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A week ago, I came across a post of a yoga teacher who has set herself a challenge of not complaining for a month
(see: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/05/what-happened-when-i-didnt-complain-for-32-days-susan-mcfadzean/ ). I’ve got immediately inspired and decided to follow her example.
I must admit I have a strong tendency to complain and be negative stemming – I believe- from Polish culture. Try to smile to a stranger on a Polish street and see what happens. He’ll find it highly suspicious or weird and he definitely WON’T smile back (unless it’s part of his job). In Poland, you need to have a REASON to smile. A typical casual chat consist of moaning about everything from weather, through health to politics. In the UK the opening of the traditional conversation is: ‘How are you?’ ‘Fine, thanks’. In Poland it is: ‘Co slychac?’ ‘Stara bieda’ (‘What’s new?’ ‘Same old misery’). Obviously, I shouldn’t use my cultural background as an excuse. We are gifted with free will so that we can overcome bad habits. I was further convinced about that after an inspirational talk by Swami Kailasananda, a senior Sivananda Yoga teacher, at the Sivananda Yoga Centre in Putney this Friday. She said: ‘Contentment is a choice’.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s not about what life throws at you- it’s about how you deal with it. You can’t avoid unpleasant and really painful things happening to you. But it’s entirely in your hands how you react when facing them. Complaining is by far the worst scenario. It doesn’t change anything and makes you feel miserable.
Swami Kailasananda pointed out that what often causes discontent is comparison with others. You might be perfectly happy with what you have until you realize others have more than you. And if in your opinion they don’t deserve it, you start believing the world is unfair and become unhappy. The key to success, Swami says, is to find the source of happiness within, completely independent of the external conditions. Nobody and nothing can give you hapiness. It is already within you- you just need to tap into it. You are truly content if you feel you are doing what you are supposed to do (what your gut feeling tells you, not your rational mind) and what you’re comfortable with. In other words, when you follow your Dharma. If you do something against yourself, let’s say, a job which you don’t really like, you will feel discontent no matter how much money and prestige that job gives you. It’s amazing how many people complain constantly about long working hours, stress and stress- related health conditions, about lack of time for family or friends and yet, do nothing about it! One could say it’s their conscious decision to stay discontent.
Another way of switching to positive thinking is concentrating on what you have, rather on what you don’t. Gratitude for all the blessings that fell on you, starting from the simpliest one: that you are alive helps you to find the contentment. What if you feel no reason to be grateful about anything? If you’re in physical or mental pain, or you went through some traumatic experience? You should find this pain as an opportunity to grow, to unleash unknown potential for spiritual transformation. How often have I seen people drastically changing their lifestyle and priorities after something horrific happened to them! I remember particularly the case of a Japanese girl who was survived a fight with cancer and took up yoga. Yoga and the realization she is not immortal helped her to understand how superficial life she was leading. She could no longer connect to a career-driven husband who even looking at the nature was speaking of its financial potential. She decided to leave the husband and became a devoted yoga practitoner and teacher, finally finding the real happiness, not following the society’s model of it. A serious physical condition, divorce or job loss could be a stimulus to turn your life around and finally become true to yourself.
My personality is constructed in a strange way which enables me to be an overall positive person but makes me struggle with staying content on a daily basis. I’m always hesitant and worried about some small, unimportant decisions, but I plunge myself confidently into life-changing choices such as moving out of the country and starting everything from scratch in another one. I believe my life has been an incredibly happy and lucky one. I’m grateful for all the blessings, such as discovering yoga, becoming a yoga teacher, moving abroad and finding the best partner in the world all; of which turned my life upside-down and made me feel I follow my Dharma. But every single day there will be tiny, irrelevant incidents which bother me much more than they deserve, restricting me from feeling content at the present moment. I’m optimistic enough to believe that with effort and strong will I will be gradually able to change myself into a happier, more peaceful being.
A week after starting my efforts to switch off the complaining mode, I have lots to reflect upon. It’s a great experiment which I’d recommend to anyone as it really makes you aware of how you behave on a daily basis. My first observation was that complaining is almost always accompanied by some strong negative feeling. For me, it’s mostly anger, the emotion I struggle the most with. But it could also be fear or greed, or jealousy. I also noticed, I don’t complain as much as I thought I do. I am discontent quite a lot, though, predominantly because something hasn’t happened exactly the way I wished. Being more aware of my thoughts and words, I can do two things to improve:
1. stop verbally complaining as soon as I catch myself doing it
2. stop mentally complaining by looking at the situation in a detached way
I ask myself: ‘Is it really such a big deal?’ and ‘Isn’t there anything positive about it after all?’ In 99% cases it’s not a big deal at all so I convince myself into staying content regardless of what has happened. And if it’s really bad, I try to see it as a lesson to learn. With a bit of practice and effort, it actually works so it’s worth to give it a try!