I can’t believe they’re still together. She must be staying with him because of the money. Anyways, when I saw her last weekend she definitely put on weight. I think her son’s going to be an orthodontist. Which is good, right? Orthodontists make a lot of money.

My esthetician shares the same space with a hairdresser. I was sitting back in the chair and couldn’t help but hear the incessant gossip coming from the other side of the beauty salon where a woman was getting her hair colored.

I looked up at my esthetician and whispered, “How do you handle listening to this all day? It would literally drive me nuts.”

She smiled. “I’ve learned to tune it out. In the beginning it really bothered me, but I’ve trained myself to not listen. It’s like white noise to me now. I don’t even hear it.”

Her answer amazed me. She became immune to the toxic conversations because she trained herself to block it out. She didn’t allow the negative energy of gossip to pollute her positive attitude and vibration.

After she was finished, I paid her and smiled. In reality, I had also purchased an important lesson. Sometimes in life we don’t have control over the people we share physical space with. But we always have seniority and agency to control the energy that we allow into our energetic space.