Positive Rants: How to Reframe Negativity So You Can Move Forward

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (00:00)

I’ve seen a lot of meetings where there’s one person who can’t say a positive thing once the whole meeting. And then the group gets completely stuck trying to figure out how to move forwards.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (00:10)

Yeah, I’ve seen that a lot in my career also. It can be a real challenge to figure out how to collaborate with someone who only complains. It’s one of the big challenges of cross sector collaborations. You know, how do we work with people who we find hard to work with?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (00:26)

It’s so easy to get stuck thinking that a collaboration couldn’t possibly work.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (00:30)

But negativity doesn’t have to be an end. It can also be an invitation.

Welcome to Practicing Connection. Today we’re talking about negativity, listening, and how to work with people you aren’t sure you like.

Hi, thanks for listening to Practicing Connection Podcast. I’m Jessica, and I’m here with my co-host Erin. Hi, Erin.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (00:54)

Hi, Jessica.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (00:56)

Erin, I am so excited about the positive rant skill that you’re going to be sharing with us today.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (01:01)

Jessica, I am so excited too. This is one of the practices I have had the most fun with, and I can’t wait to share.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (01:10)

Awesome. I love learning with fun, but let’s talk a little bit about why you think this practice is useful before we kind of dig into the practice itself.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (01:19)

Sure. So earlier this year we had an episode where we talked about collaborating with people through conflict. And we kind of touched on this idea of, what do you do when you have a negative response to someone that you’re working with? Just something about how they’re working is getting to you. And we talked through a couple of different ways to respond, and we really hit this idea that, you know, you can’t change another person, but you can change how you view them.

I left that conversation even more convicted that that was true. And also feeling like I maybe needed a couple of more tools in my toolkit to help me do that. And really landing on this place of trying to figure out, okay, when we say listen to understand, what does that mean? And then once you’ve listened to understand, what do you do? What do you do once you understand?

JESSICA BECKENDORF (02:17)

Such a great skill to develop. And you know, a long time ago, I’ve said this in past episodes, and I’ll say it again, that I think that active listening is a very useful tool. And I also think that it is a beginner tool for getting to the point where you are listening to understand, right?

Active listening is very sort of surface-level tool. And then getting kind of deeper in, there’s a lot of different tools and processes and methods that you can use to kind of become a better listener.

Especially when it comes to listening to understand. So yeah, I’d love to hear more about like, where did you hear about this, and what does this particular exercise do?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (02:57)

Yes. So you recommended the podcast You Are Not So Smart, which is by David McRae. He’s written a couple of books and I think he’s also a professor, maybe, or a lecturer.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (03:09)

I found it because I was reading his book How Minds Change, and I was really interested in what I was reading. And so I started like diving into a little rabbit hole, and I found it and I was like immediately, “Erin, you have to listen to this podcast. It’s so good.”

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (03:24)

Yes, I will also say, listeners of our podcast, it’s a very interesting podcast. You might enjoy it. He does a really good job of explaining complex neuroscience using plain language or not assuming you know what things are already. So, very interesting.

Anyway, episode three hundred and forty-one he called “Positive Rants.” The guest speaker for that episode was a woman named Heather Barnes, and she’s a communications professor and also an improv comedian who uses this exercise called positive rants as one of the introductory activities at the Center for Enlightened Disagreement at Northwestern, where she’s a professor.

So the gist of this exercise is you accurately reframe a rant using only positive language.

And okay, I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes I hate positive reframing because when people tell me their examples, it feels like gaslighting yourself into ignoring negative things. So I’ve always been like, “I know that positive reframing, they tell me it’s good for me.” And I’ve done it a couple of times where it’s been really helpful.

But I’m also like, “Okay, are we just ignoring all the bad stuff then? Like we’re just shoving the bad stuff in a box and pretending it doesn’t exist?”

And this is the first time where I heard an example of someone positively reframing a negative statement without losing meaning. And that’s like a big piece of the positive rants exercise is, you have to reframe it using only positive language without changing or losing the content. And it’s so hard, but it feels so good when you figure out how to do it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (05:10)

I appreciate that you brought up that, you know, sometimes you have not always enjoyed the idea of positive reframing and having that done with you. And I haven’t either. And so I would imagine that it’s all how you use this tool, because I’m a person who needs to process things out loud. And I do try not to have it be, you know, disruptive to other people, but also I need to be able to work it out. And I need to unfortunately do that out loud.

And so sometimes I kind of need to say how I’m feeling about something, whether that’s positive or negative. And so sometimes I notice when people are trying to use active listening or like these techniques and tools on me. It almost has the opposite effect on me.

And so I’m really excited about this being something that you found as someone who’s noticed this about yourself in the past too, where maybe you don’t always you haven’t always enjoyed positive reframes that this is something that you found.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (06:09)

Yes. I think often a positive reframe feels like ignoring my legitimate frustration. Yeah. And this feels like acknowledging it in a positive way.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (06:24)

Right. “I’m gonna just turn that frown upside down, Erin!”

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (06:28)

No, it’s like it’s saying it using positive language in order to then do something differently. Which I think is lovely. And I’m not going to keep explaining it because I think it really makes the mocks sense when you do the act.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (06:42)

Do it. Yes. Okay. Well let’s get started then.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (06:47)

Okay, great. So how it’s going to go, I’m going to explain it and then we can go into more detail if you have questions.

So step one is, find a buddy and a timer. Step two is, pick one person to be the ranter. And this person will have one full minute to rant about a pet peeve. For this activity, a pet peeve is a minor annoyance that an individual finds irritating. Don’t pick a big annoyance or something political. Pick a minor annoyance, right?

Eventually you can get to the bigger things, but start with pet peeves, right? And then step three is, while the ranter is ranting, the other person will just listen. And then at the end of the minute, the listener will share what they heard from the ranter, but there’s a catch. They have to accurately represent what the ranter said without using any negative language.

And then step five is to switch roles and do it again.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (07:51)

I love it. Okay, so can you explain what you mean by not using any negative language?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (07:58)

I could, but it would be very convoluted. So I think the best thing to do is to just do half a round of this, where you rant and I positively reframe. And then we can kind of talk about what counts as positive reframing in this stance and what doesn’t. Does that work for you?

JESSICA BECKENDORF (08:16)

Yeah, yeah, that sounds good.

Well, I have a rant ready to go, I come prepared with all of my pet peeves. They just follow me everywhere I go. I’m gonna use one that’s pretty innocuous, which is, I think you said, is a good place to start.

And that is, it annoys me to no end when someone is taking up an entire aisle in the grocery store, or at least the you know, the width of the aisle. So that you can’t get through, or they’re walking so slowly and they’re taking up the entire aisle that you can’t get where you need to go.

It just grates on me because I feel like I’m always watching my surroundings and noticing when people are behind me or to the side of me needing to get through. And then I’ll move over so that they can get through. And I feel like most of the time, I don’t get that same courtesy from others.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (09:14)

And, time.

Okay. So if I were to represent what you were saying using only positive language, I would say that, “Jessica really enjoys independence and having freedom to move and do the things that she needs to do in public spaces.” That, “She really values when the other people around her are conscientious of the space they’re taking up, and make sure to leave space for other people to move around them in a public place.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF (09:50)

That was actually really positive without being annoying.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (09:56)

Do you feel like I left anything important out?

JESSICA BECKENDORF (10:00)

I don’t think so, no, I don’t think so.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (10:05)

Okay, so that’s kind of like I did too good of a job. Sorry. I should have been less good at it.

I think, you know, often the instinct is to say, instead of saying, “Jessica appreciates when people leave space for other people to move around them,” you might say, “Jessica is frustrated when people don’t leave space.”

But frustrated is a negative leaning word, right?

JESSICA BECKENDORF (10:35)

Yes. And that’s what active listening would do too. It would be like it sounds like what I hear you saying is it frustrates you when people do this. But that is a negative way of doing it. Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (10:47)

Yes. And I’m not saying that like saying negative statements is never appropriate. That’s not what I’m saying. But I am saying for this exercise, it’s really helpful to figure out how you can say this in a way that only uses positive statements.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (11:01)

Mmhmm.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (11:03)

It’s really challenging. Like I’m pretty good at it at this point because I’ve done this a couple of times, and used this exercise in a couple of different ways. I think there’s this anxiety people sometimes feel about accurately representing somebody without using a single negative statement. And they’re like, “I’m gonna leave something out.”

But I just want to encourage you, really challenge yourself to do it, because it is possible. And being the person who’s positively reframing my rant in a way with only positive statements is like such a powerful thing to feel.

I don’t know about you, but I really felt, they really heard what I meant. Or like, they didn’t know that was true about me. ‘How did you know that about me? I didn’t say that.” And so it you know, it’s a really, I think, unique experience.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (11:51)

Earlier when I said that, you know, “I’m an external processor,” sometimes I need to be able to just complain a little bit about something. And sometimes I’ll change my mind of how I feel eventually, right? I’ll talk myself into a different way of feeling about it.

But one of the reasons it bothers me when someone’s trying positive reframing on me, or when they’re trying the act of listening on me is that I don’t feel like I don’t feel like my feelings are valid.

But the way you just did that, that makes a lot of sense.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (12:22)

Yeah, I agree with that. That feeling of tension around someone reframing what you’re saying. And I think one thing I have noticed both in myself and other people that I’ve done this exercise with is you’re accurately representing what someone else is saying. It can make someone feel really seen and heard and validated without you having to offer any sort of commentary or opinion about what they said.

And you know, you don’t have to agree with someone in order to positively reframe what they said. But I think it feels good to rant sometimes. So sometimes it can be really helpful to get the negativity out and then have someone positively reframe it for you.

Then you can take that positive reframe and say, “Okay, we’re starting from this positive place. How do we build off of it? How do we find shared common ground? How do we talk about it?”

And it takes the intensity of your negative feelings out of it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (13:20)

And probably the next time this happens, I’ll be in the store and I’ll smile and think, “I really value being able to move around.” And maybe I’ll even kind of, you know, take charge of the fact that that’s what I value and that’s what I want to do.

So yeah, I really appreciate this. There’s an activity that I like to do with groups where I have someone tell a story, and then the other person will really make note of what they’re hearing that person values in that story and reflect it back to them.

And you’re right, there’s a lot of people in activities like this who are like, “My gosh, I feel so seen. I wouldn’t even have put it in those words, but that’s exactly how I feel.”

But if you had asked me the question, Do I value this thing?” I would not have said that I did. But the way it was reflected back to them really makes them feel seen. So thanks so much for sharing this, Erin.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA (14:13)

You’re welcome. I am glad you enjoyed it as much as I did.

JESSICA BECKENDORF (14:18)

Yeah, I really did.

That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. We’d love to hear if you do some positive rants with a friend or a coworker. Please let us know via email at practicingconnection@oneop.org. We see and respond to every message and can’t wait to hear from you.

We’ll be back next week. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.