Yeah, that’s a lot of sucking, and a lot of exclamation points. But, I’m trying to make a point here, so humor me.
How many times a day to you think something sucks, or some such sentiment? My guess is that it’s a whole lot more often than you know.
A couple of years ago, I heard about this exercise to help me stop being so critical and complaining. The way it worked was I would stop myself from saying any kind of criticism or complaint for seven days. Whenever I caught myself criticizing something, I was to stop and make a slicing motion across my neck like I was cutting my throat. The idea being that I make a physical movement to help me realize every time I criticized something I was cutting my throat with respect to living the life I really wanted to live.
At the time, I was working my way back from the loss of my business, my home, my relationship, and my dog. Yeah, it was a tough time. You can imagine how much complaining and criticizing I did. I was not the vibrant, happy, zestfully alive woman I am today. I wanted to be but I still had a way to go.
During that 7-day exercise, I discovered a lot about myself and the power of complaining and criticizing. For the first couple of days, I noticed how many times I complained about the people around me; how often I looked at someone and thought something negative about their clothing or their hair or that they might have something out of alignment in their spine, hips or shoulders (I’ve been a massage therapist for almost 30 years so I did this a lot) or any other in a litany of failingsI could find. I often spoke these complaints out loud to co-workers and we had a chuckle. Maybe it was my way of relieving tension but it wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be and I didn’t like finding this out about myself.
About the 3rd day or so, I noticed that my complaining and criticizing others wasn’t nearly as prolific as the amount of complaining I did internally, about my Self. When I became aware of it, I realized there was this almost constant, non-stop stream of complaints going on:
“My feet hurt.”
“My hair is too thin and looks like crap today.”
“I have to lose 15 pounds.”
“I can’t stand this job.”
“Why did I ever decide to ______.” (fill in the blank)
“I can’t believe I’m stuck here doing this sh*#!”
“I wish I had a better car.”
On and on it went, hour after hour. Complaints ranging from my hair to my body to my lunch, my life, my past decisions, my car, my diet, etc. I complained about everything. By the end of that day I was thoroughly sick of myself.
This single exercise made a huge difference in my life. It woke me up to the background thoughts that were running through my head all day. The funny thing is, I used to conduct leadership training for youth and adults and I knew full well that these thoughts were there. We taught that there are tens of thousands of thoughts running through our minds every day so it’s important to be aware of those thoughts and add in the thoughts that will get us the desired outcome.
I knew this. I knew about my self talk and I had let it run in the background untended, pulling me down.
After the seven-day exercise was complete, I found that I wanted to keep the learning in my everyday life. I made a sticker with the words, “STOP COMPLAINING!” and put it up in my car. That was three years ago and the sticker is still there. I still use it. It helps me remember to pay attention and give myself good, positive, forward moving thoughts to think. It works, too.
Try it for yourself. Stop complaining and criticizing for seven days. Pay attention and you’ll learn a LOT about you and how you see life. If you have any questions post them in the comment section below. I’ll answer any questions / comments you have. While you’re at it, let me know how you’re doing with the exercise and what you’ve learned. I’d love to hear from you!
