Editor’s note: Several months ago, I wrote a piece at Brave New Traveler called Quitters Unite: The Joys Of Complaint-Free Travel about Will Bowen, a minister in Kansas City, Missouri who challenged his congregation to go 21 consecutive days without complaining. Bowen’s story struck a cord with Matador Trips co-editor Carlo Alcos, who decided, along with his wife, to take the complaint-free life challenge. Now, a colleague, friend, and all around inspirational woman, Trudy Totty, has taken the idea to a whole new level with a “Whine-Free Week.” Here’s her story of how her Thanksgiving week (notorious for pitfalls and annoyances) went.

Complaining doesn't look good on you, people
Photo: William A. Franklin

I’ve been creating and doing these weird life experiments with myself for decades and this one is the most powerful so far. I’m re-upping for another week and am inviting you to join me. It was way different than what I expected.

Day 4 kicked my…well my head really, but I can’t deny the results:

• Loads more energy (quadrupled my hiking & started running…both unplanned)
• More true connection with those close to me
• A more real, solid, & expanded sense of self
• The very cool sense of having cleared out the junk drawer in my head

This is not at all about being perky or fake, just letting those automatic judgments pass on through instead of knitting them into a sweater to wear – or if you are a geek like me, it means giving them a neutral value instead of a negative one.

My energy continues to increase (with the exception of late Day 3/early Day 4). Still hiking and enjoying the newly acquired running. I jog the few blocks to the grocery store and walk back instead of getting in my car now. Went dancing on Friday and am generally grooving around the house.

The BIG difference is the almost complete lack of the word “should” in my vocabulary or my head. Before trying the Whine-Free Week, I had much resistance to certain kinds of action. I see now that enormous amounts of my energy were going into coaxing, cajoling, badgering and scaring myself into doing what I “should” do. No wonder I was both weary and rebellious.

Notable by their nearly complete absence this week are worry, anxiety, feeling rushed, and defensiveness. This plays out in my relationships as more intimacy/real heart connection, fondness, playfulness, humor o’plenty and shared joy, especially in my closest relationships. I’m more grateful for this deepening love than I can begin to express.

The meta-difference is a relaxed awareness that is completely new. The closest I’ve known to this is a long, loungy vacation or retreat, but now there is none of that underlying anxiety of soon going back to “real life.” Along with the newly minted relaxed awareness is what appears to be natural motivation, but honestly it is still so atypical, so foreign that I’m hesitant to say much more until I explore it further.

I feel almost embarrassed at my own eagerness to complete previously avoided/whined about tasks. Will I become annoying? Is it, gasp, already too late? Don’t answer that.

My Process

Days 1 & 2: More awareness, playfully catching myself whining; interesting to see how it plays out in my interactions with others and inside my own head.

Photo: marko bajlovic

Late Day 3: Slowly at first, an assortment of barnacled old dissatisfactions, complaints, disagreements, and ancient self-criticisms begin to float up to the surface of my awareness and whisper, coax, and eventually bellow for my attention and agreement.

Day 4: Once again, I wake with the opera of what’s not working rising to full crescendo in my head, a heaviness in my body and wanting to hide under the covers and eat potato chips and chocolate and surf the internet until it passes. Once again I opt to not dip into my cornucopia of possible distractions and just (just?) hang with the discomfort in noticing-and-feeling-but-not-diving-into-the-compost-bin sort of way.

Having the container of a single week helps, knowing that this is an experiment, there is a beginning and an end, and yeah, I could quit if I need to but what the hell, it’s only a few more days. Also I’m finding much value in this parallel play approach and I hope you are too. Thank you for the buddy system.

I’ve read that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. I haven’t done enough research to know if it that is true but I do know that this simple Whine-Free Week practice done imperfectly is bringing me better results than the assorted workshops and therapy I’ve done. Twenty-one days seems like a long time for my brain at the moment, but I’m game for one more week and then we’ll see.

Overview Thoughts

I’m surprised that this week’s process followed a very similar pattern as my solo Whine-Free Week. I tried to approach it fresh, without expectation, but I did notice in myself a bit of, “Oh, I’ve done this, I’ve got it figured out, everything is fixed now.” That lasted about half a minute.

There was also a bit of “What does it mean, if anything, that in less than 24 hours all these people have signed up to participate?” Fortunately, all of you opting in was unexpected and serendipitous enough that I was able just stay curious and take it a step at a time, rather than wander off into one of the twin cul-de-sacs of cockiness or insecurity.

Interested in following this week’s Whine-Free Week process? Check out the Whine-Free Facebook page.