How to really deal with chronic complainers

chronic complainer is really the person who is complaining about almost every single aspect right they are the victim archetype they're the ones who have problems and issues with almost everything and except for them right they're they're usually not part of the problem they're usually the one that is the victim to the problem and that's the really important piece chronic complainers are generally people who not only see problems everywhere but it's often a behavior that has been learned either through growing up around people that were chronic complainers so you know they might have had a parent

or been married to one and they sort of adopted this uh complaining mentality and this modality and for many people they try and use complaints to get their way in the world you know i see this a lot with nice guys there's this sort of notion that that if we just complain enough if we criticize enough then maybe we'll get our needs met and so in a in a sort of weird twisted warped inadvertent way what's actually happening with chronic complainers is they're trying to get their needs met they're trying to express something that they

want or that they desire they're trying to express a fear that they have or or a connection that they want but how they go about it is by trying to complain their way into getting their needs met and it's usually doesn't work very well i've also noticed that chronic complainers are often people who have the perspective whether true or not but have the perspective that they've really been beaten down by life you know life has taken advantage of them or people have taken advantage of them maybe they've experienced abuse um or neglect or abandonment maybe

they have some form of trauma that is unhealed and so how that pain within them right eckhart tolle would call this the pain body how the pain body is manifesting within that person's identity within their ego and their persona and their interactions with you in the world is through complaints so i like to take this mindset this framework when i'm dealing with people who are chronically complaining and i to be honest i don't have many of them in my life anymore they they're there's uh and when i say not many i mean there are none

so i just want to be very clear on that and that's not because i haven't had people in my life that have chronically complained or that i've cut them all out it's that they've they've shifted they've adapted they've grown but i like to take this framework that when someone is chronically complaining they are in pain you know they are hurting you might just not see it right it's like i remember growing up my stepdad had multiple back surgeries and he was constantly complaining about how much pain he was in was a very real pain right

he was limping it was hard for him to walk he was laid up all the time you know i had multiple surgeries on the same disc in his back and he was constantly in a lot of physical pain chronic complainers are often people that are in a lot of emotional psychological pain maybe physical pain as well but generally psychological and emotional pain so it's a type of pain that you just can't see so in some ways that gives me a little bit of empathy and compassion when i'm dealing with them now that doesn't mean that

you need to have no boundaries around them right i think one of the best things that i would say around this is that healthy people who complain need empathy right healthy people who complain need empathy whereas chronic complainers need boundaries they need structure and yes we can be empathetic for them and their plight but if you've ever dealt with a chronic complainer you know that your empathy almost goes nowhere because that person is a sort of uh empathetic narcissist right they they think that they should have all of the empathy and all the compassion everyone

should feel sorry for them everyone should feel pity for them and they sort of become this empathy black hole where they just suck in empathy and they don't give any back out to the people around them and so again chronic complainers they're people that are in pain right so just keep that in mind because i think in my last video as i read through the comments i saw a lot of rage you know i saw a lot of anger i saw a lot of dismissiveness towards people who are chronic complainers and i think we miss

out on the fact that again these people are human beings and they are people that are really really hurting because why else would you just complain about everything in your life unless you were really in pain so how do we deal with chronic complainers i think really one of the easiest ways to look at this is is where most people go wrong so where most people go wrong up front with chronic complainers is that they try and solve that person's problems right it's just a human nature especially if it's somebody that's close to you right

it's your your partner somebody that you started dating it's a parent it's a friend it's a family member and they start bringing their complaints to you and for most of us it's like oh i can be of value i can help this person i can support them i can give them advice i can try and solve their problems i can you know be overly empathetic towards them and that unfortunately is a wrong course of action because in many ways chronic complainers don't want their problems solved right they don't want their problems solved because again they're

stuck in the victim archetype and the victim always needs a problem it always needs something oppressing it pushing it down causing it to feel small and so when people are stuck in this chronic complaint they need those problems they need the people that are problems the circumstances that are problems and so complainers don't really want the resolution and they sure as hell don't want you to fix the problem for them they might say that they do they might ask you for advice they might ask you to help them with their problems but at the end

of the day if you really pay close enough attention to what happens they don't want that resolution because they want to hold on to the problem they want to complain you know again these are are often people that have a tremendous amount of pain in them that they don't know how to deal with that they haven't liberated themselves from and so the second thing that i would say is don't feed their complaints right don't feed it you know unless it's really really valid like unless you're like actually yeah i would i would have a tough

time with that as well um don't feed their complaints you know if they're complaining about a family member or friend or their girlfriend or you know their boyfriend or whatever it is don't go along with it i think one of the best things that you can do is to avoid giving advice avoid validating and verifying like oh that's so tough move straight towards asking what are you gonna do about that right you know i've heard you talk about this a couple times what are you planning on doing about that you know you've brought this challenge

with your girlfriend to me you know seven times every time that we've talked in last month i've heard this or every time that we've had this conversation about your parents you've said the same thing but it doesn't sound like you've taken any action so what are you planning on doing about that and then stop talking pause hear what they have to say because the the last thing that we want to do again we we want to move out of the seat of trying to validate trying to be overly empathetic trying to solve their problems and

we want to really see is this person going to create any kind of substantial change for themselves are they going to take action because that is the moving out of the victim archetype the individual who has been taken over by the victim right poor me you know i have it so hard my life is people are out to get me life's out to get me god's out to get me my boss is out to get me my family's out to get me my wife is out to get me my husband's out to get me that

person cannot be liberated externally you might be able to help them a little bit but the best thing that you can do for them is point them in the direction of how are you going to help yourself how are you going to help you and that might be a good question to ask you know i remember a situation with a friend of mine years ago and this kind of brings us into the closing conversation of there might be times where you have to kind of break up with these people you know where you need to

not cut them out of your life because that you know that to me that sounds a little harsh you know like you're angry you're pissed off he's like you get out of my life and so you kind of give them the middle finger and tell them to go on their way that's not necessarily how i would handle this situation or and because i don't think it's effective i think that it reaffirms that that person's a victim and you just become another villain in their story but years ago i had a friend who he'd always kind

of been negative you know he'd always been a pessimist for sure and then some circumstances happened in his life where he he tipped into the valley of the chronic complainer and he really got taken over by the victim archetype and before you knew it everything that came out of this guy's mouth was just complaining complaining about his girlfriend and her parents complaining about his parents complaining about his job and his boss and the government and like literally everything that he talked about was a complaint and i had had a couple conversations with him about him

i had emphasized you know i tried validating what he was feeling because i didn't know i didn't know how to deal with this at the time i never really encountered somebody that was really chronically stuck in their complaints to the degree that this guy was and so i i tried all of these things you know i tried um verifying validating that he was going through a hard time i tried saying you know i think that's really tough i tried empathizing i tried giving him advice i tried helping him i tried helping him solve some of

his problems none of it worked and so finally i had a conversation with him where i said you know i have heard you complain for the last year about the same problems and asked you time and time again what you were planning on doing about it and you're that you don't seem to be willing or wanting to do that and the amount of negativity and complaints and pity that you have for yourself is really damaging our relationship and i love you but i don't want to be around you anymore and so unless you're willing to

actually do something about the problems and the challenges that you're facing in your life and stop playing the victim i don't want to spend time with you anymore i don't want to hang out with you anymore don't call me and it was a really hard conversation to have but i came from this place of i love you and here's the problem it's you right you you are the problem right it's not me it's you it's a very like role reversal from a sort of like a normal breakup but that really worked right six months later

we didn't talk for for a number of months six seven months later he messaged me and he said hey you know i really appreciate the conversation that we had it was really hard for me to hear i hated you for weeks and for months after that but eventually i i couldn't escape the fact that you were right and i wasn't willing to lose you as a friend because i was literally his closest friend in the world he said i wasn't willing to lose you as a friend it made me question what was really going on

for me now that's not always going to be the case some people are going to double down their victim you know they're going to double down on their complaints when you set a boundary with them so be boundaried ask them what are you going to do about it how are you going to help you because no one else can no one else is coming to save you and you know that and see what they say so if you enjoyed this video comment below let me know what you thought let me know what you've done to

navigate deal with interact with chronic complainers in your own life and let me know what stood out to you about this video and what questions you have don't forget to subscribe to hit the bell notification so that you can get notified when more videos drop like this until next week this is connor beaton signing off