Connor Beaton explains the difference between healthy complaining and chronic complaining, which is often learned behavior. Chronic complainers use complaints to get needs met, not to solve problems, so boundaries and asking what actions they'll take works better than offering advice.
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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 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 that they. Their way into getting their needs met. 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.
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. It 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, he had multiple surgeries on the same disc in his back, and he was constantly in a lot of physical pain. 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 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, 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. I think one of the best things that you can do is to avoid giving advice, avoid validating and verifying like, ah, that's so tough move Straight towards asking, what are you going to 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 the 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 last thing that we want to do, again, 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, 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 shit. 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. 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. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.
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