72. Complaining & Venting
For a lot of folks in public health, even though we may love our work and our colleagues, we can get stuck in a cycle of complaining and venting about all the challenges, and how we’re feeling about everything that’s frustrating us.
You might think complaining and venting is serving you, but when you complain and vent every single day, you are indulging in getting stuck in those negative emotions and making it so much harder for yourself to process them, let them go, and create space to feel hopeful, empowered, confident and calm.
In this episode, I’m challenging you to become more aware of the times you complain and vent and showing you how to slowly change the behavior of doing so. Discover some of the reasons we get stuck in complaining and venting, what can happen when you stop, and how to go from complaining and venting to detaching and no longer doing, in order to bring peace, calm, and quiet to your mental and emotional state of being.
If you want to take this work deeper and learn the tools and skills to feel better, all while having my support and guidance each step of the way, I invite you to set up a time to chat with me. Click here to grab a spot on my calendar and I can’t wait to speak to you!
The Burnout Recovery course is out and available right now, but not for much longer! Join this three-part mini-course to get concrete tools and skills to help you reduce pandemic stress, deal with difficult bosses, and reduce your workload. On September 30th, 2022, it’s coming down for good, so grab it now before it goes forever.
What You Will Discover:
How to stop looking for only the negative things in your work.
Why complaining and venting can make you become much more reactive.
How to differentiate between what you can control and what you cannot control.
What really happens when you complain and vent.
One of the best things I did when getting out of burnout.
Why complaining and venting is a habit you have built.
The most important components to consider when it comes to complaining and venting.
Resources:
Get The Burnout Recovery Resolution mini-course right now by signing up here before September, 30th, 2022!
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for public health professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Hey folks, how’s it going? Can you believe it’s September 12th? Truly, where did the time go? To be honest with all of you I kind of still forget it’s 2022. I just feel like we’ve been living in almost like a warp zone, or a time capsule. I don’t know what the right word is but the past two years since the pandemic started, it’s just time has just been confusing. And people think it’s a construct or an illusion. But the past couple of years have just been another level. Maybe it’s just me.
And this year in particular as we’re getting into fall which is my personal favorite season that I’m absolutely obsessed with. I tend to think back on teg year starting in fall. I’m a big reflector, a big introspector. And this year for me there’s been so many amazing experiences, how I’ve grown personally, how much I’ve changed, I’m having so much fun coaching and in my business. But also, there’s been some really challenging things that I’ve had to go through emotionally, and in relationships, and in other areas of my life.
So, it’s been real 50/50. And one area in the past couple of years that I’m sure many of you can relate to that I’m working through now is getting back to being more physically active. Before the pandemic not only was I less sedentary because of my work. I worked on an academic campus, so I was walking a lot from our car to our building, to other meetings. And then even in the building I had a standing desk and walking around, going to meetings and all that stuff. But I also was working out more regularly and intense workouts.
I was working out at Orangetheory, which is if you’re not familiar, a very high intense workout. For me I really only needed it twice a week and I was pretty consistent. And then the pandemic hit and like everyone else, I really reduced my physical activity. And I am someone who is really much more motivated by having to sign up for a class, especially if that class charges a cancellation fee, that helps me so much versus me motivating myself to work out or stay active.
And if I’m being totally honest with you all I think I’ve gained, I mean it’s fluctuated but in the past two and a half years I think I’ve gained around 20 pounds or more. And for me truly the weight gain doesn’t bother me. It’s kind of funny, sometimes I think if I didn’t notice my clothes weren’t fitting I would have never really realized it. There was so much work that I did on myself in my 20s to release a lot of that internalized shame, and guilt, and comparing that a lot of people socialized as women have around their body image and what it ‘should look like’.
And I struggled with disordered eating and so many other things. And in my 20s I worked really, really, really hard to let go of a lot of that. And I think for me a lot of that had to do with getting psoriasis, getting my psoriasis diagnosis, which I had psoriasis spots which are large red scaly spots from neck to toe basically in college. And that really forced me to kind of let go of this image I had in my mind of what is ‘beautiful’ or what is ‘desirable.’ And really start accepting my body exactly as it was.
And it was painful, and it was difficult but this pandemic and gaining this weight it’s been kind of amazing in the sense of seeing how different things are 15 years later, how much love and acceptance I have for my body that I can gain that much weight. And really I have no negative thoughts about myself or my body. I barely even noticed it. That was just fascinating to me. I do want to get back into more physical activity just because I love the way I feel. It helps with my mental health. It helps with sleep, so many other things.
But I’m still not comfortable going into a class like Orangetheory. I don’t want to work out in a sweaty high intense with a mask on. I don’t feel comfortable in that context without a mask. So, I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do. I’ve been running on and off, but I struggle with that, and motivating, any my knees.
And what I’ve recently discovered which if you follow me on Instagram you might know is I’ve started lap swimming. I shit you not when I, especially the first time got in that lap swimming pool and put in my earplugs the dead silence in the rec center and just swimming in the water was one of most restful moments I’ve experienced. It truly was bliss. And that is one of the things I really enjoy about it is it’s just this pure quiet mental peace that for some folks might be very similar to hiking, or walking in nature.
But there’s just something about being in that pool and being in my own lane and putting my earplugs in. And so, I still feel the water. There’s barely any noise because of the earplugs and just swimming in the water. This might not make sense to any of you but truly it felt just so peaceful mentally and emotionally. And I know this is kind of like a long story I’m telling and some background.
But it does relate to today’s episode because it reminded me, it kind of in my head, I thought of it as a metaphor for the experience of moving on from venting and complaining all the time to detaching from that and no longer doing that. That journey of not complaining and not venting about stress and work to no longer doing that it’s more subtle. It might not be as stark as the experience I had in the pool. The metaphor is it brings peace, and calm, and quiet to your mental and emotional state and it just struck me.
And then the other thing happened this last week that also reminded me of that. So, I just knew I had to talk more about this with you all. So Jared, my fiancé we used to work in the same organization. We didn’t work together, we didn’t meet at work, but we used to work at the same organization. And kind of across organization there is a lot of challenges, I mean my experience in my department and his experience in his department was very similar.
I can’t speak for every part of the organization, which is very common for people to just constantly complain and vent about all the challenges. And this came up this past week because we were spending a little bit of time with some of his coworkers who were complaining and venting. And on the car ride home him and I both were just talking about what a difference, how different it feels now where him and I both are individually on our own in completely different timelines, worked through that and stopped doing that cycle where you get stuck complaining and venting all the time.
And how much better we both feel because we no longer do that and went through realizing how unhelpful that experience was and getting out of that. And he could see, and I can see this in my old colleagues, I did this work many, many years ago, the difference it makes. When you watch someone else who’s not in that place, hasn’t gone through that journey, just complain and vent, and go on and on, you kind of have this realization, oh my gosh, that used to be me. How miserable was I?
So, I find actually a lot of folks in public health even though we love our work, many of us love our colleagues, we do get stuck in this cycle of complaining and venting about all the challenges, about how we’re feeling about everything frustrating us. And I think there’s a couple of reasons for this. I think one of the main reasons even unconsciously is we feel like it’s a bonding experience. It’s a way to connect with our colleagues. There’s something about when everyone’s struggling, having a shared struggle definitely can connect you.
And I think talking about the shared struggle or what I would call in the context of the work environments I’ve been in, what I’ve seen from a lot of folks in public health is more like complaining and venting. When it’s just getting something off your chest, all your frustration, all your anger off your chest but it’s constantly doing it every single day.
I remember, they used to host happy hours and I used to go a lot. And now where I am looking back I can just see, it was just a table full of people complaining for the three, hours, venting for the three, four hours. Not problem solving, not trying to figure out how to make things better, just purely complaining and venting.
And I do think that there is a bond and a connection that forms over that especially if you’re new or you really care about the people you work with. That happens and sometimes that bond and that connection through the complaining and venting keeps you doing that because you don’t want to lose that bond and connection. I think many of us think that it helps us, it feels good, we feel better. And maybe it does in the short term, the immediate relief we get from just complaining and venting.
But in the long run I actually think it does the exact opposite. And our brains, our primitive part of our brain which I’ve talked about before which is wired for survival, it only really thinks about the short term. So, our primitive part of our brain when it thinks about feeling better, it’s only going to think of short term solutions, even if it’s just venting and complaining.
Our prefrontal cortex, a part of our brain that can think long term, think strategically, think creatively, plan then gets suppressed and isn’t really activated for you to use that to see maybe long term this isn’t the solution for me to feel better. Personally, as a coach, from my lived experience and from all the work I have done with my clients, and even seen it with my colleagues, and even from my partner’s lived experience. I have not found evidence that complaining and venting all the time serves you in the long run. I have not seen that.
This is what I have seen. When you get in the habit of complaining and venting, and so for me it was with my colleagues, going to happy hours or stopping by their desk. For you maybe it’s complaining and venting to your partner, or to a friend, or to a roommate, it doesn’t have to be with work folks. But when you get in that habit you are further training your brain to only look for the negative.
Our brains already have a negativity bias. That’s from survival because thousands of years ago if we did not focus on the negative, did not focus on what berries were poisonous, did not focus on what area of the mountain were dangerous, did not focus on what other community didn’t like us, we might not survive. So, our brain is wired to look for the negative for survival. But when you get in the habit and the pattern of complaining and venting, you are further training your brain to only look for the negative. You’re enhancing that part of your brain and that takes over most of your thinking.
And you are not building any skill at all, you’re not practicing any skill to get out of the negative thinking, to look for the positive, or even neutral. You’re not giving yourself any opportunity, both mental space, but skill wise to be able to think creatively, to strategically plan, to make long term decisions that will support you. You also absolutely are not giving yourself any space or time to separate what is in your control and what is out of your control.
What I often found and what I have seen with many of my clients is the complaining and venting cycle where you’re at happy hour, or every day you come home to your partner and you talk about, “I can’t believe they did this. They shouldn’t have done this. This was terrible, can you believe this? It’s so horrible.” All of that narrative oftentimes is focused on all the things you cannot control.
So not only are you creating the habit of only looking for the negative things, you’re creating the habit of only looking for things you cannot control which is super disempowering because there’s not much you can do about it. If you’re complaining about people you can’t control what they choose to do or not do, or potentially policies that you have no direct control in changing. You are not building the skill of separating what you can control and what you can’t and then focusing on what you can control and then choosing to do something about that.
As I was doing this work on myself and getting coaching, and kind of separating what I could control and what I couldn’t, and really empowering myself I would continue to go to these happy hours. And I would notice that, when folks were sharing and venting they would say something and most of it was about what they couldn’t control. But even if they mentioned one thing, they were complaining about something that in my mind was in part of their control. And I’d offer an idea, or a solution, or problem solve.
They would shut that down immediately. Why? Not because you all don’t want to get better, not because they didn’t want to get better. But they have trained their brain not to look for solutions, not to problem solve, to believe it’s always going to be shit, to believe it’s always going to be terrible, because you’re just stuck in that complaining and venting cycle. The other piece, which is so important, most people I work with in public health who are overworked and overwhelmed, who aren’t getting enough rest, what you all really want to feel is better.
You don’t want to feel anxiety you feel, or the resentment, or the anger, or the frustration. But when you complain and vent every single day and get stuck in that cycle, you are indulging and getting stuck in those emotions and making it so much harder for yourself to let those emotions go, process them, and create space to feel hopeful, to feel empowered, to feel confident, to feel calm.
I want you to think about it this way. I think all of us at some point in our lives have had a friend who – have you heard the term, negative Nancy? I don’t love that term, but I think a lot of people have heard it, who just complains a lot. Maybe it’s a friend back in the day that just constantly complained about their ex. Maybe it was a sibling who constantly complained about how they have the worst luck, and nothing will ever work for them.
Think about that scenario, where there was someone in your life or maybe now who constantly complains. Who you’ve given advice to a bunch of times, they never take it, but they still come back to you to complain. Think about that experience you’ve had with someone else. Where you can see ways that they could feel better, or they could change their circumstances, but they don’t. Where you get tired of hearing them complain. Where you don’t know what else to do and sometimes maybe you cut them off or you slowly drift away or whatever it might be, or maybe you call them out.
Right now, when you complain and vent about work, you are being that type of friend to yourself. One of the best things I did when I think back to this journey of getting out of burnout and feeling better was stop going to that happy hour, not because those were terrible people. I’m still really good friends with lots of the people at those happy hours. Not because it was their fault that I was complaining or venting, or felt bad, not at all. But because it helped me create some distance for my own complaining and venting.
Now I’m in a space many years later, I can go hang out with all of them or anyone else for that matter, who spends the whole time complaining and venting, and I don’t participate. I don’t join in. I let them have their views and their opinions, and share but I do not join in. But at the time when I was in burnout and resentment, it was almost like an alcoholic who’s offered a drink and couldn’t say no. If I went to a table and they started complaining about work, I couldn’t keep myself out of it.
It was this urge, it was this pattern, this habit. And so, stepping away from that and getting myself space to not do that, and work on not complaining and not venting, work on seeing the neutral or the positive, work on separating what I had control of and what I didn’t. Work on thinking long term what’s going to help me. Work on reducing the emotions of resentment and frustration, and increasing the emotions of hope, and commitment, and courage, and empowerment.
Doing that was one of the best things I did. It gave me the space to reduce my overwhelm, to reduce my resentment, to reduce my frustration and feel better, which is ultimately what I wanted. We just think the way to feel better is all the things we’re complaining about just changing magically, the boss changing, the organization changing, the funding changing. But so much of that we don’t have control over. And when you’re in that cycle and habit of complaining and venting, even the stuff you do have control over or can make small changes, you just dismiss it, you ignore it.
Because the negative part, the complaining part, that’s so much more reactive and it sometimes can be overpowering and challenging to step back and slow it down. But you can totally do it. I’ve done this work. Many of my clients have done this work. I said my partner has done this work on himself. And we have a lot of conversations about it now. Here is what happens when you get out of that complaining and venting habit and cycle. First of all, which is what this whole podcast is about, is you actually get to experience mental and emotional rest, you truly do.
You get to leave work at work. You get to create the mental space that used to be filled with complaining, and venting, and hopelessness or resentment. You get to fill that mental space with the ability to take action towards what you want to do, whether that’s enjoy your night with your partner, whether that’s be present with your kids, whether that’s starting a new hobby. And here’s something so important. You actually create more resilience to deal with the challenges that life throws at you.
When you are in the complaining and venting quicksand and more challenges come at you, you have not built the skill, the resilience, the ability to strategically think, to be creative to deal with those challenges coming at you. You just feel like you’re drowning, and you throw your hands up. When you stop complaining and venting you get so much energy back. The complaining and venting energy is exhausting, you get all of that back and the bandwidth to actually enjoy your life.
Listen, any job but especially public health jobs are always going to have challenges and there’s always going to be things you don’t agree with, you don’t like, always. Life is always going to have challenges. There is always going to be things you don’t agree with or don’t like. But there is always going to be things that you enjoy, and that you love, and that you appreciate, and that you’re happy about. But when you’re stuck in that complaining and venting quicksand you don’t even get to see that, let alone enjoy it.
So, when you get out of that, shake the sand off, you can get all that energy and bandwidth back to see those things and enjoy those things. You are way less reactive. When you are in the complaining and venting mind space where you’re just talking to your colleagues, or your partner, or your friends about all the things that are terrible, all the things that have gone wrong, you become much more reactive to things that happen. You can find yourself kind of snapping, getting upset over small things, being short with people.
When you stop doing that complaining and venting dance you have time to respond and not react, whether it’s to a challenge or whether it’s to something that just kind of irritates you, or is a little bit annoying, or surprising, or something you didn’t expect. And when those things happen in your life that are challenging, or maybe what you asked for, you don’t get overwhelmed and shut down. You are able to engage your prefrontal cortex and think strategically, and plan, and work through it.
So, I’m going to challenge you to something. This might be very, very hard for some of you and that’s okay. I want you to just become more aware of all the times that you do complain and vent, that you want to. All the times where something happens at work and your automatic response is to walk to your bestie’s desk and complain. Where you hear someone else complaining at lunch and you want to jump in with them. I want you to notice all those moments and see how much it takes, how much energy, how much time, how much space.
And then I want to encourage you to really assess if that’s how you want to use your mental and emotional space, if that serves you in the long run for your life goals, for your career goals, for your experience you want to have in life. And if not, I really want to challenge you to push yourself to stop complaining and venting. You can start with just one day, try to get one day without complaining and venting. And I mean verbally, the thoughts are going to still come to your head 100% because it’s a habit you have built.
But there is such a big difference where you notice it in your head and you choose not to go vent to someone else, you choose not to go complain to your partner. That is step one. Then you can work towards a place where those thoughts aren’t really as loud or as present in your head. But the first part is challenging yourself to not react to your thoughts, not go purge them out and notice how much space it’s taking.
So, the last thing I want to say, really important announcement, some of you have already taken this but my Burnout Recovery course is, the last day it’s going to be available is September 30th. So, it’s coming down, it’s no longer going to be available. So, if you’ve never heard of it or you have and haven’t taken it, now is your chance. This course is a three part mini course, this course helps you start feeling better, having more energy. It helps you navigating challenges of having a boss you don’t feel is supportive or having too much work and not enough time.
These are short videos. They are about 20 ish minutes. And it’s only three days. So, I think we have had – I’d have to look at the numbers, I don’t have them up right now, but we have had over 100, 150 folks take this course. A lot of them have really loved it and gotten a lot out of it and they all work in public health, they all have similar challenges as you. So, if you haven’t taken it or this is your first time hearing about this course, the last day it’s going to be available is September 30th. It’s coming down for good. I’m never going to be sharing it again.
So, if you’re struggling with burnout, if you’re struggling with feeling like you’re overwhelmed, you have too much to do or you have a boss who you’ve been complaining and venting about a lot, this is the course for you, and you only have a couple more weeks to grab it. It’s emailed directly to your inbox, totally free. So don’t sleep on this. Get your chance now, sign up before September 30th so you can get this course. We will leave a link in the show notes. I don’t want anyone who can benefit from this course to miss their window before I take it down.
Alright you all, so with that I hope you have a great week, talk to you next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Hey folks, how’s it going? Can you believe it’s September 12th? Truly, where did the time go? To be honest with all of you I kind of still forget it’s 2022. I just feel like we’ve been living in almost like a warp zone, or a time capsule. I don’t know what the right word is but the past two years since the pandemic started, it’s just time has just been confusing. And people think it’s a construct or an illusion. But the past couple of years have just been another level. Maybe it’s just me.
And this year in particular as we’re getting into fall which is my personal favorite season that I’m absolutely obsessed with. I tend to think back on teg year starting in fall. I’m a big reflector, a big introspector. And this year for me there’s been so many amazing experiences, how I’ve grown personally, how much I’ve changed, I’m having so much fun coaching and in my business. But also, there’s been some really challenging things that I’ve had to go through emotionally, and in relationships, and in other areas of my life.
So, it’s been real 50/50. And one area in the past couple of years that I’m sure many of you can relate to that I’m working through now is getting back to being more physically active. Before the pandemic not only was I less sedentary because of my work. I worked on an academic campus, so I was walking a lot from our car to our building, to other meetings. And then even in the building I had a standing desk and walking around, going to meetings and all that stuff. But I also was working out more regularly and intense workouts.
I was working out at Orangetheory, which is if you’re not familiar, a very high intense workout. For me I really only needed it twice a week and I was pretty consistent. And then the pandemic hit and like everyone else, I really reduced my physical activity. And I am someone who is really much more motivated by having to sign up for a class, especially if that class charges a cancellation fee, that helps me so much versus me motivating myself to work out or stay active.
And if I’m being totally honest with you all I think I’ve gained, I mean it’s fluctuated but in the past two and a half years I think I’ve gained around 20 pounds or more. And for me truly the weight gain doesn’t bother me. It’s kind of funny, sometimes I think if I didn’t notice my clothes weren’t fitting I would have never really realized it. There was so much work that I did on myself in my 20s to release a lot of that internalized shame, and guilt, and comparing that a lot of people socialized as women have around their body image and what it ‘should look like’.
And I struggled with disordered eating and so many other things. And in my 20s I worked really, really, really hard to let go of a lot of that. And I think for me a lot of that had to do with getting psoriasis, getting my psoriasis diagnosis, which I had psoriasis spots which are large red scaly spots from neck to toe basically in college. And that really forced me to kind of let go of this image I had in my mind of what is ‘beautiful’ or what is ‘desirable.’ And really start accepting my body exactly as it was.
And it was painful, and it was difficult but this pandemic and gaining this weight it’s been kind of amazing in the sense of seeing how different things are 15 years later, how much love and acceptance I have for my body that I can gain that much weight. And really I have no negative thoughts about myself or my body. I barely even noticed it. That was just fascinating to me. I do want to get back into more physical activity just because I love the way I feel. It helps with my mental health. It helps with sleep, so many other things.
But I’m still not comfortable going into a class like Orangetheory. I don’t want to work out in a sweaty high intense with a mask on. I don’t feel comfortable in that context without a mask. So, I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do. I’ve been running on and off, but I struggle with that, and motivating, any my knees.
And what I’ve recently discovered which if you follow me on Instagram you might know is I’ve started lap swimming. I shit you not when I, especially the first time got in that lap swimming pool and put in my earplugs the dead silence in the rec center and just swimming in the water was one of most restful moments I’ve experienced. It truly was bliss. And that is one of the things I really enjoy about it is it’s just this pure quiet mental peace that for some folks might be very similar to hiking, or walking in nature.
But there’s just something about being in that pool and being in my own lane and putting my earplugs in. And so, I still feel the water. There’s barely any noise because of the earplugs and just swimming in the water. This might not make sense to any of you but truly it felt just so peaceful mentally and emotionally. And I know this is kind of like a long story I’m telling and some background.
But it does relate to today’s episode because it reminded me, it kind of in my head, I thought of it as a metaphor for the experience of moving on from venting and complaining all the time to detaching from that and no longer doing that. That journey of not complaining and not venting about stress and work to no longer doing that it’s more subtle. It might not be as stark as the experience I had in the pool. The metaphor is it brings peace, and calm, and quiet to your mental and emotional state and it just struck me.
And then the other thing happened this last week that also reminded me of that. So, I just knew I had to talk more about this with you all. So Jared, my fiancé we used to work in the same organization. We didn’t work together, we didn’t meet at work, but we used to work at the same organization. And kind of across organization there is a lot of challenges, I mean my experience in my department and his experience in his department was very similar.
I can’t speak for every part of the organization, which is very common for people to just constantly complain and vent about all the challenges. And this came up this past week because we were spending a little bit of time with some of his coworkers who were complaining and venting. And on the car ride home him and I both were just talking about what a difference, how different it feels now where him and I both are individually on our own in completely different timelines, worked through that and stopped doing that cycle where you get stuck complaining and venting all the time.
And how much better we both feel because we no longer do that and went through realizing how unhelpful that experience was and getting out of that. And he could see, and I can see this in my old colleagues, I did this work many, many years ago, the difference it makes. When you watch someone else who’s not in that place, hasn’t gone through that journey, just complain and vent, and go on and on, you kind of have this realization, oh my gosh, that used to be me. How miserable was I?
So, I find actually a lot of folks in public health even though we love our work, many of us love our colleagues, we do get stuck in this cycle of complaining and venting about all the challenges, about how we’re feeling about everything frustrating us. And I think there’s a couple of reasons for this. I think one of the main reasons even unconsciously is we feel like it’s a bonding experience. It’s a way to connect with our colleagues. There’s something about when everyone’s struggling, having a shared struggle definitely can connect you.
And I think talking about the shared struggle or what I would call in the context of the work environments I’ve been in, what I’ve seen from a lot of folks in public health is more like complaining and venting. When it’s just getting something off your chest, all your frustration, all your anger off your chest but it’s constantly doing it every single day.
I remember, they used to host happy hours and I used to go a lot. And now where I am looking back I can just see, it was just a table full of people complaining for the three, hours, venting for the three, four hours. Not problem solving, not trying to figure out how to make things better, just purely complaining and venting.
And I do think that there is a bond and a connection that forms over that especially if you’re new or you really care about the people you work with. That happens and sometimes that bond and that connection through the complaining and venting keeps you doing that because you don’t want to lose that bond and connection. I think many of us think that it helps us, it feels good, we feel better. And maybe it does in the short term, the immediate relief we get from just complaining and venting.
But in the long run I actually think it does the exact opposite. And our brains, our primitive part of our brain which I’ve talked about before which is wired for survival, it only really thinks about the short term. So, our primitive part of our brain when it thinks about feeling better, it’s only going to think of short term solutions, even if it’s just venting and complaining.
Our prefrontal cortex, a part of our brain that can think long term, think strategically, think creatively, plan then gets suppressed and isn’t really activated for you to use that to see maybe long term this isn’t the solution for me to feel better. Personally, as a coach, from my lived experience and from all the work I have done with my clients, and even seen it with my colleagues, and even from my partner’s lived experience. I have not found evidence that complaining and venting all the time serves you in the long run. I have not seen that.
This is what I have seen. When you get in the habit of complaining and venting, and so for me it was with my colleagues, going to happy hours or stopping by their desk. For you maybe it’s complaining and venting to your partner, or to a friend, or to a roommate, it doesn’t have to be with work folks. But when you get in that habit you are further training your brain to only look for the negative.
Our brains already have a negativity bias. That’s from survival because thousands of years ago if we did not focus on the negative, did not focus on what berries were poisonous, did not focus on what area of the mountain were dangerous, did not focus on what other community didn’t like us, we might not survive. So, our brain is wired to look for the negative for survival. But when you get in the habit and the pattern of complaining and venting, you are further training your brain to only look for the negative. You’re enhancing that part of your brain and that takes over most of your thinking.
And you are not building any skill at all, you’re not practicing any skill to get out of the negative thinking, to look for the positive, or even neutral. You’re not giving yourself any opportunity, both mental space, but skill wise to be able to think creatively, to strategically plan, to make long term decisions that will support you. You also absolutely are not giving yourself any space or time to separate what is in your control and what is out of your control.
What I often found and what I have seen with many of my clients is the complaining and venting cycle where you’re at happy hour, or every day you come home to your partner and you talk about, “I can’t believe they did this. They shouldn’t have done this. This was terrible, can you believe this? It’s so horrible.” All of that narrative oftentimes is focused on all the things you cannot control.
So not only are you creating the habit of only looking for the negative things, you’re creating the habit of only looking for things you cannot control which is super disempowering because there’s not much you can do about it. If you’re complaining about people you can’t control what they choose to do or not do, or potentially policies that you have no direct control in changing. You are not building the skill of separating what you can control and what you can’t and then focusing on what you can control and then choosing to do something about that.
As I was doing this work on myself and getting coaching, and kind of separating what I could control and what I couldn’t, and really empowering myself I would continue to go to these happy hours. And I would notice that, when folks were sharing and venting they would say something and most of it was about what they couldn’t control. But even if they mentioned one thing, they were complaining about something that in my mind was in part of their control. And I’d offer an idea, or a solution, or problem solve.
They would shut that down immediately. Why? Not because you all don’t want to get better, not because they didn’t want to get better. But they have trained their brain not to look for solutions, not to problem solve, to believe it’s always going to be shit, to believe it’s always going to be terrible, because you’re just stuck in that complaining and venting cycle. The other piece, which is so important, most people I work with in public health who are overworked and overwhelmed, who aren’t getting enough rest, what you all really want to feel is better.
You don’t want to feel anxiety you feel, or the resentment, or the anger, or the frustration. But when you complain and vent every single day and get stuck in that cycle, you are indulging and getting stuck in those emotions and making it so much harder for yourself to let those emotions go, process them, and create space to feel hopeful, to feel empowered, to feel confident, to feel calm.
I want you to think about it this way. I think all of us at some point in our lives have had a friend who – have you heard the term, negative Nancy? I don’t love that term, but I think a lot of people have heard it, who just complains a lot. Maybe it’s a friend back in the day that just constantly complained about their ex. Maybe it was a sibling who constantly complained about how they have the worst luck, and nothing will ever work for them.
Think about that scenario, where there was someone in your life or maybe now who constantly complains. Who you’ve given advice to a bunch of times, they never take it, but they still come back to you to complain. Think about that experience you’ve had with someone else. Where you can see ways that they could feel better, or they could change their circumstances, but they don’t. Where you get tired of hearing them complain. Where you don’t know what else to do and sometimes maybe you cut them off or you slowly drift away or whatever it might be, or maybe you call them out.
Right now, when you complain and vent about work, you are being that type of friend to yourself. One of the best things I did when I think back to this journey of getting out of burnout and feeling better was stop going to that happy hour, not because those were terrible people. I’m still really good friends with lots of the people at those happy hours. Not because it was their fault that I was complaining or venting, or felt bad, not at all. But because it helped me create some distance for my own complaining and venting.
Now I’m in a space many years later, I can go hang out with all of them or anyone else for that matter, who spends the whole time complaining and venting, and I don’t participate. I don’t join in. I let them have their views and their opinions, and share but I do not join in. But at the time when I was in burnout and resentment, it was almost like an alcoholic who’s offered a drink and couldn’t say no. If I went to a table and they started complaining about work, I couldn’t keep myself out of it.
It was this urge, it was this pattern, this habit. And so, stepping away from that and getting myself space to not do that, and work on not complaining and not venting, work on seeing the neutral or the positive, work on separating what I had control of and what I didn’t. Work on thinking long term what’s going to help me. Work on reducing the emotions of resentment and frustration, and increasing the emotions of hope, and commitment, and courage, and empowerment.
Doing that was one of the best things I did. It gave me the space to reduce my overwhelm, to reduce my resentment, to reduce my frustration and feel better, which is ultimately what I wanted. We just think the way to feel better is all the things we’re complaining about just changing magically, the boss changing, the organization changing, the funding changing. But so much of that we don’t have control over. And when you’re in that cycle and habit of complaining and venting, even the stuff you do have control over or can make small changes, you just dismiss it, you ignore it.
Because the negative part, the complaining part, that’s so much more reactive and it sometimes can be overpowering and challenging to step back and slow it down. But you can totally do it. I’ve done this work. Many of my clients have done this work. I said my partner has done this work on himself. And we have a lot of conversations about it now. Here is what happens when you get out of that complaining and venting habit and cycle. First of all, which is what this whole podcast is about, is you actually get to experience mental and emotional rest, you truly do.
You get to leave work at work. You get to create the mental space that used to be filled with complaining, and venting, and hopelessness or resentment. You get to fill that mental space with the ability to take action towards what you want to do, whether that’s enjoy your night with your partner, whether that’s be present with your kids, whether that’s starting a new hobby. And here’s something so important. You actually create more resilience to deal with the challenges that life throws at you.
When you are in the complaining and venting quicksand and more challenges come at you, you have not built the skill, the resilience, the ability to strategically think, to be creative to deal with those challenges coming at you. You just feel like you’re drowning, and you throw your hands up. When you stop complaining and venting you get so much energy back. The complaining and venting energy is exhausting, you get all of that back and the bandwidth to actually enjoy your life.
Listen, any job but especially public health jobs are always going to have challenges and there’s always going to be things you don’t agree with, you don’t like, always. Life is always going to have challenges. There is always going to be things you don’t agree with or don’t like. But there is always going to be things that you enjoy, and that you love, and that you appreciate, and that you’re happy about. But when you’re stuck in that complaining and venting quicksand you don’t even get to see that, let alone enjoy it.
So, when you get out of that, shake the sand off, you can get all that energy and bandwidth back to see those things and enjoy those things. You are way less reactive. When you are in the complaining and venting mind space where you’re just talking to your colleagues, or your partner, or your friends about all the things that are terrible, all the things that have gone wrong, you become much more reactive to things that happen. You can find yourself kind of snapping, getting upset over small things, being short with people.
When you stop doing that complaining and venting dance you have time to respond and not react, whether it’s to a challenge or whether it’s to something that just kind of irritates you, or is a little bit annoying, or surprising, or something you didn’t expect. And when those things happen in your life that are challenging, or maybe what you asked for, you don’t get overwhelmed and shut down. You are able to engage your prefrontal cortex and think strategically, and plan, and work through it.
So, I’m going to challenge you to something. This might be very, very hard for some of you and that’s okay. I want you to just become more aware of all the times that you do complain and vent, that you want to. All the times where something happens at work and your automatic response is to walk to your bestie’s desk and complain. Where you hear someone else complaining at lunch and you want to jump in with them. I want you to notice all those moments and see how much it takes, how much energy, how much time, how much space.
And then I want to encourage you to really assess if that’s how you want to use your mental and emotional space, if that serves you in the long run for your life goals, for your career goals, for your experience you want to have in life. And if not, I really want to challenge you to push yourself to stop complaining and venting. You can start with just one day, try to get one day without complaining and venting. And I mean verbally, the thoughts are going to still come to your head 100% because it’s a habit you have built.
But there is such a big difference where you notice it in your head and you choose not to go vent to someone else, you choose not to go complain to your partner. That is step one. Then you can work towards a place where those thoughts aren’t really as loud or as present in your head. But the first part is challenging yourself to not react to your thoughts, not go purge them out and notice how much space it’s taking.
So, the last thing I want to say, really important announcement, some of you have already taken this but my Burnout Recovery course is, the last day it’s going to be available is September 30th. So, it’s coming down, it’s no longer going to be available. So, if you’ve never heard of it or you have and haven’t taken it, now is your chance. This course is a three part mini course, this course helps you start feeling better, having more energy. It helps you navigating challenges of having a boss you don’t feel is supportive or having too much work and not enough time.
These are short videos. They are about 20 ish minutes. And it’s only three days. So, I think we have had – I’d have to look at the numbers, I don’t have them up right now, but we have had over 100, 150 folks take this course. A lot of them have really loved it and gotten a lot out of it and they all work in public health, they all have similar challenges as you. So, if you haven’t taken it or this is your first time hearing about this course, the last day it’s going to be available is September 30th. It’s coming down for good. I’m never going to be sharing it again.
So, if you’re struggling with burnout, if you’re struggling with feeling like you’re overwhelmed, you have too much to do or you have a boss who you’ve been complaining and venting about a lot, this is the course for you, and you only have a couple more weeks to grab it. It’s emailed directly to your inbox, totally free. So don’t sleep on this. Get your chance now, sign up before September 30th so you can get this course. We will leave a link in the show notes. I don’t want anyone who can benefit from this course to miss their window before I take it down.
Alright you all, so with that I hope you have a great week, talk to you next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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