Hey everyone, Carly Taylor here, welcome back to another Mojo Monday. Here's a question for you. How much have you complained today? It's really easy to fall into this trap of living a complaint based life. And I even know people who, even when everything is going well, they'll find something to complain about. And then there are those people who are the complete opposite and they don't like complaining about anything. It's like you ask them how they are, and they're like,
everything's great and life's wonderful and amazing. And sometimes this can actually lead to toxic positivity, and there's so much pressure to always be happy and always to be positive, which is not realistic because it's not the way life goes. But going back to the complaining, it's really easy to default into venting about our problems, which is often about venting about other people. And we often also then about stuff or complain about stuff that is so big that
we have no control over it. And the question to ask is what is the outcome you are wanting by complaining? So let's first look at why we complain, and it's usually to then tell frustration, or maybe it's to elicit sympathy or get attention. Or maybe it's to get a feeling of solidarity with the person that you're complaining with. And this can be a very self focused thing to do, and often that focuses around being a victim, even though
we don't even realize that that's what we're doing. And what happens is we're putting all our attention on the problem, and we know that what we pay attention to, our brains commit selves to. So it makes sense that complaining can lead to feeling in a lower mood. It can decrease our optimism, it can increase our negative emotion, and if the complaining is about like political issues or world affairs, it can leave us really believing that the world is an unjust place and that there is no hope. So
the question is do you do that? So think about the week that's just gone by. How much complaining have you done or how much complaining have you been the recipient of, and how did either of those affect you? So did it make things better? Did it make things worse?
Or are you kind of indifferent about it? Because staying in this space of complaining, what it often does is it keeps us stuck in this negative void where we're focusing on what's wrong or what's going or what's been wrong, in stead of finding solutions to the problem, if there
are any solutions. And this is really important to practice this skill of self awareness, because when we're not aware of the impact of our own choices and behaviors as perhaps having negative consequences to our own wellbeing and to others, we can fall into being impulsive and reactive rather than being considered and responsive in what we say, what we do, and especially how we respond to our own negative thinking
or our own emotions. So you can feel how you feel, you can think the thoughts, but you have a choice whether or not you express those thoughts and feelings. If you feel it's helpful, or if the complaining is then followed up with a solution, then you choose to complain and then work through it. You can choose your tone of voice, you can choose how you treat others. You are responsible for what you say and what you do. So I'll give you an example which might seem a
bit trivial, but a lot of our complaints are trivial. Recently, my house has been in a complete mess, so Paul and I both went from home. Everyone's you know, everyone's in the house using the kitchen. It's like I just can't keep on top of the mess. He's been recovering from surgery. Oscar wasn't well, so he was at home from school, and my daughter left the UNI and she just left a trail of destruction in her wake. And
so I had to dig deep. If I reacted to my impulses here to complain or maybe yell, or to have, you know, like an annoyed or perhaps angry tone in my voice, I choose that reaction based on my emotion, so I have to take full responsibility for that. I'm very aware of my emotional reactions, so I'm very aware of what's going on in my body, what's going on on my mind. And this has been developed through years
of training. Don't get me wrong, I am far from perfect, but in this example, I could get into solution mode. So what I did is I did a reality check. So the house is a mess. So what I did is I popped the emotion aside, so it just sat next to me and was just there. I wasn't getting rid of it, I wasn't denying it. I wasn't trying to change it. I just popped it aside so it didn't engulf me, and I looked at the reality of
the situation through more pragmatic eyes. The house is a mess, so this is an easy example because there's a solution. Of course, I chatted with a family asked them to pitch in more tidied up, and I also accepted that my else is very lived in and that constantly cleaning up is not a priority for me because I do put other things in front of that. So I'm trying to look at my messy house from a different perspective. So this week I invite you to work on your
self awareness around complaining. Are you living a complaint based life at the moment, notice your urge to complain. It's like the complaining urge wave that you may need to surf. So you know, the wave goes up and up and up and up, and then it tapers down so you can ride it, ride the complaints based urge wave without getting swept up in it. So what is the reality
of the situation that you were complaining about? If you were to just pop your emotions to the side just for a moment and look at the situation through the lens of reality, is there a solution, are you willing to work towards that solution, or is there nothing that you can do about it? So then you take the responsibility as to whether you complain or not. Make that choice based on something that is more than just venting.
Be solution focused. Otherwise, don't complain because there's a whole lot of other stuff you could be doing in your life than complaining about something that has no outcome. And here's a challenge for you. Choose a day this week and make it a complaint free day. So this is a real challenge for me. I've done this before, and I'm sure it's going to be a challenge for you as well. Because if you set that intention today, I Am not going to complain about anything. You're going to
notice that urge to playing. You're going to ride that complaints wave and you're going to let it, tape it down and put your attention onto something else. So good luck with that. I hope you have a great week and I will catch you next week. See ya.