The Downside to Venting

“Managing people is so hard.” I said with a sigh as I sat down at a gathering at my friend’s house.

“Yes, it is” she replied with a knowing nod. “And people don’t make it easy to be managed. What happened?”

 For the 3rd time that day, I told the story of the assistant I had just fired and our struggle as manager and employee. My friend was kind; she listened and offered empathy.

Earlier that week, I had wrapped up teaching Brené Brown’s Daring Way curriculum to a small group of my clients. The Daring Way teaches two antidotes to shame empathy and self-compassion. In the training, we learned the importance of empathy-building empathetic relationships and creating more friends. We also learned about self-compassion, but it was more of a side note. There were many lessons on empathy and a handful on how to have self-compassion. In truth, I might have perceived self-compassion as more of a side-note because I didn’t know how to have self-compassion at the time, AND teaching people to seek empathy is much easier than teaching self-compassion.

So after I had this experience of firing another assistant, I was full of shame, so I did what my training had taught me and looked for empathy. My friends listened, offered empathy and advice (when I asked), and were very kind. But I left the interactions still feeling doubtful and shame-filled. I felt heard, and I felt a sense of connection that eased my shame and anxiety for a moment, but then I was back spinning in my head again, so I searched for someone else to share my story too. And the cycle repeated.

At this same time, some of my Daring Way group participants were reporting that they, too, were not getting the healing they wanted from their shame. They were talking to people, getting empathy, and yet weren’t feeling any better.

For years, venting has been something pop psychology told us is good for us. Talk about your problems, get it out, don’t let them fester. And then came the added information of talk about your problems to people who get it, to people who are supportive and empathetic, not just people who want to solve the problem. I LOVED that advice—ask my husband I LOVE a good vent. I love beating a problem to death and trying to find a solution. But all the empathy in the world won’t make us feel better if we aren’t empathetic to ourselves. We need both.

The downside to venting is it keeps us in our heads, and it keeps us hopped up and sharing our side of the story. And the more we vent, the more we hone our story, adding in the juicier details, leaving out the practical boring bits. The story can become more about entertainment and less about receiving empathy.

Back to my employee debacle, I was so ashamed that I was a terrible manager and not a good leader. And all my empathetic friends were talking me out of that idea. No, you are a good person, and no, you just have a wrong match in assistants.

But the part I didn’t want to own, the part that was the truth. I am not good at managing people. It is a skill that I have not honed, and my tendency to be a control freak makes me a tough boss because my assistant never knows how to help. I need to work on it, so yes, this particular assistant might have been the wrong fit, and I needed to improve my leadership skills.

This is the power of self-loyalty. Being able to own that, I made a mistake, and I will be ok.

One of the ways I will bring myself back to self-loyalty is to watch Brene Brown’s video on empathy from the perspective of being empathetic to myself.

How often do I silver-line myself? Oh, it’s no big deal—next time, you will hire a better assistant.

How often do I just give myself sympathy? At least you have a business where you can afford an assistant.

Instead of saying to myself, Whoa, this is uncomfortable. It is hard to see my contribution to this problem. It sucks that being a manager is so hard for me.

Yes, we need connection with other people, and we need that same connection with ourselves. Practicing self-loyalty means being a soft place to fall for ourselves, to be loyal and kind just as we are to the people around us.