If you have a tendency to complain a lot, there are ways of lessening the power and influence of complaint in your life.
First, it’s important to note that people with a marked tendency to complain are not all driven by the same inner forces. They may be feeling frustrated, betrayed, unloved, or in some way ripped off by life, people, employers, society, or institutions. They may also be anxious, cautious, or mistrustful. Also, sadness, poor sense of self, social disconnection, and feelings of worthlessness or guilt can all cause a person to complain a lot. Finally, physical pain, hunger, exhaustion, and loss–among other things–can cause people to complain. Complaining can serve as an emotional release or a form of blame and buck-passing. It can also help us get our needs met.
Regardless of the reason for or source of the complaining, it is a negative and painful psychological position to take in relationship to self and others. If it begins to overtake your mind or the way you see the world, it can result in the alienation of yourself from others and from what is otherwise good and pleasurable in life.
If you are ready now to change your complaining ways, you can start a gratitude journal in which you record five things you are grateful for each day. In addition to this, allow yourself five solid minutes of full-on complaint each day – then be done with it for that day. Allow yourself no other time to complain verbally. Any complaints that do not fit into those five minutes must be written down and perhaps saved up for tomorrow’s five minutes of complaining. Love yourself and your family / friends enough to confine your complaining to five minutes. Then fill up your gratitude journal and show it to someone who needs their spirits lifted.
If you need to take more time and wean yourself off your diet of complaint, a more careful approach is needed. To wean yourself from chronic complaining, it is necessary to invest energy and intention in the change process. Here is one effective approach:
1) Pair down the many complaints about a topic into one or two that seem to sum up a “core” complaint you have about life or relationships; 2) condense / crystallize these one or two core complaints and write them down as clearly and precisely as possible, cutting away any unneeded words until the thought or thoughts are rather simple; 3) begin to restructure, reframe, and/or substitute those core complaints; 4) practice speaking, thinking, and writing the “new” thoughts you’ve created. This process results in the weakening of the complaining mind. Give it six weeks.
Here is an example:
1) pair it down: Many small complaints about a spouse might be narrowed into “She does not seem to care about any of my feelings, needs, and problems and does not listen to me when I talk about things that really matter to me.”
2) condense / crystallize: Write down an even more precise version of this thought, such as: “She does not show interest in my feelings.”
3) restructure: “When I talk about my real feelings, she sometimes seems to tune me out” (adding modifiers and lightening the negative power of the idea); or reframe: “Talking about feelings seems to be difficult for her” (seeing the issue in a different light or from the other side); or substitute: “I am grateful for the positive feelings we are able share” (highlighting positive aspects of the topic you were complaining about).
4) practice: speak the newly crafted thoughts out loud to yourself, a friend, a therapist, or a trusted ally and welcome new perspectives on the issue; or, repeat the new thoughts in your mind and pay attention to fresh feelings that may arise; or write the new thoughts down several times until they become natural to think about.
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