Recently, I’ve been captivated by the concept of wise speech in scripture. As I started my reading through Proverbs this year, I began noticing pattern in my life. I could be overly careful with my words around some people, but with others, with my “safe” people, I would throw caution to the wind. I’d rail against a co-worker, complain about the drivers on the highway, or give an impassioned discourse about people with whom I radically disagreed. Finally, I came to this verse near the end of Proverbs:
“A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
but a wise man quietly holds it back.“
Proverbs 29:11 (ESV)
For the next week, the words were power-washed across my mind. I could see them as I opened my mouth to let loose my torrent of emotion surrounding whatever latest gripe had caught me in a riptide. “A fool gives full vent to his spirit.” At the same time, I started observing others. Even believers I loved and trusted seemed to be doing the exact same thing. Friends, office buddies, old ladies at church, even my family members– all willing to spill the depths of their guts about the latest person who had frustated or inconvienced them. “But a wise man quietly holds it back.”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one stuck in a cycle of foolishness. As I began to voice my growing unease with this apparent normalcy in our manner of speaking, the responses I got from others only added to my concern.
“I’m just a verbal processor. It’s what I have to do to be healthy.”
“You have to have a space to vent, it’s emotionally healthy.
“Other people should be emotional safe-spaces. It’s not wrong to trust them with what bothers you.”
Reflections on Venting (Pt.1)
Maybe I was taking this whole thing too far? After all, there’s an element of seeming wisdom in each of those statements. God created people to process information differently, it’s healthy to process emotions, and it’s good to trust people to help you process. I don’t deny any of that.
But I’ve said many of those very same phrases in my heart as I sought to justify speaking poorly of others or repudiating people made in God’s image. We can’t use “verbal processing” or “emotional health” as an excuse for gossip or slander. Studies do show that putting feelings into words can reduce the severity of emotions.1 But thinking and speaking negatively of others doesn’t make our emotional or mental health better, it actally makes it worse.2 We’re training our minds to retrace the same spiraling thought-pathways, leading us to the same ill-fated conclusions about ourselves and others.
In our world saturated with therapeutic language and desire to be supportive of people’s emotional and mental struggles, I think we’ve forgotten what it means to speak wisely about our hurt and frustration. I’m on a journey to reclaim wisdom in a world full of folly. Are you willing to come with me?
Sources
Mackenzie Norman 
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