fit energetically and then also remember what the facts are because sometimes people will believe what other people are saying about them as the facts.

Forgetting that, no, that's not how that happened.

So remember the facts when people try to gaslight you and play in your face and tell you what didn't happen and also allow yourself to grieve and feel hurt.

Like I said, if something hurts your feelings, it doesn't make you weak, it makes you human.

That means that you care.

You might not care about that other person if you don't have a connection to them.

Because if a narrative is spread by a person that you care about, then oh yeah, that's for sure.

Patero trauma.

But for those that may not know the person that's spreading the narrative, you could still be hurt that somebody else believed it.

Especially if it's somebody that you know.

We can hold two things at once as much as what the discourse is online that's tried to tell you otherwise.

You can hold two things at once even if they conflict.

You can hold in one hand.

Yeah, I know that's not me and that's not true.

And that's not reflective of who my true character, you know, or what my true character is.

You could debate that in one hand, but you can also hold in the other hand.

But this still hurt my feelings because I know that isn't me.

And somebody would really go out their way to make this me.

Also decide what deserves the response.

Because sometimes people will feel like they have to go on a clear my name tour where they are telling people that really don't care or people that I'm not really cool with more personal truths or situations to try to clear their name.

Which I understand the intent, because who wouldn't want to be like, hey, this isn't who I am.

Let me show you who I am.

But sometimes you do it to the wrong people who really don't care either way, they gonna believe what they want to believe.

Or you'll feel like you have to perform for the validation of these people.

And I'm just telling you as a homegirl who loves you and wants to, you win.

Don't do that.

Because those that fool with you and know your character, not only and you may disagree, and that's fine.

Not only should they not believe that about you, but they should also defend it.

Because what I see sometimes is, is that people will run back and say, oh, this, this person said something about you.

And they won't say who it was.

And even worse, they won't even defend your name in rooms you're not in.

And at that point you got to figure out, do you want to build a bond to get close to somebody who won't even defend your name in rooms you not in?

But they'll run and tell you what somebody said.

I don't fool people like that.

I don't.

The first thing anybody, anybody that knows me well knows, and it hasn't happened in a very long time.

But if anybody ever said anything about me and they decide to tell me, oh, so and so said something about me, if they list the name, then okay, cool.

But the first thing I'm going to ask you is, and what did you do when they said that?

Because what you do determines how I move forward with you moving forward.

Because depending on what you did or did not do, I might treat you like the person you just gave by name the name up to when you said that they were talking about me.

And if you didn't say a name, then I'm just gonna assume it was you.

Because who are you protecting and why?

I say that a lot, all the time.

Somebody said, no, you said that as far as I'm concerned is you.

Until you clear it Up.

And that might not be something you agree with.

And that is why I am me and you are you.

But I don't play like that at all.

And don't.

If I tell a friend or a loved one or whoever that somebody's talking about them, I'm giving the name up.

You can handle it how you want to handle it, but you're not going to talk about a love.

When a mind in front of me and think that I'm just gonna let that ride or I'm just gonna let that be said.

I'm not gonna say nothing to them.

Absolutely not.

It depends in terms of, like, how.

If it's super duper messy.

Oh, I'm definitely giving you up.

If it's something that's like, minuscule, I' ma defend your name because that's how I roll.

That's how I operate.

And I don't want to move around anybody that doesn't operate like that.

I know there's differences in personalities.

When it comes to people we choose to interact with and build bonds with in any aspect.

Familial friendships, relationships, associates, co workers, groups, whatever it is, we can all have different personalities, but that character, we have to have similar character traits in that regard.

And I'm not accepting anything less than that, and neither should you.

If you got a home girl that's always going back telling you what people are saying about you and not defending your name, or they're always hiding the name again, you might want to sit with if that's really your girl or not.

Same for the guys, same for those that don't identify within the binary whatever it is.

If you got a friend that moves like that, ask them, why do you always tell me what people say about me, but you never give me a name or you never tell me what you do afterwards, why are you still in rooms where people are constantly talking about me and you're telling me they're talking about me, but yet you still choose to engage with them.

It gets tricky because sometimes you know what?

I'm not even gonna get into that.

It's gonna be a whole nother episode.

We're gonna talk about that, though.

We're gonna talk about being neutral and how sometimes the neutral position can get a little tricky.

We can talk about that another episode, but also rebuild self trust.

Remember who you are and remember whose you are.

Remember that everybody's not out to get you.

It could be hurtful and you could feel like the world's against you.

But as the homegirl who loves you and wants to see you in.

I'm going to tell you that's not everybody in this world.

It's just a handful of people that can't take you for whatever reason.

So they're going to try to take you out verbally.

Remember that you're trying to take me out because you can't take me.

You can't even handle me at my most distant.

You have to be upset with me just living my life and me just handling business in a way that you don't feel comfortable with.

So rather than accept the discomfort and learn how to sit with that, you want to take me down because again, you can't take me.

And there may be some that may believe it and it may be hurtful, but remember, you are here for a special reason and the fact that somebody could be that irritated at your existence, you must be doing something right.

You're not causing harm to people.

You're minding your business, you're drinking your water, you're doing things you love to do, and for some reason that irritates people.

It's gonna be like that when people don't have their confidence in intact.

It's like that sometimes.

But again, don't let nobody take you out because they can't take you, period.

Clear your name if you feel like you have to do it.

And if you need to heal, go heal, because you can do both.

So I'm going to ask you some questions to leave you with, right?

Have you ever repeated something about somebody without even knowing if that was even true?

Have you ever passed judgment on somebody's life and said it as fact and then tried to tell somebody else that it was fact?

Or did you listen to somebody try to pass it off as fact and did you accept it and did you try to pass it off to somebody else because of what you heard?

Also, have you ever told a story that made yourself look better by leaving out important details because you know the truth will make you look crazy, so you might have omitted it or lied about it in totality, or do you have a situation where even you yourself are not feeling the most confident and you look at people in your your community in different aspects of your community and do you feel like you have to tear them down by lying on them?

Do you feel like you have to make assumptions?

Oh, I bet she did so.

I bet he did so.

I know they don't blah blah, blah or I heard they blah blah, blah.

Do you do that because you might need to sit with why you want people to be fair with you when you're not fair with other people in their stories.

What good is asking for grace and fairness when it comes to us when we don't even practice that with other people's stories?

Were careless with other people's lives and reputations and mental health and social standings.

So I'm gonna leave that with y'.

All.

But I'm going to also leave you with this.

You don't need everybody to like you to be a person of good character and integrity.

You don't need to be perfect to be a person of good character.

But you also don't need to be universally liked by every single person to show character.

Because to me, character is how you come, how you stand, and how you're behaving.

It's not what people think because we know until we don't, you're cool to you not.

And that's based on what we show people.

And also, healing does not require acting like you weren't affected.

Now, again, some people will say, don't let your enemies or people that don't like you, don't let them see you sweat.

You got the right to feel that way.

Some people will say, you know what?

Get off your chest.

If that means venting, whether it's publicly or whether it's online, do your thing.

There's nothing wrong with that either.

You don't have to pretend, is what I'm saying.

You could be strong in public and.

And put on a game face and be crying behind the scenes.

As long as you get it out.

That's how I feel.

Get it out how you can.

Because anger thrown in your body causes harm.

Do the research.

And also, it could be uncomfortable, but also be at peace with knowing that everybody might not get the full story.

And even if they do, they might not change their mind because the goal is not to change the perception, is to stop letting what people think about you run your life.

Don't ever let nobody's opinion on this earth control how you show up in the world and live your life.

Because again, who are these people?

There are other humans just like you.

They got their own things to answer for, just like you.

Everybody gotta die at some point.

I know it sounds more, but it's true.

Everybody is not better than the other here.

I know sometimes people say, oh, there's certain things that I'm better than.

And that could be true.

Let's keep it at a book.

There are certain things that could be beneath you depending on how you've evolved.

But to let another person, another human that has Their own trials, tribulation, struggles, confidence, what have you, Things behind the scenes, sacrifices to make.

To let that one person just operate in a way that dictates how you get to move to me is like putting yourself in an emotional prison.

This person gets to tell you how to look, how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, how to behave.

Now you gotta shrink.

For who?

Another human?

I know you lying.

My boofriends don't do that.

So that's you.

You.

No.

No, ma'.

Am.

No, sir, not.

No, not at all.

If you're shrinking the bust out of that emotional prison, remember that at the end of the day, your opinion about you is the one that matters most.

And what other people think of you ain't your business.

And when it comes to the false narratives, you have a right to determine how you're going to handle that.

But one thing it shouldn't do is make you feel like you're unworthy of having the same right to be here on earth as the person that's either starting it or just anybody else.

Stop living for the verdict of other people, Especially folks that gotta be put on trial for their own stuff down the line, whenever that is.

Because usually I put it to you like this, Another elder phrase I love to remember and bring back up the grave.

You dig for others, fill in the blank.

So the ones that try to go out that way and put you in that emotional prison, it's only a matter of time.

I've never seen it happen otherwise.

I've never seen a person that put a false negative on somebody get to run off into the sunset and live a happy life.

It usually hits them in different ways.

And if you're a spiritual person like me, you know exactly how that goes.

You just pay attention and you know, it always shows up and it always comes out.

So the false narrative does not necessarily change what people think, but it can change how we move through the world depending on how we heal from it.

And you can still be innocent of what people are accusing you of and still be responsible for healing from what those people said.

And the last thing I will say is, and again, I hate to make it like I'm just telling you what to do, but again, you're grown.

But as your homegirl, I would not be able to end this episode without saying it again.

Do not get so caught up in defending the false story or trying to rewrite or correct the false story that you forget that you have a whole real life to live.

So live your life.

So that's what I have for you today.

Don't forget to sign up for the email list.

Click the second link in my show notes and I will talk to y' all next week.

I think that's everything I have this week.

I thought I was something I wanted to say at the end, but y' all know I can't do any podcast episode without thanking you all for listening.

So thank you for listening.

Boo friends, out of the tens and thousands of podcasts out there in podcast land since 2016, you've lemmed me your ears whenever you felt like tapping in with your girl and I really appreciate that.

So I will catch you on episode 6 17.

This has been another episode of the Spiritual Homegirl podcast.

My name is Maria, your spiritual homegirl.

And and remember, boo friends, trust the journey, trust yourself and whatever you do, do it with love, okay?

Navigating false narratives included.

Love y'.

All.

Peace.