Show Notes
Complaining is a habit. A bad, unconscious habit that erodes relationships, increases stress levels, destroys creativity, and generally makes life more awful than it has to be. This week we define what a complaint is and isn't, introduce the distinction between healthy & unhealthy complaining, and argue for some reasons you might want to quit.
[TRANSCRIPT]
What's this no complaining thing about? What if something really is wrong? Are we just supposed to shut up about it? What's the point of all this? Why would I want to do it?
Hello! I’m Cianna Stewart, founder of the No Complaining Project. My goal is to share tools and information to support you in changing your life and improving your relationships by shifting from complaining to taking action. Quitting complaining seems simple, but it goes deep, and once you stop, you’ll never want to start again. I hope you’ll join me in Going NoCo - NoCo for No Complaining. Your world will look different if you do.
Welcome to the podcast for the No Complaining Project! I’ve been doing this for over a decade and I’ve seen how much it can help people in all sorts of different ways so I’m excited to share it with you.
Before we dive in, I want to address a big misperception that often comes up when I tell people that I run a thing called the No Complaining Project. It is absolutely not my goal for people to just shut up and suffer in silence. Anyone who knows me know that when things go wrong, I think it's really important to speak up and to make them right, or figure out some way to deal with them. I also know that’s often easier said than done. And that’s the heart of the No Complaining Project: to figure out what’s in the way and how to clear those roadblocks.
[BREAK]
So let’s get started. Did you know there’s a healthy way to complain and an unhealthy way? The healthy way will improve your life and the world in general, while the unhealthy way can erode your relationships, increase your stress, screw up your work, hurt your health… so many bad bad things. It may seem like a small thing — complaining — but the more I dove into this the more I realized unhealthy complaining really affects your whole life.
I define an unhealthy complaint as: “Expressing grief, pain, or discontent without contributing to solving the problem.”
Now, the dictionary definition just has the first part of that sentence, “expressing grief, pain, or discontent.” But when we say someone is “such a complainer,” we mean more than that. So I expanded the definition to match how we use it. Even more important, I’ve found that the thing that's actually gonna really turn your life around is to focus on that second part, “without contributing to solving the problem.” See, the whole point is to move from habitual unconscious complaining to taking action. And I call this Going NoCo — NoCo for no complaining.
The reality is that life isn't always great. I mean, sometimes it’s great, and sometimes life smacks you around and punches you in the gut. And what are you supposed to do then? I don't subscribe to that whole, “just put a positive spin on it,” you know, “just smile your way through it. Think happy thoughts.” That’s not real life. That's not actually helpful. And it turns out that’s not very healthy, either.
Ignoring or suppressing your pain is called “emotional bypass,” and that won't heal anything and it won’t get you out of a bad situation. Suppressing your emotions can actually increase your stress which leads to things like heart attacks and ulcers. It also disconnects you from others when you don’t let people know what you’re really going through, when you’re hiding from them.
Of course sharing your emotions and admitting that you’re in pain or that you need help is hard. It’s scary and vulnerable and unfamiliar. Most of us are not good at it. I know I’m terrible at it - although I’m better than I used to be! I’ve seen how much better life can be when I let people in instead of trying to tough it out. And that’s what helps actually reduce the pain and move past the issues. So that’s what we do when we Go NoCo: We stop the unhealthy patterns and learn healthy things to do instead.
[BREAK]
There are really two healthy ways to complain: problem solving and venting.
When you're problem solving, you can sound like you're complaining. You're using all the same words. You're expressing why something bothers you. But the key distinction is that you're talking to somebody who can do something about it or you’re asking somebody for help.
You're expressing something with the intention of actually resolving the problem that's underlying it. I mean, that may seem really, really obvious, but it's all about the intention. That’s what’s important to uncover when you hear yourself complain. What is your intention here? And if your intention is to actually solve the problem, then that's problem-solving. And that is really healthy and it's really necessary and it's the only way that things actually get changed in this world.
[BREAK]
The second healthy option is to recognize that there are times when we get totally overwhelmed with a feeling, and that feeling is the only thing that's in our minds and it's overshadowing everything else. Like, for example, if you were crossing the street on your way into a meeting and someone almost runs you over. Or a message pops up on your phone from an ex that you never wanted to hear from again. Or maybe you just found out that someone you were counting on to do something didn’t end up doing it. When something happens and we get really angry or scared or sad, it can blot out everything else.
When we're in that state, it's actually really hard to have a conversation, especially about anything other than what we’re feeling inside. It's hard to be present, to pay attention to the conversation at hand, to concentrate on any work that we have to do — for anything outside of ourselves. Our brains are just filled and we're emotionally “flooded” is the term for being so overwrought with some emotion that it crowds out everything else. And being flooded can affect what you do and what you say. It can make you more reactive. It can keep you from seeing a way out. It can make you say and do things that you wouldn't normally do if you were calm.
So you have to purge that valve. You have to get that out of your system. And even more importantly, you should let the person that you're with know that that's going on for you because otherwise you're totally distracted and you're just thinking about that thing that's bothering you instead of paying attention to them. You need to vent.
When you’re venting, you’re trying to clear an emotion so that you can have a shared reality with the person you're talking with. Venting is very important. It’s necessary. And your intention is to move past that feeling of being overwhelmed, that immediate pain.
Now, the key distinction with venting is it really only happens once. It's when something happens and it overwhelms you and your system gets flooded and you need to get it out of your system. That happens once and then you vent. The second time you say it, the third time, the 15th time when you're retelling a story and you actually start the story not feeling the emotion, and then through the telling of the story you rekindle that emotion… Now you're complaining and that is not healthy. Any time you're doing a repetition of something that is not current, or you're talking to somebody who can do nothing about it, or you're just rekindling an emotion that you didn't start the conversation feeling, all of that is complaining. And that kind of habitual unconscious complaining is the target of the No Complaining Project.
[BREAK]
So, to recap, those are the two healthy ways to complain: problem solving and venting.
When it sounds like you’re complaining, you can tell the difference in what you’re doing by examining your intention in saying those words to that person at that time.
Is your intention to actually resolve the issue? That’s problem solving.
Is your intention to move past feeling flooded so you can get back to being present with this person? That’s venting.
If neither of those if your intention, then you’re complaining, maybe without even realizing it. It’s a habit, it’s unconscious.
What it means to Go NoCo is to take a moment, target that unhealthy complaining, recognize that it's an unconscious habit, and stop that habit.
[BREAK]
I find that a lot of people don't understand that complaining is a habit, or actually have just never thought about it before, but it really is.
Complaining operates just like any other habit, and habit researchers have proven that breaking habits can be hard, but not impossible.At first, it's really, really hard and you need to not beat yourself up about trying something new and not quite getting it on the first try. But after a while it gets easier and then after you keep doing it, it becomes habitual and you have a new habit of not complaining. And that becomes very easy to do because you're not even thinking about it anymore. That's the definition of a habit. You're doing something without thinking about it.
Of course, the in-between transition from having a habit that you don't want and putting in a new habit that you do want, that in between takes effort, it requires conscious thinking. You actually have to do some work in there. So managing the transition will take some work, and that's what we're going to try to do on this podcast is help you out with that.
[BREAK]
Lastly, I want to share some reasons to make that effort worth it. Why would you want to do this? Just about everyone complains, so why buck that trend? I’ll admit, I’m not a psychologist or a doctor and I can’t promise you what will happen for you, but I am somebody who has gone through this myself and I've also been teaching workshops and helping people out for the past decade or so. And what I've seen as a result is choosing to Go NoCo can make you feel more in control of your life. It can make you feel better about yourself. You can improve your relationships, you can reduce your stress, you can have an improved mood, you can change your mindset, and you have a greater capacity for joy and creativity. All of those things are pretty awesome, and people who have gone through this have found that their whole lives feel a lot better, and I'd love that to happen for you too.
So more on this in future episodes. I hope that you'll join me and that you'll choose to give this gift to yourself and to the people around you. It's pretty excellent.
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A quick note. In your podcast feed, you’ll see some short “bonus” episodes. These are practical exercises designed to help support your NoCo practice. I do consider this a practice like meditation or going to the gym — you don’t just do it once and you’re done forever. You have to actually renew it all the time and have it in your mind as a commitment to yourself and to the people around you.
I’m making the bonuses standalone episodes so that you can access them whenever you want, without having to re-listen to the longer episodes that they accompany. Just do these exercises whenever you can to develop those skills, and let me know if they work for you and if you want to see more of them.
Thank you for choosing the No Complaining Project Podcast.
It was written, recorded, and edited by me, Cianna Stewart.
All our music is by the multi-talented Daniel Berkman. Find him on Bandcamp.
The transcript is in the show notes, and you can find more tips and links to my book at GoNoCo.com. That’s G-O-N-O-C-O.com.
Thank you for giving the gift of No Complaining to yourself and to the people around you.
Until next time, Go NoCo!