Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Fasting from complaining

Heather has a fascinating, inspiring post about deciding to stop complaining for two weeks:

For me, by the time I was in college all that complaining led to depression, loneliness, and misery...For a time I was so depressed and anxious about all my fears and complaints that I was put on anti-depressants and sent to a psychiatrist. That didn't help because he let me complain away. [...]

[Fasting from complaining for two weeks] was especially hard since I also had to stop complaining in my journal and in my thoughts. Cleansing your thought life is tricky. However, if you can't say things out loud after a while you stop thinking them. I started looking for good stuff to say and think instead. I also learned to listen instead of trying to think what to say. (Complainers seldom listen because they are too busy thinking about themselves.) I found that not complaining changed other areas of my life...

Read the whole post, it's great.