When Venting or Complaining Is Helpful

And Likewise When It's Not

The topic of complaining came up this week in both a small group conversation and then in the article below which popped up in my social media feed. I listened as two friends disagreed on allowing a third friend space to vent over an upsetting situation, one arguing for listening with empathy and one for not listening with some glib advice that the third friend should just move on from the upsetting situation and be smarter next time the same comes up.

I often listen to conversations between friends in social situations with interest and curiosity, often later coming into some thoughts of my own on the topic at hand, ones which often contain nuance. It seems to me that in most situations there’s nuance and two things can often be true at once. Life’s complicated that way.

There are personality types which can hold nuance and those who can’t or won’t. In the latter case, things are often either this way or they’re that way and please don’t hold forth with any information that contradicts their view. The matter’s been decided. Never the way I’ve looked at it, which I can often find annoys some people.

I heard the political commentator and author David Brooks once say that in his estimation about 20% of people actually want to think and grapple with ideas. The other 80% take the path of least resistance and don’t. The latter are apt to follow the crowd in their thinking. Peruse the comments on any article on social media and that’s exactly what you’ll find. It’s why I’ve largely stopped looking at them. I’m always looking for the contrarian point of view if for no other reason that I think someone should raise questions or maybe argue the counterpoint. It keeps life interesting and often I find life’s questions really are more interesting than the answers.

11 Things You Should Never Complain About To Others [A Conscious Rethink]

So, here’s my two cents (or maybe it’s two quarters given inflation). As to venting, it’s sometimes needed as a short-term outlet, and we appreciate the friends who listen with empathy. That often looks like just letting the person venting get their story with its emotional freight out without offering solutions. Advice can too often be glib or oversimplify the complex. Now as the INFJ personality type, I am likely to come at it with curiosity to get underneath what’s going on and help you strategize to find a solution, but perhaps maybe you just wanted a cup of tea.

The rub is that everything I’ve read indicates that continual venting about the same situation creates a neural pathway or groove in your brain that’s self-reinforcing, keeping you mired in negativity. In those moments when our brain gets hijacked putting us in fight or flight mode, one approach is to try somatic (of the body) techniques. There are many you can find online. Dr. Nicole Lepara often demonstrates them on her Facebook page or YouTube.

As a therapist working with family trauma, Lepara also has some really good short role-plays of handling interactions with dysfunctional family dynamics in a healthy, grounded way. I sort of had an ‘ah-ha’ moment when I viewed one this week where she play-acted the daughter responding calmly to a mother asking her to do something she didn’t want to do to please her father and keep the peace. Her response was to explain to her mother that she was standing firm in her refusal and that doing so is only a problem if her dad is unable to regulate his own emotions (which isn’t her problem).

This role-play made me think back to all the times I was guilted well into adulthood into doing things that went against my wishes and even my values. Those types of situations are your boundaries being crossed and you have the right to speak up calmly and refuse. Many of us were raised in families where emotions weren’t regulated and so it wasn’t modeled for us. Instead of refusing in these instances, I’d usually comply but quietly seethe. Why did it feel like I had no choice? It can feel like you don’t when you’re left thinking your parents get the last word no matter your age. These things also explain why I used to say that no one could make me feel so much rage as my own mother. Feeling you lack control or agency in your own life is a terrible feeling.

Here’s another strategy that a therapist shared with me years ago - pull yourself out of the moment to look at the situation from outside of it as if you’re an outside observer. What would doing so reveal to you about the situation or about yourself? What’s really behind the emotions you’re feeling in the moment? Doing this exercise can allow for some clarity getting you to the place where you are able to respond instead of react.

Back to complaining. I had to disagree with some of what the A Conscious Rethink article suggested. Here’s why. Let’s go with the scenario about your neighbor who plays loud music you don’t like, suggesting that you should respect their choice and get yourself some earbuds because maybe they need the music to help them get through whatever they’re going through. Another example in the article suggested not complaining when your flight is delayed. Here was my overall response to the article (because, why not, sometimes I feel a call to nuance is called for):

 I agree that discernment (in deciding when to complain) is called for. There are certainly times complaints should be made to those in a position to resolve the problem.

I don’t necessarily agree about the music example, if it’s continuous and loud. When you live amongst other humans, something of a social contract is in place, if unspoken. It’s why we have a noise ordinance in my city and why the city building and codes department enforces things like keeping up your property, free from severe overgrown brush and trash. In the flight example, if needed, you complain to the customer service desk and they perhaps find you overnight accommodations. Companies providing services solicit feedback continually so improvements can be made.

That is to say, complaints have their place and the key is being judicious with them.

But, yes, complaining repeatedly about the same things with no intent to look for a solution or if there’s no solution to be had (you have no control) isn’t very helpful. To the conversation between my friends that I began this post with, my opinion is that I appreciated one friend’s willingness to listen to some venting without judgment. I also could see where the friend who needed to vent could have deployed some strategies I’ve laid out here though when you’ve been emotionally hijacked, the thinking brain goes offline in the moment. I suppose the key is to be aware for next time. Perhaps the looking at her own situation with an objective lens would indeed mean she changed her role in the upsetting situation or refused to be placed in the situation in the first place. The situation she faced with family is one I’ve been in so I know at least somewhat what she was feeling. If I faced the same scenario today, I like to think I’d respond differently, in a way less harmful to myself.

As I told my spouse this week, a regular mediation practice is helping me stay calm in the face of the everyday stressors, like interacting to resolve issues like those above. I did, in fact, get overnight accommodations when a recent flight was delayed, and I kept my calm doing so.

Thoughts for the day. And now I must dash.

Happy Sunday.

Peace.