Aparna's Weekend Musings on Life - Series 1
Emotional
validation is recognizing someone’s feelings and acknowledging them. We want
attention, a little of pity for what emotions or trouble we go through in our
day along with understanding and recognition for whatever emotions we feel.
When we narrate our daily happenings to a closed one, we feel relaxed when we
release our stacked up emotions for the day or it when we habit of writing a
journal / diary everyday narrating what happened followed by 5 things we are
grateful for every day.
People
complain because their dissatisfaction reaches the maximum limit they could
take. If we feel we can no longer tolerate our dissatisfaction we attempt to
verbalize our dissatisfaction as nagging, whining and complaining to our closed
ones. If a particular situation is in our hands to change we will do so but
only if we are unable to do anything, then we resort to complaining.
We complain about key things
like:
·
Behaviour – action or inaction of
another person
·
Personal characteristics – personality
/ beliefs of another person
·
Performance – about how someone else
perform an action
·
Complaining – about another’s
complaint behavior
·
Personal appearance – about how
others looked
As William Bowen says, we
complain to
1. Get Attention
2. Remove Responsibility
3.
Inspire Envy (Self Bragging)
4.
Needing to Exercise Power
5.
Excuse their poor performance
What if we complain, how it affects those around us?
You
could ask me, So what if we complain Aparna? Why does it matter? It matters
because it destroys peace of mind, creates a negative mood to everyone around
us. It makes those around us get defensive and may lead to unwanted arguments.
Over a period of time, some of
us become chronic complainers? Why?
Some behavioural traits of
Chronic Complainers are:
1.
Repeated looking for people to join
their pity party
2.
Nothing seems good enough
3.
Expect the worst or if not expect
disappointment
4.
Little perplexed and irritated by
those who seem cheery most of the time.
5.
Keep seeing the glass half empty all
the time (look only at the downside of life for every situation)
6.
Constant venting and whining without
any action to change it
7.
Each situation is a perfect
opportunity to find faults
8.
Chronic complainer will rarely let
any situation go without offering some observation about something that’s gone
wrong or isn’t to their liking
9.
Emotionally manipulating others with
their words or actions
Chronic complainers fall into
a negative cycle of thoughts :
Finding faults => Feeling
negative mood and feeding the same negativity to everyone around => Unable
to face the next situation with an open mind => Eventually capacity to feel
joy or happiness is lost and life seems miserable to them always.
How Long time Complaining Rewires Our Brain and Makes Us Negative
Minded?
When
we complain over a long period of time, our body releases stress hormone
especially cortisol. Excess cortisol affects our immune system and makes us
susceptible to various ailments. It even makes the brain more vulnerable to
strokes. Scientists long term complaining actually shrinks our brain. Standford
University researchers have found that complaining shrinks our hippocampus which
is critical for problem solving and intelligent thoughts. Repeated complaining
rewires our brain to make future complaining more likely and over time we find
it easy to be negative instead of thinking positive. A pattern of negative
thoughts sets in and is very difficult to break without conscious efforts and
help.
Why People Stay Away from Chronic (Long Time) Complainers?
The
general mood is affected on a regular basis. It leads to tension, anger,
shouting, disagreements, anger and defensive action by others. It hurts near
and dear ones and strains relationship with everyone. The more we complain the
more self-centered we become. I believe a self centered person is someone who
is only concerned with their own wants and needs and never thinks about other
people. Over a period of time, they demonstrate narcissism. Narcissism is a
condition in which people have inflated sense of their importance, deep need
for excessive attention and admiration, troubled inter personal relationship
and inability to consider other’s feelings.
How Do You Deal With Complainers in Your Circle / At Work?
1. Listen, nod, validate.
Understand what they want: try looking beneath what they complain. It could be attention, emotional validation, pity.
3.
Avoid arguing with them
4.
Reframe or restate the complaint
5.
Ask for a solution
6.
Confront them: Try to have an open
and honest conversation about how their patterns of complaining is affecting you and your
relationship with them (official / personal).
What To Do If You Want to Change Yourself from Complaining
Try Complaint Cleanse For AS Long As You Get Over It : Be conscious of complaints when they pop up in your head, instead of saying aloud just let them go!
Watch what you speak and mind your language for any negativity
Think of 5 things in life you are grateful for daily before you hit the bed. It is even better if you could write it down every day – a gratitude journal.
Every time you have a negative thought, take a deep breath and look at the bright side of it.
Start your day everyday with the phrase Life Is Beautiful!!
Alternatively you could get professional help if you struggle to change.
Signing off,
Aparna Subramanian
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