I once heard someone say, “When a friend is upset, it doesn’t matter what you tell them, but rather what you enable them to tell you.” This sentence has since shifted my mindset and how I approach situations when friends/family/colleagues are venting to me. I always believe it is important to engage in active listening through any conversation. I find it helps me know what hat I need to wear when I first ask the question, “Do you want to vent or are you looking for advice?”. Let me show you why.
You know how to be a friend
There’s nothing worse than a friend who sits there in complete silence while you passionately rant about a given topic. It even aggravates me when a friend starts to solve my problem before I finish. I often find, the quieter someone is, the angrier I get. Or, the less they let me talk, the more infuriated I am. When we ask this simple question to our friends or colleagues, we know how they want us to show up for them. You are then able to respond to what they need in their moment of frustration.
This brings me back to what hat we need to wear, e.g. The Solidarity Hat or Devil’s Advocate Hat. If you know going into the conversation what is expected of you, then you know whether or not you are meant to be a sounding board, punching bag, or cheerleader. That, in turn, allows you to show up for your friend in a manner that is befitting of their needs.
It’s healthy to let your feelings out
Bottling your feelings up is never the solution. If you don’t let it out now then it will come out later looking like a big hairy monster. Those might be good in Monsters Inc., but not when we are building healthy relationships.
Being the good friend/colleague that you are, you might need to help them get all of their feelings out. This is where you have the opportunity to ask questions like, “What about this interaction frustrates you so much?” or “What would you have envisioned the outcome/reaction/interaction/etc. to be?”. You are not going to change the fact that they need to vent. The idea is to help them release all of their frustrations so that they can move forward.
You don’t need to solve every problem
Whenever I vent to my husband he often tries to figure out a person’s why. His goal is to get inside their head and explain to me why the situation happened. Then he moves into solution mode so that I no longer have anything to vent about. This drives me absolutely bananas.
Guess what? Sometimes I need to yell. There are times I want to beat a punching bag. People can be really frustrating and I just want someone to validate my feelings, not solve my problems. I can do that myself. If I can‘t, I‘ll know where to find you and what to ask for. By asking what it is that I need (advice or to vent), we can connect as a couple. The alternative is that I leave the conversation more infuriated than I was at the start.
I want our interactions with others to be fruitful. This can only happen when we meet the other person where they are. Close your eyes and imagine how refreshing it would be for someone to stop you dead in your tracks and ask you what you need, as opposed to just deciding for themselves. If we remind ourselves that each situation, interaction, and person is different, then we can see each experience as an opportunity to grow in our relationships with other. Only then can we take a more dynamic approach to helping our people solve their problems.
