Conscious Complaining by Karla McLaren

Repressing emotions can negatively affect your mental and physical health. Conscious complaining is a way to restore flow to your psyche. Complaining helps release tension and gain clarity. It's best to complain alone to avoid judgment or repression from others. Find a space to freely express your frustrations and sarcastic humor. Complain as long as you need to, then thank whatever you complained to. This practice doesn't bring you down but lifts you up by clearing complaints and restoring your flow. Complaining allows you to express how you truly feel without consequences. Afterward, you can tackle your struggles with renewed energy and perspective. Conscious complaining by Carla McLaren. Not to start on a down note but repressing your emotions can destabilize your psyche and do a number on your overall health. When emotions fester and stagnate your body reacts to that lack of flow with fatigue and distress and you often dissociate or run toward distractions or addictions just to take a vacation from it all. If this is your current situation here is an easy way to restore flow to a clogged up psyche. I call it conscious complaining. I first learned of the importance of complaining in the late great career counselor Barbara Sher's wonderful book Wishcraft. In it she suggests making regular time to complain both to de-strain and to get a clearer understanding of whatever it is that's holding you back. Sher writes about finding a complaining partner but I've modified the practice because there are very few people in this world who can deal with the amount of complaining I can produce. Most people want to stop me fix me or help me see the world in a peppier light which is just another form of repression if I'm in a foul mood. I've gone a different way and turned my complaining practice into a solitary one which has been a real lifesaver. Now every time I lose all faith or come up against impossible obstacles I can whine moan quench and reinvigorate myself with the grim truth of what I'm experiencing when I'm done I'm not depressed or enraged instead I'm often able to get right back to work because I know exactly what the problems are and just how hard life can be. This practice doesn't bring me down it lifts me up because it clears all the complaints out of my system and restores my flow. Here's how to complain consciously. The only requirements are that you're in a foul mood and you have some privacy. You start with a declaration like I am complaining now. If you're inside you can complain to the walls or furniture or to a mirror. If you're outside you can complain to plants and trees, animals, nature, the sky, the ground or your God. If you're a strong complainer like I am you might want to create a complaining shrine for yourself with supportive pictures of grumpy cats, bratty kids, barking dogs, political cartoons and whatever else calls to your complaining nature. When you found your perfect complaining site let yourself go and give a voice to your dejected, hopeless, sarcastic, nasty, bratty self. Bring sarcastic humor out of the shadows and really whine and swear about the frustrations, impossibilities and absurdities of your situation. Complain for as long as you like. You'll be surprised at how quickly this works and when you run out of things to say, thank whatever you've been whining or yelling at. The furniture, the walls, the ground, the trees, your complaining shrine or your God for listening and end your conscious complaining session by bowing, shaking off and then doing something really fun. That's it. People who try this practice are astonished to find that complaining doesn't pull them further down into the doldrums. It has precisely the opposite effect because it breaks through stagnation and repression and lets you tell it like it is with zero repercussions. Unlike positive affirmations which tell you how to feel, you're feeling the way you feel. The truth is told, the decks are cleared and you get an important timeout and because this is a solitary practice there is no danger of losing faith or hurting someone else's feelings. Afterward, you'll find that you can revisit your struggles with renewed vigor and vision.