How To Replace Complaining With Healthier Habits

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How do you eliminate complaining and replace it with healthier habits? So I. I personally have dealt with this in the same way. I talked about my lasso thing of am I complaining about something because I need to do something, or am I complaining about something that. That I really just need to let go? I need to stop obsessing about it. And I always try to put things in those two categories of what can I. What action step can I do to make whatever I'm dealing with easier or to relieve some pressure? Am I complaining about my family when I simply could ask for their help with something? Am I complaining about how mud is always tracked in when I can simply just ask my kids to take their shoes off at the front door? So that's where. Where. I mean, is there something I can do? Am I complaining that my husband doesn't spend enough time with me in the evening and just wants to check out and watch tv? And so instead I just continue to complain that I can do something there, or is it something that I can't help? You know, on the same side, if my husband's gone for the summer because that's his job or, you know, my mom's struggling with some aging things, and so I'm grieving, not having a normal kind of grandparent. Those are things where that is the reality, and they're not things I can change or really do much about. And so to change my mindset and look at the positive. And a really good example of this last week was I was like at my peak of anxiety with the buying, selling, the deadlines, just like different things last week and I stumbled across the podcast by Dr. Carolyn Leaf. And we like her and her. Her information on the brain. And it was called how to Flip the Script of Stress. And I was like, I don't really listen to podcasts cause I'm too busy and. But please, please listen to this one.

Except for the pure desire, except for this one.

But I was like, you know what? This feels like a God thing. I better listen to this. And I listened to it. And then what I did, next step was I sent it to John, my husband, and I said, can you listen to this and help hold me accountable? Because I'm really letting my thoughts run wild and this process isn't gonna be done tomorrow. And so he listened to it. And she happened to say it was her most stressful year of her life and she was buying and selling a house that year. And I was like, oh my gosh, me too. This is so from God. Someone knows Me, But I complained about something later, and I am in the season of I've done what I can do. Now it's just a waiting game and a trusting God in certain circumstances. And so John was able to say, okay, what's the silver lining in this? Because, you know, we've done what we can do here, and now we're just waiting and trusting. And that was really helpful for me. So separate. Can I do something? Do I need to trust? Do I need to bring in a friend to help remind me when my brain starts to go wild? Because being limpic and that's a real thing.

Yeah. It makes me think of a Bob Newhart skit that we show a lot. If you're complaining all the time, you just need to stop it. Just go watch that video. That'll cure you. No, Bob Newhart, may he rest in peace, shows us that just determining I'm gonna stop complaining often is not effective because there's a pattern there that we've gotten into. And I like what you said about seeing the two sides. To me, complaint is one side of a coin and gratitude is the other. In every situation, there is another side of the coin. We could flip over and see the gratitude angle. And I remember thinking about this a lot. I heard a sermon by Pastor Andy Stanley. He tells the story of, you know, driving home and the garage door comes up and the kids toys are all over. So before he can pull in, he has to get out and move all his kids toys. And he's like, grumbling. And I've told them all the time to not do this, and their bikes are everywhere. And then he'd spent an afternoon with a couple that was grieving the loss of a child, and they had no other kids because they battled with infertility. And when they were finally able to have one, they lost it. You know, he's sitting in that gravity, and he comes home and the garage door goes up, and he has that moment of like, lord, thank you that I have children whose bikes I have to pick up, and he can still train them to, you know, put their bikes away. But that moment of like, I've got a full garage of toys. Isn't that awesome? You know, we can be pumping gas, like, oh, the price of gas. Or thinking, lord, thank you that I've got kids that I run around and they love to do things, and I'm busy seeing their sports. Thank you that I get to do this. Or, you know, maybe we're in recovery and our wife is angry at us, and we can be grumbling, complaining. Or we could say, lord, thank you that I've got a spouse that is still with me, because many don't. Many have a spouse who wants nothing to do with them, and I'll never talk to him again. And your marriage isn't perfect, but she's still there. There's a gratitude angle. So it's, I think, flipping that coin. And it's one of the exercises Dr. Ted taught men in the seven pillars of freedom very early on is that part of their nightly routine should be five gratitudes. That even if you had the worst day, there are some of those even if kind of gratitude statements to say, Lord, even if nothing went right today, thank you that I have your love. Thank you that I have the promise of heaven. Thank you that you've given me your holy spirit, thank you that your mercy is new every morning. And if every night we write down five gratitudes from the day, it's like our brain, we're training our brain to see the other side of the coin. And that's what I would. Would finish with is just that I think complaining and gratitude are kind of like muscles. And whichever one we exercise the most, it grows. And when we get into that complaining mode and I. I know I can get there too, of like, you know, at first it's the kids and then it's the bills, and then it's the mess in the house, and then it's. And then pretty much everything. You're just like, I hate my life. And then the truth is like, man, no, I have a. I have a great life, and I can be thankful for this and this. And if I train my mind for that, I will start to see those gratitudes. So I think it takes discipline. It takes that routine. And I love what you said, that if you're really struggling, ask someone to help you in that area. Have someone keep you accountable. Make it part of your plan of change. Because it really is, I think, an area that we can minimize but really makes a major difference in our outlook if we're choosing to see gratitude over complaining and grumbling. So it's worth paying attention to and yeah. See how you might be able to find the other side of the coin. Yeah.

And I think it in even in all the things we talk about on this show, everything, have people around you who have been there, done that and understand what you're going through. Because we don't ever want to, like, spiritually bypass anything either. If you say, oh, my husband just had an affair, and it's like, well, at least you have a husband. So I love the and you know, that we learned when we were in our PSAP training of, you know, it is sad that my kids don't have some active grandparents that I hope they have. And I'm also really thankful that we get to have my mom at our family and even though she's more like our daughter now than my mom, that we can say and you know, we can be sad about things and thankful at the same time and acknowledge those feelings. You know, Jenna re Mersma I know she does that too. It's like, thank you for the work you've done or, you know, that met a need or acknowledging the hurt and moving forward and seeing the silver lining in it.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of strategies there. And it is, I think, similar to what we talk about a lot. It's a part of changing our brain, rewiring our brain, learning to take on that new perspective and develop a perspective that is more rooted in what God has done, what he says in His Word, and that that takes time.