Venting

Any kitchen worker at a restaurant knows the true purpose of the walk in freezer: to scream and cuss about your shift. For those that have not worked in this glorious field, you probably have a punching pillow or call logs of hours to moms and best friends where you know for those two hours you just vented about anything and everything. Point is we all need to let out our anguishes from the day. Now this is talked about a lot on various other blogs, so I will pass on how to vent. Instead what I want to focus on is that loved role of the listener.

Listening to a friend or love one vent is a badge of honor; it means that they trust you and depend on you. It also comes with that “I vent to you, you vent to me” unspoken agreement which is always helpful. What we need to understand though being on this listening side is that the venter is not always looking for an answer. If you are like me, you always want to help others (one of the main motivations behind this blog actually). However, people are not always looking for help at that moment. Sometimes we already know what we are going to do — we already have the answer to the problem we are venting about. What we don’t have is an avenue to verbally vomit it all out of our system. I know it is hard sometimes when we are listening to a venting session. We have answers and guidance that we just want to share with them. What we need to do is listen first and make sure that they want advice on the matter. Don’t always be so eager to have a response. Listen first and make sure that they want help in regards to their venting.