Cut the Complaining: Day #5

Cut the Complaining. “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Depending on whether or not you look at expressing feelings about a frustrating situation as a means for processing information and/or getting support, I either processed a lot of information and got support, and/or I totally failed at the challenge today.

That said, it felt so nice to be able to talk about what was on my mind with someone who had been through something similar and feel supported in a way I needed. So even if it was a challenge “fail” I really needed to talk about it and feel better.

As I think about it now, complaining is often about being out of control and wishing things were different than they are. Sometimes we have the power to make changes to the situation. At others, we can only control our thoughts, actions, and reactions related to what is going on.

To work on letting go of the need to be in control – and to continue on with the coloring activity I started during the first challenge, I decided to try a little experiment. I picked a mandala to color and decided to use 4 colors only on it which I would choose without looking at what I was grabbing. Though I decided how to arrange the colors on the mandala, I would have no input into what they were and blindly pull them out of a bag.

Here is the first one:

I found this exercise to be freeing in several ways. One was not having to make decisions about what colors to include. A second was to trust that the right colors were in the bag. Another was to believe everything would be fine even if the colors clashed or I didn’t like them. Yet another was to remember that this exercise and design are just for me (though I knew I would probably share it here) so it does not matter if I “fail” or am imperfect.  

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