Complaining is like looking at your reflection in the mirror dead in the eye telling yourself:
"Because of this missed opportunity, this person, that and the other I have decided
to waste my time for a while. If we were to think that
each action emerges from a decision, an intention, then that's what complaining is
all about in essence: "I (un)consciously decide to
waste an extensive amount of my lifetime."
Genuinely seeking support and complaining are worlds apart. For example, it's totally
fine to point out anything bothering you about your
partner, friend, the relationship in a calm manner
(although sometimes anger is human) so that you fix it collaboratively, granted the other
person is mature enough to believe in the same principle. Complaining takes it to the
next level: blame, gossip; vent out mood swings
& negatives longer than necessary, place responsibility for your lack of skill onto
others, etc.
Honest communication & solution orientation has a goal: to move forward, to grow.
Complaining is open-ended, keeps you trapped in a cycle of self-pity and disdain. This
affects your mood, your mood affects your health, you get the picture.
Whenever you do, notice, mostly, you are not complaining about the stressful situation
per se. You often complain about all the time
and effort it'll take to put in to find a solution . Rarely
it has anything to do with what actually happened, because at some point everything can be
resolved or at least managed in one way or another to some extent. You already know that
sooner or later not only will you have to face it, but that you will, and will solve
it eventually.
The core issue here is that you have a belief criteria that your problem solving process
should be inclusive of a fair amount of complaining at the beginning. In the language of your
unconscious mind, you complain so that you can solve your problem. This concept I call
an unconscious belief criteria ( automated ). “To
be able to do X I need and I should firstly engage in Y and Z.” Ah, yes unfortunately,
you got more of these silly sentences stuck inside
your head. Now that we dug up this sentence into the light of awareness, I give you the
opportunity to tweak it a bit. Exclude the first part. The unconscious criteria was:
Whenever I experience a setback, first and foremost I
need to complain a lot before I could move forward. After modification it becomes a conscious
belief : whenever I experience a setback, I instantly realize and remember that there
are infinite possibilities in life, that this temporary
experience means there is more for me out there, and I decide to get on with life
immediately.
How are these unconscious criterias formed? Some are learned. You create the rest. The
learning part is received in childhood from authority figures in observation of their
behavior in crisis. Childhood belief criterias, like the one we
previously modified, are commonly acquired in
young age and usually sound so silly to the conscious mind once uncovered, however to
the unconscious they have symbolic value. Others
are created in adult-life.
I will tell you when these automations are prone to arise, when exactly are you the most
susceptible to their reinforcement or creation, and share with you means of prevention.
Realize, it's all about unpleasant feelings coming together with negative thoughts. Negative
emotions also emerge in a pre-programmed, uncontrollable manner as a result of a stimulus
trigger, in this case a setback, and can solidify transient self-defeating thoughts into a rigid
perspective. Negative emotions can solidify transient self-defeating thoughts into a rigid
perspective.
You can agree on this when you look back at some of your past failures. You often
concluded at the heights of your emotional pain about all men, all women; people, life;
how valuable, skillful you are as a person, and
these emotionally energized words & syllables got
stuck in your self, other and world views till today, filtering your present perception.
Had it not been for such intense sensations in the
body these thoughts would have gone through so smoothly as though you were watching a
series of random cars pass by. Add on a mood and everything looks darker.
Positive emotions in relation to a context generate specific thoughts and pre-programmed
positive beliefs by which this context is processed, perceived, and understood. Similarly,
negative emotions trigger a set of pre-established but negative childhood belief criterias; the
less real positive options seem to be, and the more prone you are to narrow down your
perception even further by creating new negative criterias or perceptual filters.
Solution: During a life crisis, expect these automatic
program s (negative emotions mashed up negative thoughts). At the peak of emotional
turmoil, inner world, observe with disbelief. Your mind will have loosened up obsolete judgements
and retrain itself to maintain its openness in the next emotional upheaval.
Any belief based on absolutism is absolutely wrong. I challenge you, really, right now,
prove to me that the opposite never has, and had
never been in this whole universe of infinite possibilities.