[TRANSCRIPT]

Hi friends!  Glad  you found it here to the No Complaining Project's podcast. I'm Cianna Stewart, and I want to extend a very warm welcome to all the new listeners. I don't know if you're here because new year's just happened, or if you found me on Facebook or on Clubhouse or what, but no matter how you got here, thank you for listening! And for deciding to go NoCo, which is my shorthand for "no complaining."

I thought it would be good for all of us to review what we mean by complaining. Because it's different than the dictionary definition, but even more importantly, I found that the more we can keep this in mind, the more we can absorb it into our bones, the better - and even more importantly, easier - this whole process gets.

So I'm going to read to you the short chapter in  my book, on the definition and some of the particular ways of thinking about it, and then I'll chat about it as well. 

Oh, and, right! The book. I wrote a book. It's called, "No Complaints: How to Stop Sabotaging Your Own Joy." And if you want to get it, it's on my website, at gonoco.com, that's gonoco.com/bookstore. 

So this is chapter one, obviously, because this is the beginning. 

What is, and is not, complaining? The current dictionary definition of complain is to express grief, pain or discontent. This definition is inadequate. In daily language, we have a clear distinction between "filing a complaint" and "being a complainer" that isn't reflected here.
We all need to say what's wrong to get things changed to assert ourselves and our needs. But when we describe someone as "such a complainer," we've been something more than simply, "they express discontent." After years of listening to and analyzing the structure of complaints and their impact, I have a new working definition.

Complain: to express grief, pain, or discontent without contributing to resolving the issue. 

And this is a little sidebar from the - what's actually in the book, but it's really the second part of that that really matters. And it's the difference that makes a difference. Basically. So just to say that again, how we define "complain" here at the No Complaining Project is to express grief, pain, or discontent without contributing to resolving the issue.

The entire goal of this is to move from complaining to taking action. So it's all about that second part. All right. Back into the text. 

Complainers do not want to hear solutions. Even if the issue is something that could be addressed, they grumble to someone who can do nothing to help. Habitual complainer's repeat themselves without taking action. This is exhausting. 

Another aside. The motivation for a lot of the No Complaining Project was really about that exhaustion. I saw far too many people stop getting invited to events or, or feeling like people were turning away from them with not really knowing why. And I could see that it was because they were really complaining a lot and other people were tired of hearing it.

And yet that's not something that we are willing to tell people. So it really broke my heart. And a lot of the motivation for me to keep doing this work is actually because we have this very strange habit in our society of finding it easier to just reject people outright and to turn away from them and leave them isolated then to actually come forward and tell them what's really bothering us.

And what, you know, really is on our minds in an attempt to repair the relationship. We're more willing to cut ourselves off from the relationship than to actually repair the relationship because it's difficult or break some protocol or some kind of something like that. That is just ultimately so hard.

So,  that sentence there, that "habitual complainer's repeat themselves without taking action. And that is exhausting" is really  a lot of the reason why I do this. So now back to the text.

Using the proceeding definition, I distinguish problem solving from complaining because problem solving seeks to resolve the issue. Even if the words are the same, there's a fundamental difference between expressing discontent without intending to act and expressing a grievance directly to someone who can do something about it or who can help figure out what to do. 

So that's, that's problem solving. And that sounds like complaining. It's like the same words and everything, but it's not the same intention. And the goal is to actually try to solve the problem. And that's the thing that is what we really want everybody to be doing. I want people to solve problems. I want to fix the things that are wrong with the world. And so the more that we can orient ourselves towards that
the better I think that it's just going to be for all of us and back to the text.

I make another key distinction between complaining and venting. Sometimes an incident and its related emotions are so current and overwhelming they distract you from paying attention to a current conversation. It can be important to share what's on your mind so that you and the person you're with have a mutual understanding of what each is thinking. This is venting. Sometimes without this, it's difficult to be present. The key here though, is that this can happen only once. If you repeat the issue at another time or to another person that's complaining. 

And so what I'm describing here is those situations when something has really aggravated you and you know, your mind can't stop spinning on it. And you're trying to pay attention, or you're trying to have dinner or you're being in a meeting or, you know, even just keep driving or whatever, but there's something that's just so annoying to you that it's, you know, taking over your whole brain. Meanwhile, the person on the other side is talking to you and they think that you're listening because you're not saying anything, and you know, they're right there next to you. And very little of what they're saying is actually getting through. I think those are situations where we're doing a disservice to the person that we're with and we're not really being present. And the only way for us to have really good, healthy relationships and to be solid in the world is to be present with each other as often as possible, as completely as we are capable of.

And so, I think it's very important to share when something has completely overtaken your brain and is making it difficult for you to concentrate. So that to me is why I find it very important to have venting as an option as something that is actually allowed here. However, remember the distinction: that can happen only once. If you are saying something and especially if you start off, not really being overwhelmed by anything and then while you're talking about it, it starts to work you up and now you're starting to feel it again? That's when you know, you're actually complaining. If you're not feeling that state of overwhelm at the beginning, but you do feel it by the end, that's a sure sign of a complaint that you worked herself up into that feeling as opposed to it coming at you from the outside.

And now back to the text.

The intention of problem solving is to resolve the issue. The intention of venting is to have a shared reality, so you can connect. The intention of complaining. Well, that's covered in the rest of this book. And this podcast. And the website. So, so the big takeaway, the goal of taking on a no complaining practice, also known as Going NoCo is to move away from unhealthy complaining and toward resolving the issues in your world.

And the goal for me of doing this project is to try to solve as many problems as possible and to try to make everyone's relationships as strong and healthy and caring and connected as possible. 

So I hope this definition helps ...