Bitch About It | Day 8

What if you just gave yourself permission to complain?

Take some time to digest that question. I pride myself on feeling my feelings (and honestly, I love to bitch about stuff), but I also know that nobody loves a complainer. I know the cost of focusing on all the shit that’s going wrong and to assign blame to pretty much everyone except myself. I’ve learned to manage my energy in more effective ways, but at the same time, the unspoken mandate to stuff down our feelings and just smile and act like we are ok keeps us from getting real about what’s really going on.

It’s actually really healthy to complain and to be real about our feelings, as long as we’re aware that’s what we’re doing. The trick? Don’t judge your judgments, but create a container around them. That means being totally honest and compassionate with yourself by feeling your feelings, even when they might be kind of edgy. Create a space for yourself to express them, because, after all, denying your feelings can make them come out in other ways in your life. However, don’t let your complaints deplete your energy and take your attention away from other things in your life. Spending your time fixated on what’s going wrong can be such a drain. In exercising compassion and self-awareness, we can strike just the right balance, and our complaints actually become gateways to change and new solutions.