Your rights

 

Everyone has a right to complain, don’t they?  If we didn’t complain we would just end up being doormats.  Somebody has to stick up for your right to an opinion … and it’s best if it’s YOU who does that.

 

The benefits of complaining

 

Complaining can get things off your chest.  Make you feel that you have done something in the face of impossibilities – that you’re not powerless.  At the very least, you have exercised your right to free speech. Being assertive also builds up your sense of worth and self-respect.  That in turn makes others respect you and think twice before putting one over on you, doesn’t it?

 

It also helps to build community.  When people hear you complain they often sense communality in the grievance. It provides a talking point upon which to build relationship and a sense of belonging is what we all need. Complaining is very catchy and soon people add their own issues to yours and end up making a mountain out of all their molehills.

 

Complaining is actually not good for you

 

As we have such efficient brains we tend to build stronger neural pathways for the things we do most often … and that’s what makes them easier to do.  Add that to the fact that we already have negatively biased brains for our survival.  We are therefore likely to see the glass half full, complain about it, and then find it easier to focus on how half-full it is, all the while vocalising it more and more.  That is why complaining tends to lead to states of sadness and melancholy that affect our whole lives.

 

It’s bad for your health

 

Complaining is like setting off an alarm.  It causes the stress hormone Cortisol to be released. This increases blood sugar and raises blood pressure.  It affects the hippocampus where all our creative, intelligent thinking happens. We end up moving into fight-or-flight mode as emotions rise and can only see things in terms of black and white.

 

Over time this compromises the immune system and makes the body prone to diseases like diabetes, strokes, obesity and heart disease.  Is it really worth it, we might ask?

 

How to stick up for your rights without killing yourself

 

The trick is to encourage your hippocampus to talk and not your emotions.  That means dealing in facts and being positive.  Complaining without a solution in mind is just venting and gets nowhere.  Solution-focused complaining suggests:

 

1. Have a clear purpose in mind
2. Start whatever your going to say with a positive statement
3. Be specific about the facts and report the emotions rather than feeling them again
4. End on a positive note.

(Otherwise know as the shit sandwich in some more military environments.)

 

The environment that sees the most complaining is probably the home. Here it steadily destroys relationships bit by sound bite, chipping away at the deposit of love and building a wall against intimacy.  There is a specific way for partners to learn how to complain, save you self-respect and possibly your relationship.

 

Countering the effects of complaining

 

Quite simply cultivate an attitude of gratitude … and all the best things in life will come your way.  Your outlook will be positive, your body will be calmer and healthier, you will live longer and people will like being around you.  It’s a win-win situation that is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive.

 

Complaint-proof personal armouring

 

The following simple and yet profound steps will give you super human abilities to withstand the fatal effects of a lifetime in an environment of complaining:

• Learn to be flexible and adapt to changing situations – it’s how we survived the dinosaurs
• Cultivate mindfulness to be aware of your body, become an observer to your emotions and down regulate your fight-or-flight response
• Be future-orientated as hope motivates and the past has gone and can’t be changed
• Be non-judgmental by walking in another’s shoes before you criticize them
• Accept what is beyond your control and concentrate on what you can change
• Be ruthlessly honest and accept your failures as well as your strengths and successes.

 

By being aware of the benefits and all the pitfalls to complaining it allows us to use it to maintain balance in our lives.  That is the greatest achievement in human history, true for the species and for the individual.

Manhood: The Bare Reality by Laura Dodsworth is an honest record of a hundred men. Each man has had his pelvic area photographed, showing hands and penis, with the accompanying interview transcript. I found myself fascinated, as the owner of a penis, to read the connections that others made with theirs. Too many of these stories are sad and negative. So many young men where left, as they still are, to find their own way into manhood.

At the same time as reading this book I also started reading Dodsworth’s other book about women and their breasts. I was struck by the difference between the experiences in both books. Men seem to live on the intersection of their penises and their daily life. Their sense of power comes over as more immediate than that of women, whose awareness of power often happened through breastfeeding, as a past event.

It was reassuring that many men where motivated to be pleasure givers rather than just takers.  Many were also very aware of patriarchy, often from having experienced it as children.  They were the ones who had deliberately chosen to be husbands and fathers in a more emotionally connected way.

There was no getting away from the sadness and confusion that many men had about their sexuality and manhood. Many men had suffered trying to resolve this intimate connection between manhood and their particular manhood or penis – a term that has no equivalent in the feminine.

It was good to see brave owners sharing their struggles with penises that weren’t ‘the ideal,’ either in the flesh or in their own opinions of themselves.  I’m glad that there were testimonies of ed to having found life beyond the penis in deep and satisfying relationships where the heart connection was primary. However, the general impression I got was how important the sexual connection is to men in particular. Denial is so easily interpreted as rejection of not just an act but the person.

This is a great book for all to read to get into the mind of men and a part of what makes them tick.  I’m sure it would have helped me in my teens to have read this and I think it could help many young men who are struggling with their identity as men today.

Regrets can work away inside you like a worm in the heart. They are poisonous and give rise to festering resentment and bitterness. But they are common and we all have regrets. So what’s the remedy and how can you avoid them?

I think regret can be a really positive emotion because it shows that you actually care. But like many positive emotions, when ignored or repressed they become toxic and can be quite destructive.

It seems that you can have regrets for the things you have done, as well as for the things that you have not done. The most potent regrets are those concerning love, maybe because we have such high expectations of our love lives. Not surprisingly then, regret is the most commonly identified emotion after love.

 

The Message in Regret

The message is simple. It is that you haven’t acted as you should have.   Even where regret arises through association it still requires the same response. For instance, this could be the actions of your family, peer group or even your government in other countries. It still requires you to stand up, at the very least, and be counted, either by saying something or taking some action.

 

The Remedy for Regret

The fear I have of regrets is being left with them, unable to remedy them. Most regrets have a window of opportunity when you can do something and the feeling goes. This has been a strong motivator for me … to go and make up after I’ve fallen out with people, to apologise to old girlfriends for not finishing well, to retrace my footsteps and give money or help people I’ve passed by. I have come to value the untroubled sleep that a conscience clear of regret brings.

The emotion that accuses you when your conscience is troubled is the same as regret. It is the voice that speaks from the darkness of our shame when we have violated our own boundaries or values. It is reminding us that we are not being true to ourselves. It may be in incidents in which we did or did not do anything. It can also be through activities or statements in which we are implicated by association.

The only remedy is to hear the message and act on it – stand up and be counted … be true to yourself. All these emotions aim at the same target. They are all moving us to lead lives of integrity, in line with our values and in defense of our boundaries. Our greatest enemy is fear. We count the cost of what others will think, of being exposed and not being understood.

 

How to Live Free of Regret

The first step is simple … be honest. Owning your regret is being honest … and then telling someone about it is liberating. It is a step in being truthful to yourself and open to another.

Being honest also puts your regrets into perspective. It calls them to account … are they genuine regrets or just fantastical ones that evaporate with the telling? Are they realistic or impossible? Are they genuinely yours, aligned with your values, or have they been projected onto you by others?

The second step is to be determined to be more attentive as well as more obedient to that voice. This means being more aware in the moment so that you can hear the slightest whisper of a rising regret. It means moving towards a life of spontaneity and away from a risk-assessed premeditation of everything. It means learning to balance mind and gut and become equally attuned to the sound of both sources of wisdom.

Here’s a simple test to show how attuned you are. Ask yourself honestly … if you eat what is good for you. See what the voice of your inner wisdom replies. Now that you’ve heard it what are you going to do? Obedience nips regret in the bud and will earn you respect – self-respect to start with and then the respect of others too … and you’ll sleep better too.

 

Sexual Regrets

There is much regret associated with our sexuality … many things we wished we hadn’t done or opportunities we regret having missed.  This seems to be a time when sexual regrets are being aired publicly through social media.  It is a window of opportunity to clear the air that we breathe individually and together as a society.  If you feel this is your time you can do this by taking the steps I have outlined above.  If you ask the question of yourself with absolute honesty you will hear the answer that you need to act on.

For those for whom it is too big a question to ask alone or you need a listening ear and help to guide you through that process then call me on 07933 709169 or contact me here.

 

 

 

 

There are books that you read that are a huge help in understanding complex and complicated subjects.  The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der kolk is one of those.  The author is well known in trauma circles and he brings an enquiring mind to his subject.  The result is a book that draws on over thirty years of experience and extensive research, covering many modalities of how to help people understand and deal with the trauma in their lives.

The reader is lead along the path of enquiry and experience that Bessel himself took in discovering the brain’s involvement in processing trauma.  Example of patients are given that are profoundly sobering and uplifting as you become aware of the catastrophic consequences of trauma.  Bessel’s willingness to learn from his patients also lead him to explore many different avenues of treatment that broadened his knowledge of the effects of trauma and how it can be resolved.  This leaves the reader with a broad sweep of understanding that puts each miracle cure into the big picture.  Each one is approached with understanding fro the inside as a practitioner and objectively assessed.

Prevention is better than cure and Bessel’s epilogue for prioritising mental health for a sustainable future is so right, especially considering how it has yet to be effectively acted on.  The appendix is also really helpful in outlining the criteria for diagnosing a subtle but powerful kind of trauma, Developmental Trauma Disorder.  This brings the book round in full circle to our foundations for dealing with life and all it throws at us, or experience of childhood.

I found this book helpful in its authority, clarity and scope for putting trauma into context and re-inspiring me to learn more how to help those I come across who are troubled by its unresolved effects.  It also reinforced my belief in the need for a better informed education with the aim that each child enjoy mental, just as much as physical, health.