Complain or?

In my work I hear a lot of complaints/complaining. I get it, life can be hard, sometimes really hard. I get it.

Sometimes you may feel like you just want to push it out, express that feeling; experience that righteous indignation; maybe even point out that you’re better than what you had to go through. It might feel like it’s  good to say it, to tell people about what’s wrong now or what happened then and get it off your chest.

 But actually complaining  over and over won’t make you feel better. Instead it deepens that pathway in your brain. When you keep reviewing your experience of being a victim, you begin to see yourself only as a victim. That’s not great to do even when it did happen.

Sometimes people grow up thinking they have no power in their lives. From babyhood on, they cried and nobody came, so they decided right then there’s no use trying to be effective or powerful in life at all.

The thing is, you do get to decide how you cope with what you went through. The world can be a tough place for sure, but you don’t have to just take it on the chin and assume there’s nothing powerful you can do in your life. You can put some good in the world, maybe only a little bit but it counts. Complaining, for sure won’t do that.

Here’s something you really can do. You can put some good into the world by just being kind to someone. Maybe just give them a smile - it won’t hurt you and it might change someone else’s whole day because of the smile you gave them. And the psychology of the thing (I am a  therapist after all) is that you also get a little bit of the kindness experience for yourself. It increases your self-esteem and improves your own mood when you’re kind to someone else.

So you can complain and just give up, decide there’s nothing you can do about how you feel, OR you can do something. Is it about giving up when life feels like it holds nothing more? Or feeling and believing, no deciding, that you can create something more of your own making?  What do you think?