How To Vent Emotions and Get Happier

Hi, I’m Paul Krismer, and I’m your happiness expert, and this week’s video is all about venting. You know when you’re feeling bad, angry, sad, or whatever, and you really just need to release those emotions. Well, the question of the video is: is it good or bad to be venting? The answer is yes, and I’m going to explain exactly what I mean in this important video about processing negative emotions. Stay tuned.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach topics just like this one all around the world. So stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. Yeah, so our subject today is all about emotional venting. We all know what it looks like. We hang out with friends or see people at work that really just need to release whatever’s going on for them. They’re talking about some troubles in their family or how a jerk their bosses, or how angry they were the driver that cut them off, whatever it is, people often have this really significant need to just share their emotions.

Emotional venting is indeed good if it leads to processing. Emotions are an expression of something that’s important. If we’re angry, there’s probably been an injustice. If there’s sadness, then there’s probably been some loss. If there’s shame, then we’ve probably done something wrong. Negative emotions are not in and of themselves bad. Of course, they’re instructive. They’re helpful to us. They guide us to live our lives better if we can learn from the event that led to certain emotions. The tricky thing is that it’s the processing through that’s important, and so often and sometimes to a fault, our society has encouraged people to just let out their emotions.

So we know all kinds of people who say it’s just important for me to be able to express this. Even psychotherapists sometimes encourage people to punch pillows or use little clubs to hit the punching bag. That repetition of a negative emotion sets down neural pathways so we experience those same emotions over and over and over and over again. And that’s why we often find that there’s certain people in our lives that that’s all they ever do. When we’re with them, they’re sharing their negative emotions, and they seem to have an unlimited supply of these kind of negative emotions.

The tricky thing is to not lay down those neural pathways. When the negative emotion comes up, find a healthy and useful way to work through it. So it’s about getting perspective. You know, so much of our environment these days, especially superficial relationships, there isn’t much real opportunity for perspective getting. You look at social media as a perfect example. Tribes of people get together to have a hate on for a certain thing or another. In some respects, they may feel that it’s cathartic to be a part of this group. But because they’re not really interested in working through the emotions, instead they’re working through a sense of belonging by being with people who share those emotions. Those emotions run deeper and deeper and deeper, and they get no processing at all. That in and of itself is very unhealthy.

Neural pathways make the negative emotions repeat. We’re often coached a little bit incorrectly to simply be these great listeners. To not offer advice. That when your friend comes by and has got to share their burden, you just listen and don’t advise. And you know, that’s not quite right. There’s an art to it. The art is, of course, to let people share deeply about what’s going on in their lives and be genuinely empathetic. And then, at the right time, to be able to say, “Gee, and I wonder, is there something that you’re learning from this?” Or, “Can I ask you about some other feelings? What else came up for you in this?” Or, “Gee, I’m really sorry that that’s the situation. What do you suppose you’re going to do about it?”

Did you see how, in all of those suggested ways of approaching perspective getting from the negative emotion, I put the question back to the person who’s experiencing those negative emotions? So, rather than me jumping in with advice, I’m letting the person who I’m speaking with be their own wisest guide. And once they get going and doing the processing, the learning from the negative emotion, then there may be an opportunity for me to say, “Hey, are you open to some advice? Or, I have an idea. Do you want to hear it?” And again, asking permission from that person who’s processing.

Once they genuinely give you the permission, they’re honestly open to it. What none of us want is, “I’m feeling really angry about this situation,” and somebody then saying immediately, “Well, you should have done this, that or the other thing,” or “That person is not all wrong,” and kind of invalidating my feelings and jumping in with their advice and their perspective. None of us want that. But we do want to work through the emotion so that, at the end of the conversation with a very good friend, I’m feeling better, wiser, like I have a plan, calmer. And of course, the nature of the event may cause new waves of anger, sadness, shame, or whatever to come along. And then I want to work through it again, and again, and again. And not have neural processes that say shame, sadness, or anger are my go-to things. But rather, wisdom and learning and becoming a better and stronger person are my goals.

And of course, that’s what I’m all about. That’s what happiness is about is about getting personal growth and dealing with life as it really is, which is challenging and filled with all kinds of emotions, positive and negative, and learning from them. So that we get a happier, more successful life. Look, if you like this kind of content, click the like button, share with your family and friends, send it to the people who you think may benefit from this kind of content. And thanks for watching. See you next week in the next video. Bye for now.