Stop Complaining! It's Not Good For You

By Linda Binns

I have a challenge for you. Are you up for it? Good, here it is: for one full day (yes, a whole 24 hours) don’t complain – about anything. Seriously, try it. You might be surprised at how difficult it is. I don’t think of myself as a complainer but I have done this and it’s surprisingly difficult to do. It’s so easy to find a thought popping into your head when something happens. Like, you’re in a hurry, you rush into the grocery store to buy a couple of items, you’re heading straight for the ‘No More Than 6 Items’ Express Checkout when someone sneaks in front of you with what you swear is a month’s worth of shopping in their cart.

Be honest, if this happened to you would it cause you to complain, even just a little bit? You might not complain out loud, but in your head you’d be thinking something like “how can people be so ignorant, can’t they read the sign? Why does this always happen to me? Why does this always happen when I’m in a hurry? How could this person be so stupid?” etc. So, my challenge to you is that when something like this happens, instead of complaining, simply notice what’s happened. That’s it. Don’t judge it as good or bad, just notice it. You can say in your head something like “oh, look at that, someone just went into the Express Checkout Lane with more than 6 items in their cart. Isn’t that interesting!!” What do you think? Can you do it?

Actually, my husband and I have tried this and it can get quite funny. We find ourselves commenting on something and then suddenly saying right afterwards “not that I’m complaining!”

Why is this important? Well, I’m sure you’ve heard that what you focus on is what you get. I think just about everybody has heard about the Law of Attraction since the book and movie of The Secret came out. Mostly what I hear from people is something like: “well, yes I tried the Law of Attraction, but it doesn’t work for me.” Does that sound like a complaint? The Law of Attraction does work, just like the Law of Gravity – you don’t have much choice in the matter. It’s happening all the time. The key is what you focus your attention – and your energy on. Here’s the thing, when we complain it means we’re upset about something. This takes up a lot of our energy. Just try it next time you find yourself complaining and getting upset about something. Stop for a moment and pay attention to your body. You’ll probably find that you feel uncomfortable somewhere, perhaps an uneasy feeling in your stomach. Notice that your heart is probably beating faster, which means your blood pressure is rising. Breathing becomes faster and more shallow. All you can think about is what has happened to make you upset. You might find yourself talking to other people about it. They confirm how terrible it is and how right you are to be upset – adding to the energy that is focused on that particular issue. That’s a lot of energy.

Now, you may have been trying to use the Law of Attraction to manifest something in your life, such as a new car or pay raise, or whatever it is that you would like. As far as you are aware, you’ve been focusing on it a lot and writing affirmations, and visualizing it, etc. But think about it for a moment, the amount of energy that you put into that probably isn’t anywhere near the amount of energy that you would put into a negative situation, as I described above. The thing is that once something that we perceive as negative happens to us, we find it hard to let it go. Even if we are not consciously thinking about it, it’s usually churning away somewhere in the back of our mind. What you focus on IS what you get. So what you’ll find is that the more upset you are about something, or the more you complain about things in general, the more things will happen for you to get upset about. You’ll get a lot more of the same. Then you think that the Law of Attraction isn’t working for you. Of course it is, it’s just bringing you more of what you don’t want, rather than what you do want.

That’s why this is a great challenge. You see when we stop complaining it frees up our energy to focus not only on what we want, but what we already have that we are grateful for. I promise you, if you do this on a regular basis, you really will find that you’ll start to attract more positive people and experiences into your life – more to be grateful for. Once you find that you can go for a full day without complaining, then try for 2 days, then 3 and so on, until you can stop complaining all together. Does one day sound like too much to start with, then instead of complaining about it, try for just one hour. If you catch yourself complaining, then just start the clock all over again. Don’t give up, keep trying. You’ll find that it’s well worth it.

We all know people who complain all the time. Nothing is ever going well for them, and probably nothing ever will – as long as they keep complaining and putting their energy on what they really don’t want. Even if you think that you don’t complain, that you’re positive most of the time and you avoid people who complain, try it anyway – I think you’ll be surprised at those sneaky little thoughts that pop up that sound a lot like complaints!! You really will like your life a lot better without them.