74. Complaining
A lot of experts agree that complaining is unhelpful and potentially even harmful.
Complaining can get us stuck in the negativity bias loop and make it seem like nothing is working, which of course can quickly lead to the f*ck it effect.
Complaining can be a way to let out steam about something rather than actually changing it.
And taking a purposeful break from complaining can lead to truly magical results.
But our complaints also hold useful information. Information that we can examine and use to create more of what we want in our lives and the world.
Instead of judging or shaming ourselves for complaining, what if we could step outside of the self that is complaining and meet them with compassion, and even a little light-heartedness?
Sometimes, our complaints can feel heavy and intense, and we may want to take them seriously.
But being able to step out of that headspace can be incredibly useful, because it allows us to get new perspective, and new perspective can lead to all kinds of wonderful things, including heretofore unseen solutions.
If you find yourself complaining, focusing on the negative, obsessing about what’s not working, nothing has gone wrong.
But you don’t have to be stuck there either.
Tune in this week to discover how to approach your complaints in a way that allows them to be useful and part of a delightful life.
If you want to supercharge your capacity to create a life that blows your mind, I have some one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Send me an email and let's talk about it or click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
How we complain, and then judge ourselves for complaining.
Why there is valuable information behind our complaints, even if complaining doesn’t seem useful in the moment.
How to spend time with your complaints and your ideas of what’s not working without going into f*ck-it mode.
What your complaints can tell you about your values and your habitual thought patterns.
The headspace you want to be in for observing your complaints.
How to look at your complaints with compassion, without judgment, so you can see the valuable information inside.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about complaining.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey, y'all. Happy Wednesday, I'm so excited to talk to you today. And I have some fun news that I've been celebrating, which is that so far I have signed up nine people for the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching program. And I am so thrilled, and so delighted, and so excited for these wonderful humans who have signed up to come on this journey with me and to be part of the very first Satisfied As Fuck cohort.
It's going to be a really incredible time and I cannot wait to see all of the exceptionally cool things that my clients will do with the coaching and the things I'm teaching in that program. So that's just pretty exciting. So I wanted to share that with you so you could celebrate it with me too, because you've been a big part of this journey. And it's a pretty wonderful thing, so let's celebrate together.
And then also I want to celebrate another client who landed a new job. So, I have the most amount of clients I've ever had at once right now, which is super fun. But it also means I feel like every time I'm coming on here, I'm like, “A client got a job. A client got a job.” So not literally all of my clients are getting new jobs, many of them are loving the jobs they're in and doing other things and working on other goals.
But it is pretty fun that I've had a bunch of clients getting new jobs recently. So that's just super fun. And this client in particular, wanted some very specific things, wanted to work remotely, and really wanted to work with people that she liked who were kind and wonderful. And she found a workplace where that is the case and they offered her a job. And it's pretty fucking exciting. So shout out to that client, we are celebrating you.
Okay, but the thing that we're talking about this week is sort of the antithesis of celebrations and excitement, and that is complaining. So I think that this is a really fun topic, which of course, hilarious because complaining, not so much fun. Although actually a lot of people do sort of, I think, complain for fun. It can kind of be a pastime for people. But in any event, that's what we're going to talk about today.
So I'll just say, complaining can get kind of a bad rap. There are definitely people who are big proponents of like just no complaining, or just like taking a complaining diet or complaining fast where you stop complaining for like a certain amount of time. And I think that those activities can be useful, but I also think that inside of our complaints can be really interesting information.
So one of the things that I want to offer to you is the idea that instead of just judging ourselves or shaming ourselves for complaining, or instead of just like being in the complaining and just in the not liking of what's going on, in that sort of head space, we can kind of step outside of the self that is complaining and sort of regard the complaining with I'm going to offer like mindfulness, but also compassion.
But also I want you to take a bit of a lightheartedness with it. Because sometimes when we have complaints, they can feel very serious and heavy. Sometimes they can be very serious and heavy. Sometimes the things we're complaining about are a really big fucking deal and we want to take them seriously. But being able to step out of that head space and then kind of like look at them from the side with this different framing can also be incredibly useful.
So one of the metaphors that I offered a client recently was that complaining, or noticing what we don't like about something is also how we can word this. Doing that is like a layover, there's nothing wrong with having a layover. I personally don't prefer them, I would prefer to fly direct. But if we have a layover, that's fine. You get off the plane, you go through the airport. If you have a longer layover, maybe you have a meal and then you get on another plane and then you keep going on your journey.
So my point here is, a lot of us, what happens is we get stuck in the complaining, we miss our next flight. We miss all the flights and then we like live in the fucking Denver Airport, like forever. And that just isn't very fun, and it doesn't tend to get us where we want to go, like literally metaphorically, whatever. Right?
So what I want to offer to you is that if you find yourself complaining, if you find yourself focusing on the negative, if you find yourself obsessing about what's not working, nothing has gone wrong, you are on the layover. And once you're on the layover, you know, you're already off the plane so it's like, what can we do from the layover that's useful?
In a literal layover I'm always looking for somewhere to get something to eat, or like a cute little shop I can like peruse all the cute little things while I'm waiting to go on to my next flight. In this metaphorical layover, I think what can be really interesting is, like I was just talking about, is looking at the information inside our complaint with compassion, and mindfulness, and some gentleness maybe for ourselves and self-love.
Because the thing is, when we tend to complain we also, and it depends for everybody, but what I notice is I will complain and then I will judge myself for complaining. And I see this with my clients too, where they complain and then they judge themselves for complaining. Or they complain and then they call themselves names.
It's so interesting, people who would never call anyone else names will just totally call themselves name. They'll be like, I'm being an idiot, I'm being a baby, whatever. But I'm just like, what if instead of name calling and judging ourselves, we're just fascinated, and interested, and open to the fact that, or the idea rather, that there could be something useful inside the complaint?
The thing about complaints is, they can really be gold mines of information. And there are a couple of different ways in which they can be gold mines, and in which we can mine them, depending on what they are. So I think sometimes complaints can be gold mines in that they can reveal to us what we don't like and would like to change.
There are many things in this world that I don't prefer that the way that they are, be the way that they continue to be. And I would like to see them change. And just some obvious examples are like I don't prefer patriarchy. I don't prefer living in a country that was set up based on white supremacy. I don't prefer ableism. I don't prefer heteronormativity. I would like to see those things change.
So if I notice my brain wanting to complain about those, there's nothing wrong with me complaining about those things. But again, I don't want to get stuck in the Denver Airport of like I'm just complaining and I'm not doing anything.
Now, listen, that doesn't mean you have to do something. If you want to complain to do nothing, that's your fucking prerogative. You get to do whatever you want, like we talk about all the time. But for me, what happens if I complain and get stuck there is then I begin to feel helpless, and hopeless, and like there's no point in trying. And I will go directly into the fuck it effect. And that's just not, for me, a very fun place to be. It's not where I want to go.
So complaining and spending time with my own complaints, spending time with my own idea of what's not working from this like kind of sideways perspective of having compassion and gentleness and kindness, and also curiosity to kind of look at the complaint and go like, “What's happening here?” Maybe the complaint is alerting me to something that my values have a lot of thoughts and feelings about, that indicate that I would maybe like to work on that because that's not the way I want the world to be. That can be one way in which our complaints can be a goldmine of information.
Another way that our complaints can be a goldmine of information is that complaints reveal our thinking to us. Complaints, like they reveal our habitual way of seeing things to us. So when we're willing to look at our complaints without judging ourselves, with compassion for ourselves, what we're also going to find sometimes is complaints that we would rather just fucking let go of or not keep or that are no longer relevant. Or sometimes they're not even our complaints, they're the complaints that we have internalized from that social conditioning that we've all received.
So this is kind of like the podcast episode on anger, where we talked about sometimes when we examine our anger, we're like, “Yes, I want to keep this anger.” And then what do I want to do with it? What do I want to do about it? But sometimes when we discover our anger, we're like, “I think I'm going to let that shit go.”
So this is very similar, but with complaining. But I think, you know, just like anger, a lot of us are not looking at our complaints in this kind of sideways view that can kind of help us mine them for information. And that can turn the complaint into something that is like a way to get to know ourselves better, a way to decide who we want to be in the world, a way to be clearer about what the fuck we're trying to do.
And I think looking at our complaints this way, it helps us complete the flight, right? It helps us get on the metaphorical next plane and go to our destination and then have a nice time there, rather than getting stuck in that metaphorical Denver Airport.
So, one of the things that I talk about all the time is instead of starting with what's not working, starting with what is working and then making that list and building up positive emotion. And then using the positive emotion to tackle the what's not working list. And that's a perfectly great way of doing things, I do stand behind that.
But for the purposes of this episode I want to pitch it a little bit different, which is we start with the complaining and we kind of like write the complaints down. And then we step out of the self who is doing the complaining and we sort of do like a little sideways step into this other kind of identity. You know, the witness identity. Literally, it's still going to be you, okay, obviously, right?
But it's like stepping outside of the head space of the complaint, into the head space of observing the complaint. Into the head space of examining the complaint. Into the head space of like, what is this complaint teaching me about myself? What is this complaint creating for me? Is this bringing something to my attention? And then where do we want to go from there?
So where do we go from there is, again, we mine the complaint for information. And then after that point, how do we complete this? Like, how do we get out of the fucking Denver Airport and back onto the plane, so we can keep going on and about our journey?
I think the way we do that is we look at the complaints, we see what there is to learn. And if the complaint is showing you something where you're like, “Ah, this complaint is revealing to me that I have values and that stuff that's happening in the world is not aligning to those values, and I want to do something about that,” then great.
From that space, you can think about, what do I want to do about this? And how do I want to think about it? Do I want to stay in the head space of the complaint? Is that helping me get this work done that I want to get done in the world? Or do I need to move into a different head space in order to address this?
The complaint is just the container for the information that your brain is trying to talk to you about or trying to talk to other people about. Once you've discovered the container, what's inside the container, you know, you step outside, you look at the complaint sort of like from the side view, and you find out what's important about it. And then you can let that container go and move on with what's important about it.
So maybe you have a complaint about something that's happening in your workplace where you're like, “They're always expecting the women to do all this fucking extra unpaid labor and it's bullshit.” Right? So that's the complaint that your brain is stating to you. And then you step outside of it, you look at it a little bit with that gentleness, that compassion, we're not going to judge you for having the complaint.
We're also for the moment going to stay out of judging everyone else, right, who the complaint is referring to. And we just go like, “Huh, does this complaint align with my values? With who I want to be in the world? What's the useful information in here? What's the useful content?” Like blah, blah, blah, right?
And so in that case, I would be like, “Yeah, I actually want to do something about when there's sexism. Okay, what do I want to do?” And I might need to move out of the initial anger or the initial complaint energy in order to figure out what I want to do. I may need to move into like curiosity. I may need to move into possibility. I may need to move into like, what's my vision for what this could look like instead?
Because complaining inside my head is not necessarily going to make a change happen. Complaining as in like filing some kind of official paperwork, that may make a change happen. That's an option, but the internal complaining, like that package that that information is coming in, the container of the information being the complaint, we get to decide if we want to keep that or let it go.
And then I like to think about not just, like from the energy of the complaint sometimes it can seem to us like it's hopeless, or it's the status quo, or it's always been this way, or nothing we can do actually matters. So I like to get out of that head space because that head space tends to keep people in that fucking stuck in the complaint layover in the Denver Airport.
Also, I'm sorry, Denver Airport, you did nothing. It was just the airport I thought of. The Denver Airport is lovely. But any airport that we're in a layover on, usually we don't want to be there, right? I mean, we want to be there until we need to leave, but we don't want to get stuck there. Okay, this is like a very belabored metaphor, but you get it because you're smart.
Okay, so that is an example of like we may want to drop the container, we may want to drop the complaint and just take out the information that the complaint was bringing to our consciousness. And then there may be another complaint where we don't want to keep any of it, right?
This is such a silly example, but recently we had a little bit of a colder snap for a minute. But like a California colder snap, so like not actually really cold. But, you know, we had had some 70 degree days and then it got a little cooler. And my brain was like, “No, no, no, I'm used to 70 degree days now. Like that's what my life is.”
So when it got a little colder I was kind of mad at it. And then I did complain about it. And so that's an example where there's nothing wrong with that complaining, but that complaining wasn't bringing anything up that I was going to do anything about. Like I'm not going to move away because I had some colder days, and I didn't really want to focus on that.
So once I could see my complaining with the gentleness, the mindfulness, I'm like, oh yeah, my brain is very hyper focused on what's not working. But that's a case where I would actually just like to focus on what is working instead and enjoy the days that I have until it gets to be 70 again because there's something to enjoy about them. And I live in California, it was still sunny, it was still beautiful, I was still taking long walks, and there was so much to enjoy.
So in that case I didn't need to necessarily do anything from that complaint. That was a complaint that I was just able to see. And I was like, I think I've already addressed enough of that. Like a year ago when I was living in Seattle and I was like, “I don't want to be rained on anymore.” I chose to take that complaint and actually, you know, I moved to California, right?
So there are times when even that sort of complaint is going to have useful information, that is showing me something where I do want to make a change. But in this case, I was just like, “Oh yeah, no, I don't actually want to do anything about this. So I don't need to waste my time on it.”
So just to review, a complaint is just information, but it's interesting information. It's information you can use to learn more about you, and to have a better relationship with you, and to create a life and a career that's more of what you want. So a lot of times we just get stuck in our complaints and that's like getting stuck in an airport and missing our layover and just never leaving.
So it's not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not a lot of fun. Probably not what you want to be doing with your time. So when we can kind of come into mindfulness and look at our complaint, mindfully look at it with compassion, look at it with like gentleness, and self-kindness, and not use it to beat ourselves up. But also not use it to just decide the world's hopeless, then we can decide what we want to do about it.
And sometimes we're going to want to do a lot of shit about it. Sometimes we're going to get real fired up, and we're going to want to take a bunch of action and we're like, yeah. And other times, we're going to be like, “You know what brain? Thank you for that information that it is 10 degrees colder, but I think I will go back to focusing on what is working. And I'm just going to let this complaint go and just get directly on the next airplane, instead of stopping to have a meal in this airport.”
So here's my homework for y'all, I want you to get a piece of paper, or your phone and I want you to write down 10 things you frequently complain about. And then I want you to go through that list and figure out which of these are things I complain about out of habit that like, they're not alerting me to something where my values are not aligned. They're not alerting me to something I want to change. Like, this is just like habitual verbal chatter.
And which of these things are something I want to fucking do something about? And for all of it how can this be a way that I can get to know myself better? How can this be a way I can support myself more? What is this alerting me to that's actually useful? And where am I actually just like getting stuck in a layover when I just want to get on the next plane and move on?
And there are no right answers with this, but I think it's going to be an interesting and useful way for you to think through things when your brain gets really stuck on obsessing about what's not working. So that's what I have for y'all this week.
And then, of course, I want to tell y'all that right now I am signing people up for the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching mastermind, which is going to be incredible. It's going to be career coaching, it's going to be life coaching, it's going to be absolutely life changing.
And I also am signing people up for one on one coaching. So if you want to have a cozy coaching relationship, just me and you and your brain, making your career and everything in your life amazing, that's also an option for you. And you can head on over to my website to sign up for a consult call for either one. All right, thanks, y'all. Have a great week, and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey, y'all. Happy Wednesday, I'm so excited to talk to you today. And I have some fun news that I've been celebrating, which is that so far I have signed up nine people for the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching program. And I am so thrilled, and so delighted, and so excited for these wonderful humans who have signed up to come on this journey with me and to be part of the very first Satisfied As Fuck cohort.
It's going to be a really incredible time and I cannot wait to see all of the exceptionally cool things that my clients will do with the coaching and the things I'm teaching in that program. So that's just pretty exciting. So I wanted to share that with you so you could celebrate it with me too, because you've been a big part of this journey. And it's a pretty wonderful thing, so let's celebrate together.
And then also I want to celebrate another client who landed a new job. So, I have the most amount of clients I've ever had at once right now, which is super fun. But it also means I feel like every time I'm coming on here, I'm like, “A client got a job. A client got a job.” So not literally all of my clients are getting new jobs, many of them are loving the jobs they're in and doing other things and working on other goals.
But it is pretty fun that I've had a bunch of clients getting new jobs recently. So that's just super fun. And this client in particular, wanted some very specific things, wanted to work remotely, and really wanted to work with people that she liked who were kind and wonderful. And she found a workplace where that is the case and they offered her a job. And it's pretty fucking exciting. So shout out to that client, we are celebrating you.
Okay, but the thing that we're talking about this week is sort of the antithesis of celebrations and excitement, and that is complaining. So I think that this is a really fun topic, which of course, hilarious because complaining, not so much fun. Although actually a lot of people do sort of, I think, complain for fun. It can kind of be a pastime for people. But in any event, that's what we're going to talk about today.
So I'll just say, complaining can get kind of a bad rap. There are definitely people who are big proponents of like just no complaining, or just like taking a complaining diet or complaining fast where you stop complaining for like a certain amount of time. And I think that those activities can be useful, but I also think that inside of our complaints can be really interesting information.
So one of the things that I want to offer to you is the idea that instead of just judging ourselves or shaming ourselves for complaining, or instead of just like being in the complaining and just in the not liking of what's going on, in that sort of head space, we can kind of step outside of the self that is complaining and sort of regard the complaining with I'm going to offer like mindfulness, but also compassion.
But also I want you to take a bit of a lightheartedness with it. Because sometimes when we have complaints, they can feel very serious and heavy. Sometimes they can be very serious and heavy. Sometimes the things we're complaining about are a really big fucking deal and we want to take them seriously. But being able to step out of that head space and then kind of like look at them from the side with this different framing can also be incredibly useful.
So one of the metaphors that I offered a client recently was that complaining, or noticing what we don't like about something is also how we can word this. Doing that is like a layover, there's nothing wrong with having a layover. I personally don't prefer them, I would prefer to fly direct. But if we have a layover, that's fine. You get off the plane, you go through the airport. If you have a longer layover, maybe you have a meal and then you get on another plane and then you keep going on your journey.
So my point here is, a lot of us, what happens is we get stuck in the complaining, we miss our next flight. We miss all the flights and then we like live in the fucking Denver Airport, like forever. And that just isn't very fun, and it doesn't tend to get us where we want to go, like literally metaphorically, whatever. Right?
So what I want to offer to you is that if you find yourself complaining, if you find yourself focusing on the negative, if you find yourself obsessing about what's not working, nothing has gone wrong, you are on the layover. And once you're on the layover, you know, you're already off the plane so it's like, what can we do from the layover that's useful?
In a literal layover I'm always looking for somewhere to get something to eat, or like a cute little shop I can like peruse all the cute little things while I'm waiting to go on to my next flight. In this metaphorical layover, I think what can be really interesting is, like I was just talking about, is looking at the information inside our complaint with compassion, and mindfulness, and some gentleness maybe for ourselves and self-love.
Because the thing is, when we tend to complain we also, and it depends for everybody, but what I notice is I will complain and then I will judge myself for complaining. And I see this with my clients too, where they complain and then they judge themselves for complaining. Or they complain and then they call themselves names.
It's so interesting, people who would never call anyone else names will just totally call themselves name. They'll be like, I'm being an idiot, I'm being a baby, whatever. But I'm just like, what if instead of name calling and judging ourselves, we're just fascinated, and interested, and open to the fact that, or the idea rather, that there could be something useful inside the complaint?
The thing about complaints is, they can really be gold mines of information. And there are a couple of different ways in which they can be gold mines, and in which we can mine them, depending on what they are. So I think sometimes complaints can be gold mines in that they can reveal to us what we don't like and would like to change.
There are many things in this world that I don't prefer that the way that they are, be the way that they continue to be. And I would like to see them change. And just some obvious examples are like I don't prefer patriarchy. I don't prefer living in a country that was set up based on white supremacy. I don't prefer ableism. I don't prefer heteronormativity. I would like to see those things change.
So if I notice my brain wanting to complain about those, there's nothing wrong with me complaining about those things. But again, I don't want to get stuck in the Denver Airport of like I'm just complaining and I'm not doing anything.
Now, listen, that doesn't mean you have to do something. If you want to complain to do nothing, that's your fucking prerogative. You get to do whatever you want, like we talk about all the time. But for me, what happens if I complain and get stuck there is then I begin to feel helpless, and hopeless, and like there's no point in trying. And I will go directly into the fuck it effect. And that's just not, for me, a very fun place to be. It's not where I want to go.
So complaining and spending time with my own complaints, spending time with my own idea of what's not working from this like kind of sideways perspective of having compassion and gentleness and kindness, and also curiosity to kind of look at the complaint and go like, “What's happening here?” Maybe the complaint is alerting me to something that my values have a lot of thoughts and feelings about, that indicate that I would maybe like to work on that because that's not the way I want the world to be. That can be one way in which our complaints can be a goldmine of information.
Another way that our complaints can be a goldmine of information is that complaints reveal our thinking to us. Complaints, like they reveal our habitual way of seeing things to us. So when we're willing to look at our complaints without judging ourselves, with compassion for ourselves, what we're also going to find sometimes is complaints that we would rather just fucking let go of or not keep or that are no longer relevant. Or sometimes they're not even our complaints, they're the complaints that we have internalized from that social conditioning that we've all received.
So this is kind of like the podcast episode on anger, where we talked about sometimes when we examine our anger, we're like, “Yes, I want to keep this anger.” And then what do I want to do with it? What do I want to do about it? But sometimes when we discover our anger, we're like, “I think I'm going to let that shit go.”
So this is very similar, but with complaining. But I think, you know, just like anger, a lot of us are not looking at our complaints in this kind of sideways view that can kind of help us mine them for information. And that can turn the complaint into something that is like a way to get to know ourselves better, a way to decide who we want to be in the world, a way to be clearer about what the fuck we're trying to do.
And I think looking at our complaints this way, it helps us complete the flight, right? It helps us get on the metaphorical next plane and go to our destination and then have a nice time there, rather than getting stuck in that metaphorical Denver Airport.
So, one of the things that I talk about all the time is instead of starting with what's not working, starting with what is working and then making that list and building up positive emotion. And then using the positive emotion to tackle the what's not working list. And that's a perfectly great way of doing things, I do stand behind that.
But for the purposes of this episode I want to pitch it a little bit different, which is we start with the complaining and we kind of like write the complaints down. And then we step out of the self who is doing the complaining and we sort of do like a little sideways step into this other kind of identity. You know, the witness identity. Literally, it's still going to be you, okay, obviously, right?
But it's like stepping outside of the head space of the complaint, into the head space of observing the complaint. Into the head space of examining the complaint. Into the head space of like, what is this complaint teaching me about myself? What is this complaint creating for me? Is this bringing something to my attention? And then where do we want to go from there?
So where do we go from there is, again, we mine the complaint for information. And then after that point, how do we complete this? Like, how do we get out of the fucking Denver Airport and back onto the plane, so we can keep going on and about our journey?
I think the way we do that is we look at the complaints, we see what there is to learn. And if the complaint is showing you something where you're like, “Ah, this complaint is revealing to me that I have values and that stuff that's happening in the world is not aligning to those values, and I want to do something about that,” then great.
From that space, you can think about, what do I want to do about this? And how do I want to think about it? Do I want to stay in the head space of the complaint? Is that helping me get this work done that I want to get done in the world? Or do I need to move into a different head space in order to address this?
The complaint is just the container for the information that your brain is trying to talk to you about or trying to talk to other people about. Once you've discovered the container, what's inside the container, you know, you step outside, you look at the complaint sort of like from the side view, and you find out what's important about it. And then you can let that container go and move on with what's important about it.
So maybe you have a complaint about something that's happening in your workplace where you're like, “They're always expecting the women to do all this fucking extra unpaid labor and it's bullshit.” Right? So that's the complaint that your brain is stating to you. And then you step outside of it, you look at it a little bit with that gentleness, that compassion, we're not going to judge you for having the complaint.
We're also for the moment going to stay out of judging everyone else, right, who the complaint is referring to. And we just go like, “Huh, does this complaint align with my values? With who I want to be in the world? What's the useful information in here? What's the useful content?” Like blah, blah, blah, right?
And so in that case, I would be like, “Yeah, I actually want to do something about when there's sexism. Okay, what do I want to do?” And I might need to move out of the initial anger or the initial complaint energy in order to figure out what I want to do. I may need to move into like curiosity. I may need to move into possibility. I may need to move into like, what's my vision for what this could look like instead?
Because complaining inside my head is not necessarily going to make a change happen. Complaining as in like filing some kind of official paperwork, that may make a change happen. That's an option, but the internal complaining, like that package that that information is coming in, the container of the information being the complaint, we get to decide if we want to keep that or let it go.
And then I like to think about not just, like from the energy of the complaint sometimes it can seem to us like it's hopeless, or it's the status quo, or it's always been this way, or nothing we can do actually matters. So I like to get out of that head space because that head space tends to keep people in that fucking stuck in the complaint layover in the Denver Airport.
Also, I'm sorry, Denver Airport, you did nothing. It was just the airport I thought of. The Denver Airport is lovely. But any airport that we're in a layover on, usually we don't want to be there, right? I mean, we want to be there until we need to leave, but we don't want to get stuck there. Okay, this is like a very belabored metaphor, but you get it because you're smart.
Okay, so that is an example of like we may want to drop the container, we may want to drop the complaint and just take out the information that the complaint was bringing to our consciousness. And then there may be another complaint where we don't want to keep any of it, right?
This is such a silly example, but recently we had a little bit of a colder snap for a minute. But like a California colder snap, so like not actually really cold. But, you know, we had had some 70 degree days and then it got a little cooler. And my brain was like, “No, no, no, I'm used to 70 degree days now. Like that's what my life is.”
So when it got a little colder I was kind of mad at it. And then I did complain about it. And so that's an example where there's nothing wrong with that complaining, but that complaining wasn't bringing anything up that I was going to do anything about. Like I'm not going to move away because I had some colder days, and I didn't really want to focus on that.
So once I could see my complaining with the gentleness, the mindfulness, I'm like, oh yeah, my brain is very hyper focused on what's not working. But that's a case where I would actually just like to focus on what is working instead and enjoy the days that I have until it gets to be 70 again because there's something to enjoy about them. And I live in California, it was still sunny, it was still beautiful, I was still taking long walks, and there was so much to enjoy.
So in that case I didn't need to necessarily do anything from that complaint. That was a complaint that I was just able to see. And I was like, I think I've already addressed enough of that. Like a year ago when I was living in Seattle and I was like, “I don't want to be rained on anymore.” I chose to take that complaint and actually, you know, I moved to California, right?
So there are times when even that sort of complaint is going to have useful information, that is showing me something where I do want to make a change. But in this case, I was just like, “Oh yeah, no, I don't actually want to do anything about this. So I don't need to waste my time on it.”
So just to review, a complaint is just information, but it's interesting information. It's information you can use to learn more about you, and to have a better relationship with you, and to create a life and a career that's more of what you want. So a lot of times we just get stuck in our complaints and that's like getting stuck in an airport and missing our layover and just never leaving.
So it's not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not a lot of fun. Probably not what you want to be doing with your time. So when we can kind of come into mindfulness and look at our complaint, mindfully look at it with compassion, look at it with like gentleness, and self-kindness, and not use it to beat ourselves up. But also not use it to just decide the world's hopeless, then we can decide what we want to do about it.
And sometimes we're going to want to do a lot of shit about it. Sometimes we're going to get real fired up, and we're going to want to take a bunch of action and we're like, yeah. And other times, we're going to be like, “You know what brain? Thank you for that information that it is 10 degrees colder, but I think I will go back to focusing on what is working. And I'm just going to let this complaint go and just get directly on the next airplane, instead of stopping to have a meal in this airport.”
So here's my homework for y'all, I want you to get a piece of paper, or your phone and I want you to write down 10 things you frequently complain about. And then I want you to go through that list and figure out which of these are things I complain about out of habit that like, they're not alerting me to something where my values are not aligned. They're not alerting me to something I want to change. Like, this is just like habitual verbal chatter.
And which of these things are something I want to fucking do something about? And for all of it how can this be a way that I can get to know myself better? How can this be a way I can support myself more? What is this alerting me to that's actually useful? And where am I actually just like getting stuck in a layover when I just want to get on the next plane and move on?
And there are no right answers with this, but I think it's going to be an interesting and useful way for you to think through things when your brain gets really stuck on obsessing about what's not working. So that's what I have for y'all this week.
And then, of course, I want to tell y'all that right now I am signing people up for the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching mastermind, which is going to be incredible. It's going to be career coaching, it's going to be life coaching, it's going to be absolutely life changing.
And I also am signing people up for one on one coaching. So if you want to have a cozy coaching relationship, just me and you and your brain, making your career and everything in your life amazing, that's also an option for you. And you can head on over to my website to sign up for a consult call for either one. All right, thanks, y'all. Have a great week, and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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