Complaining & Gossiping
Complaining and gossiping are the Ding Dong and Twinkies of a healthy food buffet! They are the naughty pleasures in the world of communication!
When you get together with your friends and family, what do you choose to discuss? What is the most natural thing for the conversation to turn to? If someone starts to gossip, do you change the topic? Or, do you say, "give me the dirt”?
If your friend starts to complain, do you find yourself jumping right in? Do you see yourself going through your endless list of things to complain about?
It is so easy and so indulgent to head straight down the negative path of conversation. When your social event is over, how do you feel?
It feels terrible!
It feels like eating an entire cake when you had decided to eat a healthy meal! It feels very naughty and tasty in the moment but terrible as the gut ache sets in!
Going into a conversation and keeping it constructive is not easy. It's not easy to be the person who places the best construction on all things! It is also not easy to stop complaining and instead, solve the problem. Gossiping and complaining activate the same regions in the brain as sugar does. It's no surprise that most indulge in this because it's tempting and delicious. Like any other indulgent, the more we indulge, the more we want to keep indulging.
Remember, whatever you feed grows.
Now, this blog may sound like another, "let's all be positive and pretend life is rainbows and daisies!"
It's not!
There's a benefit of having a good friend, therapist, or coach to vent to and look at your thoughts and feelings. But, when this behavior starts to be a constant in our lives, it doesn't have a positive outcome. Also, be careful you aren't forgetting that problems are part of the journey. The bad part, or negative side, of life is half of the deal!
Let's use the analogy of being a parent.
You know full well that raising a child isn't going to be easy every day. Although when the typical problems crop up, it is very prevalent to be shocked and become derailed when the slightest mishap happens!
Of course it's difficult!
That doesn't mean you still don't want to be a parent! It doesn't mean you want to escape out the exit door!
If you disagree and do think, "I don't want to be a parent" remember, you are a free citizen, and you can leave right this minute.
So, why don't you leave?
Because you want to be there!
You don't want to spend your time complaining about the hardship of parenting, what you want is to parent better!
You want to handle the negative parts better!
If you stopped complaining and decided to find solutions to the problem, how would your home life look different?
It's much easier to skip this part and go back to complaining...
Before you start feeling bad about being a person who indulges in gossiping and complaining, remember that of course, you would rather eat the doughnut than the cabbage leaf. But, guess what? When you try and change your behavior from a person who doesn't complain and gossip, imagine what emotions follow?
You will feel just as uncomfortable as being the person who breaks the conversation by placing the best construction on all things!
You will feel like an oddball by only speaking kindly of people.
You will feel uncomfortable as you only talk about your problems in a solution-oriented way!
So, if you are going to feel like crap for spewing complaints or gossip out of your mouth and you are going to feel like crap because you aren't going to participate in this negative conversation anymore, who do you want to be?
When you perpetuate the continual cycle of gossiping and complaining, it blocks you from finding the very solutions you are wanting.
It prevents you from changing the very problem you are gossiping and complaining about!