That’s the question our yoga teacher, Pleasance, asked us in class recently. She said, helpfully, it can be something you did 10 years ago, if there’s been nothing lately…?
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If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.
— Maya Angelou
Have you heard of the Complaint Free challenge?
A minister named Will Bowen started this in 2006. He was teaching a class in prosperity and offered his students purple bracelets (you can use a rubberband) and a challenge: go 21 days without complaining.
Will Bowen’s vision is to inspire 1% of the world’s population to try the No Complaint Challenge.
The current world population is 7 billion people. 1% of 7 billion is, of course, 700,000,000, which Will thinks will be sufficient to shift the balance to… positive. We could use more positivity, right?
This is one of the most important of all the Buddhist teachings. There are many teachings, and many that are simple, deep, and profoundly helpful in our lives. This one’s right up there at the top.
No one wants to suffer.
When we encounter anyone who is behaving in an angry, mean, rude, impatient, destructive, unkind, or hurtful way — instead of becoming righteously indignant, offended, annoyed or angry ourselves, we can think, “No one wants to suffer.”
Amy Cuddy’s talk Your body language shapes who you are, is the second-most viewed talk in TED’s history. I know! I’d never heard of her either! Perhaps the words “Wonder Woman pose” may ring a bell. Amy is a social psychologist and Associate Professor at Harvard Business School who researches how people judge and influence each other and themselves, and is especially famous for her research and writing on power posing.
This simple technique has, at this point, helped millions of people with a myriad of issues improve their lives, which is beyond extraordinary.
I remember dropping my children off at school years ago, and as I walked through the hallways I found a teacher friend frozen in her tracks, just standing, staring blankly before her. I approached and asked if there was something wrong. She shared that some parents had just now said something surprisingly, stingingly unkind to her. My teacher friend is African American, and the insult, offered by white parents, was racially tinged. She said, “I don’t know how I can get on with my day.”
I asked her if she’d like to try something with me. She responded, “Anything!”
You know those stressful phone calls you have to make to tech support at Verizon where you wait on the phone for ages in hopes that you will eventually reach a person who will be able to help you with your desperate problem?