Complaints are normal. Everyone complains. If you listen to the random thoughts in your head, which I call The Drunk Monkey, you will hear thousands of complaints a day.
It’s natural. Complaints are aspects of your experience that The Drunk Monkey disagrees with. Life happens, people do things and your brain says, “That should not be that way!”
The truth is that complaining is a survival mechanism. Since complaints describe that which you believe is not good, complaints are a way of identifying potential threats and avoiding them. The Drunk Monkey believes that making them known gives you the possibility of avoiding, killing or changing the situation.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. In fact the exact opposite occurs. When you resist something, you attract it to you. What you resist persists. When someone does something you don’t like, your attention to it will have you notice even more cases where people do this thing you don’t like. The more you focus on it, the more you see it everywhere and the more annoyed you get. Next thing you know your life has all these people who aren’t doing what you like. Your experience of life is degraded. BY YOU!!!
Kill Your Complaints With Awareness
You are the creator of your experience and not the victim of your circumstances. You get to determine if something annoys you or not. To choose to be annoyed is, well, stupid. Because you are the one making your life suck. Your opinion is the source of your suffering. The Drunk Monkey has an opinion on everything including things it knows nothing about.
Notice today how little control you currently have over your opinion of the situation. Notice that you are The Drunk Monkey’s puppet: that your reality is autopilot. Just notice that your reality is not created by your desire to be happy, fulfilled and joyous. Your reality is an accumulation of unexamined reactions to stimulus in your environment.
With this awareness you become more flexible. New ways of reacting become apparent. With these new options you feel powerful. Try it and let me know what happens.
3 Comments
Yeah, complaining is a very disempowering habit.
It marinates us in negativity, depresses us and gets us feeling very unmotivated.
It’s interesting to listen to this inner and often outer dialogue…
I tell my clients that their complaints actually broadcast their fear.
It tells the world, “I am powerless” and “I am a victim”
And, sends those messages DOWN within us.
Thank you for your article.
We do create our reality.
It’s all about perception.
There is a silver lining to every experience, and every situation holds a solution.
So true. A complaint is a way to define myself by what I DON’T WANT. Which appears to be a surefire recipe for continuing to experience it. Intentions (being states) and Delegations (desires/prayers/declarations) are ways to define and clarify what I DO WANT, which is a much more powerful and deliberate way to create.
It’s amazing what starts to happen when you become aware. It’s like a whole new world opens up. You realize how much your life is being run by the Drunk Monkey, but that you can change it, by NOT complaining!
Thank you so much for your wisdom Matthew and keep it coming. The world needs you.
Dr. Brant