How not to whine
2006-1-27
Whining won't help. Not you and not anybody. That's one of the first things you learn in NLP. But you need to communicate a problem you are having. You need to clearly state what's wrong. How can you do that without whining? Here's some thoughts:
- communicate only your own feelings and impressions. Talk from your perspective. DO :"What you just said hurt me. It seemed to me you had little respect for me." DON'T: "You always hurt me. You have no respect!"
- Do not draw conclusions about other people's intentions. You can never know them. But you know how their acts make you feel.
- Focus on solutions, not on the problem. Analyzing the problem only makes it's effects even more aware to you. Searching for reasons why you have been hurt will a) not end the hurt and b) focus you on things outside your control.
- Be careful about the stories you tell - yourself and the outside world. Whining is a constant repeating of the "I hurt" mantra. If you think about "Intention Manifestation" that is a bad thing to manifest. Our stories make us aware of the aspects they emphasize. Focus on solving problems in your (mind) talk.
- Acknoledge your hurt. I'm totally not suggesting "positive thinking" like in "I'm happy, Nothing wrong with my life." If there is something hurting, feel the hurt. Just feel it. Don't analyze and go finding the guilty party. Communicate you hurt by simply stating it: "That hurt." No guilty charges, no accusations. More often than not the persons who hurt us didn't really intend to. (See above about conclusions and intentions)
- A lot of what I've said builds on the following: Focus on what you can do or change about the situation. Searching for a guilty party usually brings us to things outside our control. And that leads to a feeling of helplessnes (which can ultimately lead to rage and frusration). Focusing on things inside our control gives us a feeling of power, of "being in charge". And it very easily breaks the whine/complain/whine cycle...
I'm writing these things down here as much for my own benefit as that of my reader(s). It's too easy to forget and fall back on the well worn strategy of complaining and whining. We learned that as children, and back then is might have been usefull. "Mommieeeee.... " How's that for giving up control? Someone else needs to make us feel good again, needs to solve our problems?
We need to learn that ultimately we and only we ourselves are in any position to get our lives sorted out. And only if we do so ourselves will we really be happy with it.
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alles Bild, Text und Tonmaterial ist © Martin Spernau, Verwendung und Reproduktion erfordert die Zustimmung des Authors