Become a More Powerful & Joyful Writer Through Conscious Complaining
As an aspiring writer, you’ve probably noticed: there are HARD parts of writing.
If you’re seeking expertise and fulfillment through a creative craft, there are serious downsides you will face along the way. For creative writers, it’s the frustration of cobbling together beautiful sentences. It’s the difficulty of sitting in one position for hours while typing or writing by hand. It’s the agony of getting a rejection letter from your dream magazine or agent.
It’s the irritation of being constantly interrupted by your boss, your roommate, your partner, or whoever, when you’re just trying to get 1 hour of writing done. It’s the crushing defeat of realizing the 300 pages you’ve written over the last year have no heartbeat and you have to start over.
To me, this is the price of admission to the creative life. While there are just as many, if not more, beautiful and pleasurable things about writing, it doesn’t make the painful parts less real or valid.
Elizabeth Gilbert calls this the “shit sandwich” of the writing life. And all our shit sandwiches are different.
Here’s where complaining can be a huge help or a huge hindrance that stops you from writing all together.
At this point, you might expect me to encourage you to suck it up buttercup. To stop complaining.
You might expect me to tell you what everyone has already told you before: that complaining is bad and makes you a selfish, whiny loser who takes no action. Like this quote from writer Joe Konrath:
“If you can quit, quit. If you can't quit, stop complaining. This is what you chose.”
And there is truth to that.
A habit of complaining can be toxic to our system and keep us stuck in writer’s block and self-doubt. When a constant stream of complaints is running rampant in our minds and in our conversations with others, there’s no doubt that we’ll believe our own thoughts and excuses and the writing will never get done.
But there’s a big missing piece in the advice to just “stop complaining” and accept the hard parts of life.
The missing piece is an acknowledgement of our own human nature, of our own beautiful design.
Negative thoughts and emotions are there for a reason. These anxious, irritated, and frustrated feelings are a part of our brain’s natural defense mechanism.
It’s called negativity bias, and it’s best explained through a little tale about our earliest ancestors. I didn’t make up this story, though I can’t remember who I first heard it from, but it really helps to understand why we’re so predisposed to negativity and complaining.
You see, 200,000 years ago our ancestor, let’s call her Negative Nelly, was hanging out around the fire with her buddies. They were sitting around telling stories as us homo sapiens are wont to do. All of a sudden, Nelly heard something rustling in the bushes. “Hey, I think I hear something in the bushes. Maybe we should get outta here and get back to our cave?”
Her friends simply laughed and laughed, saying, “Chill out, girl! It’s just the wind. You’re such a worrier.” And they continued on relaxing, laughing, telling stories, and feeling pretty damn happy with life.
Negative Nelly heard even more rustling in the bushes. It’s louder, and now it’s even accompanied by a low, malicious growl.
“All right, ya’ll, I’m outta here. I’m hightailing it back to my cave.”
She rose from her seat and leapt into a sprint. As soon as she was out of the circle, a pack of lions leaped from the bushes and began devouring her campfire friends.
With her head-start, our anxious ancestor Nelly made it all the way back to the safety of her cave and lived to see another day and bred more anxious humans.
Our Negative Nelly ancestor survived because she assumed the worst case scenario, complained about it, and it motivated her to get to safety.
Nelly’s chill and happy with life friends, on the other hand, didn’t live to pass down their calm and contended genes. They were eaten. Evolution favors traits that keep a species alive and breeding.
And Nelly passed down her negative, anxious, complaining genes to us, which is why we are always more predisposed to focus on negative outcomes vs. positive ones. It’s easier for us to assume the worst, get frustrated when something goes wrong, and focus on the one mean thing your partner said to you yesterday vs. the thousands of kindnesses he’s done for you over the years.
So if we’re predisposed toward negative and complaining, what’s a writer to do? We can’t just keep the complaining habit running 24/7, though it’s also not healthy to pretend challenges, pain, and negativity bias don’t exist. That’s called spiritual bypassing, and it’s a recipe for repression and depression.
Your painful emotions and thoughts need an outlet. They simply want to be acknowledged for doing the job they were created to do: Keeping you safe!
This is where the tool of conscious complaining comes in!
I learned the term “Conscious Complaining” from Karla McLaren, the author of The Language of Emotions. And she learned this strategy from Barbara Sher and her book, Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want.
The practice is exactly what it sounds like: you complain on purpose. Conscious complaining means setting up an intentional system to release your negative thoughts and emotions so you’re not splattering your negativity and frustration all over other people or yourself when you’re trying to be creative or productive.
Here’s an example of how you might create a ritual of conscious complaining:
Choose a 10-20 minute window of time that’s unhurried and spacious where you can be alone. Maybe right after work or while you’re showering. Be sure to set a timer so you’re focused.
Barbara and Karla recommend choosing a complaining partner, but I feel that we’re more open to vulnerability when this is done alone. Plus, this prevents your negativity from splattering all over your partner and you feeling guilty. So maybe your partner is the ocean or a tree or a lake or your pillow or the birds.
Spend 5 minutes making a quick list of all the things that are hard, frustrating, overwhelming, or pissing you off at the moment. THIS IS YOUR MOMENT to get real about it all. Go no holds barred on your excuses, your grievances, all of it! You’re not selfish or silly or petty. These feelings are coming up for you for a reason.
Then, let ‘er rip! Yell, scream, kick, punch, crank, whine, and cry about it all. Let it all out. The pettier, the whinier, the angrier, the better.
Once the timer goes off, give yourself a big hug and say, “Thank you, I hear you, I love you, I will keep you safe.” Take a deep breath in, and let it all go. If you’re in the shower, you can imagine the complaints washing down the drain. Or if you wrote your complaints down on paper, you can burn the paper.
How you consciously complain is up to you. You can do it on a hike, in the shower, in your car, in your closet into a pillow. The important things to remember are to make it a regular practice of release, keep it short, and allow yourself to be completely honest and vulnerable with yourself.
Conscious Complaining is a practice of honesty. Your negative feelings and thoughts just want to be acknowledged for doing their job, and once you do that, it’s easier to brainstorm solutions to those problems and make empowered decisions on how to move forward.
So if you’re frustrated, overwhelmed, or feeling any negativity around writing, give this practice a try and let me know how it goes in the comments.
Lastly, another strategy for moving through the challenging parts of writing is to get support from a mentor.
How would it feel to have an expert take a look at your writing and help you pinpoint where things are working and where things might need some love?
I’d love to work with you in a free, private Make It Shine assessment!
During your Make It Shine Assessment …
We’ll review your story manuscript or idea together on a Zoom call
I’ll share the specific next steps to revise and edit your story.
You’ll learn what’s working well and identify areas of weakness so you can make it solid, make it shine, and make it ready for publication.
This assessment functions as a “test drive” to see if we’d be a good fit to work together in my 12-week writing workshop.
Book your free call at reneelongwrites.com/assessment, and I can’t wait to help you make your story shine.
That’s all from me today. Thanks for reading, and write on!