I wasn’t allowed to complain as a child. Each time I whined because I wanted a parka like Kathy H’s or a Barbie like Mary J’s or at least pizza, I was admonished. “You have no right to complain. You have not been captured and tortured by Nazis. You have not had your home taken away from you. You have not watched your brothers die. You have food on the table and a roof over your head. Be grateful and shut up.”
It may not have been the compassionate, patient response parents are expected to offer their children these days. It also did nothing to temper my seething resentment and total lack of understanding of my own situation. But it did train my complaining radar. As I grew up, I couldn’t help but notice how much time and energy people spent complaining, even people who had so much more than I had. My father also always used to say, “Stop complaining and do something about it.”
I recently stumbled across a quote from Esther HIcks, the purported channeler of the entity Abraham. “Complaining about anything holds you in the place of refusing to receive the things you’ve been asking for.” To face the unknown, to wait for goodness can create an aching, awkward feeling within, a fear of failure, of being inadequate or undeserving. Complaining fills the space that could be occupied by possibility. Instead of being open, we create a hardness within that blocks potential.
In the past, I’ve assigned myself “no complaint days.” Each time I catch myself complaining, or buying into a conversation heading into mutual or group complaining, I shut up. The trick is to catch myself. The slide down the banister from integrity to negativity is seductive and often I don’t realize I’ve gotten sucked into the whining vortex till I find myself at the bottom of my staircase of aspirations. It’s so easy, and for some reason, feels so good.
Today as I drove to work, I started complaining out loud about the person in front of me. “Why are you going below the speed limit? Why are you putting on your brakes, it’s a GREEN light!” It’s futile, they can’t hear me, I know better, but…
Maybe there is some survival strategy programmed in our DNA that connects with the act of complaining. Some kind of negative bragging rights, “You think YOU have it bad!”. But until science tells me (through evidence based research of course) that complaining is good for my health, I’ll use it as my own personal wake up call.