{"id":320,"date":"2015-05-17T20:40:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T20:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/?p=320"},"modified":"2015-05-17T20:40:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T20:40:01","slug":"does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html","title":{"rendered":"Does Venting Hold You Back And Keep You Stuck?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s something bizarre about a well know &#8220;F&#8221; word.<\/p>\n<p>And it has to do with the fact that it goes both ways as it relates to you and your life.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s funny because this word is at the core of one of the top questions people ask throughout the world in regards to why they&#8217;re having difficulty doing certain things&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>While at the same time it&#8217;s the very thing that&#8217;s critical to you being able to live the type of life you&#8217;d love to live.<\/p>\n<p>Not only that, but this &#8220;F&#8221; word is affected by something else that you have done and most likely are still doing almost every day of your life.<\/p>\n<p>This word is &#8220;focus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now of course this is important&#8230;right? Because after all, staying focused is vital when it comes to being able to achieve any of your goals. That&#8217;s pretty obvious.<\/p>\n<p>But what isn&#8217;t obvious here is something else that not only dramatically stops you from being focused, but may also be affecting other areas of your life.<\/p>\n<p>And what I&#8217;m referring to is venting. Or as some like to say, &#8220;blowing off steam.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This raises the question&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Does venting hold you back and keep you stuck?<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. The other &#8220;F&#8221; word-<\/strong> It was a scene all too familiar with me day after day. Whether it had to do with people who broke their promises to me&#8230;or someone not doing things the way I wanted&#8230;or a situation I had expected to go one way and then turned out the opposite, it didn&#8217;t matter because it still left me wanting to &#8220;let it out&#8221;&#8230;to vent.<\/p>\n<p>Why did I find myself day in and day out venting?<\/p>\n<p>First, because even though things didn&#8217;t go &#8220;my way&#8221; it gave me a temporary way of &#8220;feeling good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Second, because it&#8217;s what I was always taught and learned from others&#8230;that it&#8217;s better to just &#8220;get it off your chest&#8221;, instead of holding it in (or as some would say suppressing it).<\/p>\n<p>And third&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Because of the other &#8220;F&#8221; word.<\/p>\n<p>With that &#8220;F&#8221; word being Fantasy.<\/p>\n<p>At first I wasn&#8217;t aware of this other &#8220;F&#8221; word. But once I figured it out, a life transforming shift had taken place.<\/p>\n<p>Where am I going with this&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And what does the word &#8220;fantasy&#8221; have to do with venting&#8230;and more importantly how it helps you live the type of life you&#8217;d love to live?<\/p>\n<p>It begins with this fact&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Every situation in your life has two sides&#8230;the positive AND negative.<\/p>\n<p>Along with this is also the fact that they occur in equal amounts&#8230;and whether you see something being negative, just know that there&#8217;s an equal amount of positive in it as well.<\/p>\n<p>Of course this works the other way as well. Anything you see as being positive has an equal amount of negatives.<\/p>\n<p>Why is this important ?<\/p>\n<p>Because the only way that you can vent is if you&#8217;re expecting a one sided outcome in a particular situation. And this ranges from the smallest of things all the way up to the most important events in your life.<\/p>\n<p>And this is what it was like for me day in and day out.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it was someone cutting me off on the road&#8230;or someone that didn&#8217;t agree with me on a certain topic&#8230;or someone that never paid me back when I loaned them money&#8230;and just about anything else that didn&#8217;t play into my fantasy&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t matter&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Because it still left me venting. And it also didn&#8217;t matter who I vented to&#8230;family, friends, co workers, and so on.<br \/>\nSince this took place pre internet, had the internet been around I would have vented there too.<\/p>\n<p>And all this venting, even though it made me temporarily &#8220;feel good&#8221;, it did something else I wasn&#8217;t aware of at first that really affected my life&#8230;in a way I didn&#8217;t want.<\/p>\n<p>It took me out of being focused.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. The water gallon jug-<\/strong> One of my main strengths is being incredibly focused. I can maintain a laser focus on short term tasks as well as achieving a long term outcome. This is especially the case when it comes to my business, working out, helping people reach their full potential, just to name a few.<\/p>\n<p>Early on in my &#8220;venting days&#8221; I was able to stay focused on things. The only problem was that it was very erratic. They&#8217;d be days when it &#8220;was there&#8221; and then there would be other days when the word focus didn&#8217;t even exist.<\/p>\n<p>Why did this happen?<\/p>\n<p>Because something would occur after a &#8220;venting episode.&#8221; And usually I would notice it a few hours, days, and even weeks later.<\/p>\n<p>What this resulted in was not remembering certain things clearly as usual, being more distracted, having negative mind chatter come up, and then you guessed it&#8230;the need to vent again when a certain situation didn&#8217;t go my way.<\/p>\n<p>And the cycle kept repeating with no end in sight.<\/p>\n<p>Then one day I came to realize what was going on and this is where the water gallon jug comes in.<\/p>\n<p>When you take an empty water gallon jug&#8230; and put it under a faucet of water&#8230;and just let the water fill up &#8220;drip by drip&#8221;&#8230;what happens? It takes a while to fill up&#8230;right?<\/p>\n<p>You may not notice anything going on at first. But then all of a sudden you look hours or possibly even a day or two later and all of a sudden that gallon jug is full.<\/p>\n<p>And what happens after it fills up&#8230;it overflows.<\/p>\n<p>Well, when it comes to venting and blowing off steam it is similar&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Except that each time you vent you store that situation in your subconscious mind (still as a one sided event)&#8230;while at the same time &#8220;feeling good&#8221; because you think you let go of it.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;drip&#8221; of water in this case are those one sided events that you &#8220;vented&#8221; over&#8212;and felt &#8220;good&#8221; afterwards&#8212; filling up over time in your subconscious mind.<\/p>\n<p>And then what happens here?<\/p>\n<p>When another similar situation comes up&#8212;one that you&#8217;re still looking for the one sided fantasy in&#8212;you&#8217;ll have a high probability of repeating this venting cycle.<\/p>\n<p>So , what can you do about this?<\/p>\n<p>Because as most people say it&#8217;s not wise to suppress, or as I like to say, &#8220;sweep it under the rug&#8221; and just &#8220;keep it in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s also not wise to just vent and &#8220;let it out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Your quantum magnificence-<\/strong> The other part of my fantasy that led to those venting episodes centered around the idea of trying to live a &#8220;happy life.&#8221; And yes, I&#8217;ll admit that I listened to what the experts were saying, &#8220;that you can live a happy life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But I noticed these same experts were saying that it&#8217;s ok to vent&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And the more I tried to live this way, the more obvious it became that it wasn&#8217;t working.<\/p>\n<p>The reason it wasn&#8217;t working is because you, me, and every human being&#8212;along with the world&#8212;is two sided.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re nice and mean&#8230;happy and sad&#8230;giving and taking&#8230;generous and greedy&#8230;and so on&#8230;equally.<\/p>\n<p>When you realize this you&#8217;ve discovered your quantum magnificence.<\/p>\n<p>And just know that the more you realize and embrace this&#8212;about yourself, others, and the world&#8212;the higher levels of success you achieve in the areas of life most important to you&#8230;and yes along with those successes comes the failures as well&#8230;and that&#8217;s ok.<\/p>\n<p>Because you need both. They serve your life. They benefit the lives of those you care about. They benefit society.<\/p>\n<p>Along with this, also know that people and situations throughout your life will push your buttons. There&#8217;s no escaping that.<\/p>\n<p>However&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>When you know how to handle these situations in a poised manner, then there&#8217;s no need to vent&#8230;or to let it out&#8230;or to get as some would say &#8220;positively pissed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The way you do this is to look at those situations and people that cause you to want to vent and look for an equal amount of positives and negatives.<\/p>\n<p>Look to see how whatever that person and\/or situation is doing that&#8217;s pushing your buttons&#8230;how it&#8217;s just as much a benefit as it is a drawback in your life.<\/p>\n<p>Because when you do, not only is the need to vent no longer necessary&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But you&#8217;ll be more focused.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll reach those higher levels of success.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll feel more energized.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll be healthier.<\/p>\n<p>Remember&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re here to live a meaningful and fulfilled life. Included in your life is something for you to realize&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And that is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Just how special and magnificent of a person you really are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s something bizarre about a well know &#8220;F&#8221; word. And it has to do with the fact that it goes both ways as it relates to you and your life. It&#8217;s funny because this word is at the core of one of the top questions people ask throughout the world in regards to why they&#8217;re&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Does Venting Hold You Back And Keep You Stuck? - Because This Is Your Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does Venting Hold You Back And Keep You Stuck? - Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There&#8217;s something bizarre about a well know &#8220;F&#8221; word. And it has to do with the fact that it goes both ways as it relates to you and your life. It&#8217;s funny because this word is at the core of one of the top questions people ask throughout the world in regards to why they&#8217;re&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-17T20:40:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cweiner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Does Venting Hold You Back And Keep You Stuck? - Because This Is Your Life","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Does Venting Hold You Back And Keep You Stuck? - Because This Is Your Life","og_description":"There&#8217;s something bizarre about a well know &#8220;F&#8221; word. And it has to do with the fact that it goes both ways as it relates to you and your life. It&#8217;s funny because this word is at the core of one of the top questions people ask throughout the world in regards to why they&#8217;re&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html","og_site_name":"Because This Is Your Life","article_published_time":"2015-05-17T20:40:01+00:00","author":"cweiner","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html","name":"Does Venting Hold You Back And Keep You Stuck? - Because This Is Your Life","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-05-17T20:40:01+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-17T20:40:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/#\/schema\/person\/dc068d817ad3b80d6dd5dd37f7fcd8ea"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2015\/05\/does-venting-hold-you-back-and-keep-you-stuck.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Does Venting Hold You Back And Keep You Stuck?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/","name":"Because This Is Your Life","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Chaney Weiner","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/#\/schema\/person\/dc068d817ad3b80d6dd5dd37f7fcd8ea","name":"cweiner","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/author\/cweiner"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}