Talking About Your Problems: Society’s Greatest Addiction

I’ve been catching myself lately, mid-eye-roll, mid-sigh, mid-rant, realizing how easy it is to slide right back into the habit of complaining.

It starts small. The “ugh, I’m exhausted. "The “can people just get it together? "The “I swear if one more thing goes wrong today…”

It’s sneaky. It feels harmless. Sometimes it even feels bonding. And let’s be honest, there’s a certain satisfaction in letting it out, isn’t there?

We sit around the table or text our girlfriends and start trading stories like emotional currency: who’s the most tired, most stressed, most overworked, most underappreciated.

And boom! We’re connected. For a moment, it feels validating. But after the buzz wears off? We’re left sitting in the same heavy energy we were trying to escape.

Somewhere along the way, complaining became connection. And now, it’s society’s favorite addiction.

We’ve normalized it so much that not complaining almost feels weird, like you’re not part of the club unless you’re commiserating. But here’s what I’ve been realizing in myself lately: every time I open my mouth to vent, I’m rehearsing the very energy I say I want to shift.

Because here’s the truth, and I say this with love and a side of science, every complaint is still an affirmation. It’s just one written in the frequency of what you don’t want.

When we speak words like “I’m so overwhelmed,” “Nothing ever works out,” or “I’m drowning,” we’re literally programming our nervous system and our environment to match that vibration. We’re placing energetic orders we don’t actually want delivered.

And I’ve noticed this in myself lately, the way my energy drops after a “quick vent. "The way my creativity dims when I fixate on what’s not working. The way I can feel the tightness in my chest when I let a small frustration spiral into a story.

Sound familiar?

You might think you’re just “getting it off your chest,” but what if you’re actually etching it deeper into your reality?

We say we want peace, clarity, and abundance, yet spend our words describing chaos, confusion, and lack. It’s like ordering a salad and telling the server everything you don’t want on it. At some point, you have to say what you do want, or the universe just keeps serving you croutons you didn’t ask for.

And I get it, it’s human. Especially for women who carry so much, home, work, and emotional labor, all of it. Sometimes, venting feels like the only release valve we’ve got. But when it becomes our default language, it keeps us looping in the very energy we’re trying to rise out of.

So lately, I’ve been catching myself mid-sentence. Pausing when I start to complain. And asking a few grounding questions:

✨ What’s the story I’m repeating here?✨ What am I actually asking for?✨ What’s something I can appreciate in this moment?

And wow, it’s humbling how often my complaints are really just unspoken needs or ignored boundaries.

Because underneath every “I can’t stand this anymore” is usually a “I need more rest.”Underneath “no one ever helps me” might be “I haven’t asked clearly for what I need.”

We don’t have to bypass or pretend everything’s perfect; we just have to stop feeding what’s breaking us.

Our words are our frequency setters. They’re the vibration that tells life what to echo back.

So I’ll leave you with this: If you had to sign a No Complaining Contract for 30 days, could you do it? What do you think would shift if, for just one month, you replaced every gripe with gratitude or curiosity?

My guess? You’d feel lighter. You’d have more energy. And you’d start to notice that the life you’ve been trying to talk your way out of is actually changing, simply because you stopped repeating what you no longer want to create.

Because joy is contagious, too. We’ve just forgotten how to talk about it.