Untangling Stressful Habits – Complaining

If you have been in my world for a while, you will know that I am passionate about habits and untangling unhelpful habits to live a fulfilling and whole-hearted life as a well-being. So I am writing a series to shed some light on some stressful habits that have come back in to my awareness recently.

Before I start sharing about stressful habits, let’s have a look at what stressful habits are.

What Are Stressful Habits?

Basically – habits can be useful or not so useful, helpful or not so helpful, stress inducing or not. Sometimes we are conscious of our habit/s (i.e. often chosen and intentional) or the habit/s can sit within our blind spots or the unknown.

When I refer to stressful habits, I am referring to habits that are impacting our overall life, business or well-being. They could be adding extra stress, suffering or draining life force energy in our lives. The stressful habits could be showing up in one or a variety of areas within our lives (i.e. physical, emotional, mental, financial, environmental or social).

In order to start to untangle from stressful habits, we need to develop self-awareness, so we can be more responsible and take ownership of our own life. Today I wanted to introduce complaining.

Stressful Habit: Complaining

Let’s make sure we are on the same page about complaining –

Will Bowen in his book complaint free world, refers to complaining as talking about things you don’t want (i.e. complaining, criticising or gossiping), rather than things you do want.

“Complaining is not to be confused with informing someone of a mistake or deficiency so that it can be put right. And to refrain from complaining doesn’t necessarily mean putting up with bad quality or behavior. There is no ego in telling the waiter that your soup is cold and needs to be heated up – if you stick to the facts, which are always neutral. “How dare you serve me cold soup…” That’s complaining.” 

– Eckhart Tolle

How would you define complaining? Feel free to share below.

Where Does Complaining Show Up?

Complaining can show up in many places within our lives. Not convinced? I wonder what would happen if we went through the day and noticed when we complain? Don’t worry the majority of us complain, so BE self-compassionate 🙂 Our complaints can be about people, situations, events, the environment or ???

Once we have this awareness about when we complain, we can then decide on what our next step is going to be – are you going to make a commitment to start to untangle from complaining or continue complaining.

Over to You…

Now you have this awareness, what is your next step? Feel free to share any insights on complaining or a reflection below. Sometimes change can take a while, so be patient and of course self-compassionate. Also – remember when complaining is consciously understood it supports our adventure of wholeness and heartful living.

If you are ready to take yourself on the adventure of getting to know yourself (your true Self), why not join the Toolkit? A place where I share tools, inspiration and ideas to live a courageous and openhearted life.

Reference –

Tolle, E. (2008). A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. USA: Penguin.