Venting vs. Confession
While I am not finished with the my review of “The emerging Christian Way”, I wanted to take a break from it to touch on a subject that has been bothering me lately: Venting. All of us have needed to get our frustration, anger, guilt, angst, etc. off our chest at one time or another. We find someone we can trust and let it all spew forth in all its unadulterated glory. You know what I am talking about.
However, recently I have been considering the over-all quality of such behaviour. Is it healthy in the long run to use venting as a regular habit? While it has been argued by psychologists as to the quality of this approach, more and more professionals are moving away from it. Dr. Brad Bushman, Ph.D., a psychologist at Iowa State University, says:
“Venting anger just keeps it alive. People think it’s going to work, and when it doesn’t, they become even more angry and frustrated.”
Further, it is shown that repeated techniques for dealing with such emotions can “imprint” themselves on our biochemical make-up. Therefore, if you require the heated venting in order to calm yourself, your cell receptors get rewired, essentially requiring these outbursts. While occasional venting might be ok, habitual use of this approach is problematic. Beyond psychology and biology, we cannot ignore the greater issue of the spiritual impact (though, the one cannot be seperated from the others).
I cannot help but believe that, in our personal and shared pursuit of Christlikeness, such an approach as venting seems ill advised. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to moralize the issue. We have come too far in the area of authenticity and transparency to go back to repressing and pretending. Rather I am suggesting that we need to pursue the spiritual discipline of confession.
For many of us, when we hear “confession”, we immediate assume it means the admission of moral failures, which is fair enough. Yet with this comes the obligatory guilt that comes with revealing our deep dark secrets. Confession is personal, focused on ones own heart, emotions, expections, etc. In this context, we must learn to personalize that which we would otherwise vent without restraint. I am not suggesting we accept fault that isn’t our own, but rather communicate that which we are experiencing and feeling about the situation.
Many people will say horrible things about someone, threatening all kinds of retaliation, then claim they were just sharing how they were “feeling”. This isn’t actually true. Articulating value judgments and retaliation, even if you have no intention of communicating or acting on them to the person in question, are responses to feelings, not in and of themselves feelings. Therefore, when I say that we must learn to confession our personal “feelings”, I am suggesting articulating our emotional state without passing judgment.
This is not an easy thing to do, thus it is a discipline. Too often, people will hit an interpersonal conflict, vent to someone else, then superficially reconcile the broken relationship, avoiding the core dysfunction at issue. We fail to see that our emotions are to our being what nerves are to our body’s response to pain- they make us aware of something in need of change, both within ourselves and in our environments (including and especially relationships). Venting is no different than medicating our problem, sometimes necessary, but in the long term, invariably dangerous to our well being.
In addition to our interpersonal relationships, this has application in our response to the larger Church culture, whether it be fundamentalist Evangelicals or hyper-Calvinist Reformers. Even in the privacy of our Cohorts, our secure emails and the personal discussions with our spouses, we must learn the discipline of confession- we must learn to extend the uncompromising, authentic and transparent grace of God so freely given to us to those we would rather “vent” about.
Ok, I’ve got that off my chest. Next up is part 6 of the book review.
Excellent.
I believe we Christians need to glean what is good from psychology, and this is one of those things that connects it with grace. I have been seeing a counselor for about 2 1/2 years, and one of the things I have been learning is what my “core dysfunction” is about and how it infiltrates my life. The most important thing for me to learn is exactly to articulate my emotional state without passing judgment, not only on others, but (intimately related) on myself. I have had to learn about grace for my unbelieving heart- in my case, not believing just how good God is and how deep is God’s love and acceptance for me.
How I wish and pray that my faith community would come into this place, where we could help one another with this (not that there are so many overtly angry people, but that there are so many _nice_ people) and be a place/space where those searching for God could see him displayed in our honesty and mutual vulnerability. Well, I run on. Excellent, Jamieboy. (Does that bother you? If so, I shall stop it. I’m not sure where it came from, but that’s what I call you when I “converse” with you in my head.)
Do you know where your photo comes from? It’s Montgomery Clift (a very internally torn person IRL) playing a young priest in the movie “I Confess”, a different sort of noir classic, in which a murderer confesses his deed to Clift’s character, and because of the priest’s vows he can’t go to the police in order to prevent the murderer from killing again. Good film. VERY appropriate graphic in a multiplicity of ways.
Dana
Dana,
Jamieboy is completely fine. In fact, I loved that you said it, as it is something a few close friends and family call me.
I was familiar with the film (though I have never seen it), but knew enough to know how it fits.
I really want to THANK you for sharing. This really helped flesh it out. Ironically, it was a bit of venting about venting, as I have had a few situations this week where people blasted us as their venting sources.
Peace,
Jamie
Ouch, that can knock the wind out of you. Glad I can help somehow. It must be in the air- I’m dealing with my mixed-up feelings and internal reactions to a good thing a certain pastor in the Seattle area did this week. Also on Sunday I was “vented on” by some church people in a roundabout way through a third party, all in a very _nice_ way by very nice people who love the Lord and do much good, but who are scared by some ideas I bring to our adult Sunday School class on Romans. (You can imagine what these might be as a fellow Wright fan!) A big change for me is that don’t need to defend myself as much as I used to; I’m rewiring that “requirement for heated venting in order to calm down”. I’m ok with standing down from the Sunday School class and looking at why I tend to demonize that certain Seattle pastor. It’s just tiring; I wish the church people had come to me directly, and that pastor is wrong about some things IMO. So much is connected to that acceptance thing deep in me. Lord have mercy.
Watch the movie someday. It’s a great study not only in terms of the story but also of film technique.
Hugs to you & Kim.
D.
Dana,
I am sending you an email in reply.
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie. Excellent is the first word I was thinking of as well. And I shared this post with a friend yesterday.
Very well put and much needed among us all. Confession is surely the cure needed here, rather than venting.
I will add from experience that venting certainly releases things that are hard, if not impossible to undo. While confession properly done surely releases God’s active grace into the situation.
Ted,
It could be argued that we see venting in the Psalms, but even then, it seems that it was an intentional tool, not just to demonstrate our honesty before God, but that, in the end, God is God and we are not.
As I said in the post, my greatest concern is with habitual venting. It does happen and at time it isn’t the worst option. Thanks for stopping by.
Peace,
Jamie
… thanks for this contribution Jamie.
Don,
Thanks!
Peace,
Jamie
I think the issue lies in being an actual recipient of the Vent rather than the actual act of venting itself. I do agree that continued venting condones more venting. It can be like a drug. Heaven knows I’ve puffed on that dubee once or twice! If you remember that one time…???
Hey Ang,
While the recipient does suffer for the hearing, I would argue that it is, ultimately worse for the ventor. Which time do you mean? (And I assume you mean “dubee” in the metaphorical sense).
Peace,
Jamie