What do you do when you're in a conversation with somone who is venting their frustrations? Nod your head, show compassion, comfort them, make an excuse to walk away? The person is either sharing emotions in conversation with you because they feel safe, or because they want to get some of the energy back that they lost to the situation.
When the person is a victim of a bad situation, you don’t want to make it worse.
Yet there is a tipping point where listening to them vent becomes exhausting and slips into energy vampirism. When you recognize it, there is a way you can stop losing energy mid-conversation, without being rude.
The person venting feels ineffectual to directly address the situation they are unhappy about. Maybe you can relate to what they are going through. They want to talk about it with someone who will support their point of view in an effort to reclaim their power.
Because they are navigating a power loss, quite often they have an energy deficit they are looking to fill. They get energy and power from the interaction with you.
While you might feel a momentary high from engaging in their emotional drama, if they are vent-vampiring to fill their deficit, soon you will feel worse. The energy vent by the angry, sad or frustrated person plus the energy you give, add up to exhausting.
The good news is you can change your response and shift the energy without saying a word. READ MORE... |
