Go Ahead, Complain
With Perspective
You are watching the news and see how disrupted so many people’s lives are. You read the daily counts, number of infections and deaths. You shudder to think about how much others are suffering. And you recognize you are ok, and your family is too. You are not suffering the same way so many other people, and families are suffering. You tell yourself how grateful you are, how grateful you should be. And you ARE grateful.
AND
You are also suffering. You are tired of the same lockdown routine. Tired of eating the same food over and over.
You are exhausted from being a couch hero.
And just as you are about to complain to your spouse, children, or a friend on the phone, you catch yourself and say “I can’t complain, because so many people have it so much worse than me, that would be completely inappropriate.”
But here is the thing, our experiences are unique to us and we compare what is happening with us today versus yesterday, and what tomorrow might be like. And today, our experience is one of physical distance and fear of something we cannot see; fear of something that has no expiration date. We have created new routines and ways of interacting with colleagues, friends, and loved ones. Many of us have tried new recipes and cooked and baked more in the past two months than we have in years, if not our entire lives.
In other words, our world used to be one that went from inside out. Now we see the world from outside in because most of our experience of what is happening is what we see on our screens. And that is not the best, or most accurate account of what is going on. So, it feels like we are living our own version of The Truman Show (a 1998 firm staring Jim Carey as an adopted child raised by a corporation inside a simulated television show revolving around his life).
Years ago, I listened to a six-hour recording of Brene’ Brown giving a talk to a live audience in what would be published as one of her first recordings called “The Power of Vulnerability.” In it she tells the story of the time Hurricane Ike struck Houston. It was late summer and still 95 degrees and 95% humidity. After the Hurricane passed over, her family was left with no air conditioning, no fresh food and no decent shower. She described mosquitos as big as your hand. They had to leave the windows open at night because it was so hot. Trees were down, no traffic lights worked, and no one was able to go work. So, basically a nightmare.
Here is the conversation she had with a good friend on the telephone.
“Brene, how are you doing?”
“I am really good, and I am so thankful because things could have been so much worse. We are ok, and I am just grateful.”
Her friend paused and said “Pants on fire. OMG, save that line for other people. How are your REALLY?”
Brene then said, “I am pissed off, and I am hot, and I am covered in mosquito bites. This is bullshit and I cannot do my laundry.”
Her friend said, “Ok what would be really awesome right now?”
Brene: “A shower, coming out of the shower into an air-conditioned house. Fresh food. Clean laundry.”
Her friend helped her complain, to feel her own frustration, with perspective. This is a strategy for cultivating high resilience. But what if you have a belief that you should not complain, especially if you notice that others are worse off than you are? I have a shame trigger around complaining. I do not like to complain. I struggle with hearing others complain, especially when I see they are living pretty good lives. What I am learning (yes, it is an ongoing process) is that being able to complain is not weakness, or selfishness.
Whole-hearted, healthy, wise, and competent people complain.
They are not ashamed to be upset about something. But they “piss and moan with perspective” as Brene’ says. There is a way to complain and vent that also lets people know you understand the severity of your crisis. Perspective taking is seeing the world as someone else sees it. This is a form of empathy.
What I am learning to do is understand someone else’s experience through their lens. In order to do this, I must put down my own lens, and pick up someone else’s lens in order to see the experience through their eyes. This helps me be comfortable with my own and other’s complaints.
But here is the tricky part. Our lenses are fixed to us. In order to see someone else’s perspective, I must first SEE my own lens in order to know what my biases are. One way I can notice my own lens is to pay attention to what I judge in others. Brene’ found in her research that we judge in areas where we are vulnerable to shame and we pick people who are doing worse than we are doing. What we are anxiously looking for is at least we are better than you.
Buddhist Pema Chodron talks about the power and benefit of compassion which is similar to empathy.
Compassion is a deeply held belief. It is knowing our darkness well enough so we can sit in the darkness with others. It is never a relationship between the wounded and healed, it is a relationship between equals.
When we are in the midst of someone’s pain or discomfort, we have a tendency to want to “flip on the lights,” to try to smooth it over, to make it all ok. But compassion knows how to sit still, and just be. We must learn to cultivate calm which allows us to have perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity.
We get to complain, and complaining is helpful when we keep our perspective and use it to understand what is happening with us and with others. A good complaint can help us bounce back which is the true definition of resilience.
