love,romance and relationship

Perhaps the most important step in quitting the habit of complaining is to disconnect the undesirable behavior from your identity.  A common mistake chronic complainers make is to self-identify with the negative thoughts running through their minds.  Such a person might admit, “I know I’m responsible for my thoughts, but I don’t know how to stop myself from thinking negatively so often.”  That seems like a step in the right direction, and to a certain degree it is, but it’s also a trap.  It’s good to take responsibility for your thoughts, but you don’t want to identify with those thoughts to the point you end up blaming yourself and feeling even worse.

A better statement might be, “I recognize these negative thoughts going through my mind.  But those thoughts are not me.  As I raise my awareness, I can replace those thoughts with positive alternatives.”  You have the power to recondition your thoughts, but the trick is to keep your consciousness out of the quagmire of blame.  Realize that while these thoughts are flowing through your mind, they are not you.  You are the conscious conduit through which they flow.

Mental conditioning

Although your thoughts are not you, if you repeat the same thoughts over and over again, they will condition your mind to a large extent.  It’s almost accurate to say that we become our dominant thoughts, but I think that’s taking it a bit too far.

Consider how the foods you eat condition your body.  You aren’t really going to become the next meal you eat, but that meal is going to influence your physiology, and if you keep eating the same meals over and over, they’ll have a major impact on your body over time.  Your body will crave and expect those same foods.  However, your body remains separate and distinct from the foods you eat, and you’re still free to change what you eat, which will gradually recondition your physiology in accordance with the new inputs.

This is why negative thinking is so addictive.  If you keep holding negative thoughts, you condition your mind to expect and even crave those continued inputs.  Your neurons will even learn to predict the reoccurrence of negative stimuli.  You’ll practically become a negativity magnet.

The trap of negative thinking

This is a tough situation to escape because it’s self-perpetuating, as anyone stuck in negative thinking knows all too well.  Your negative experiences feed your negative expectations, which then attract new negative experiences.

In truth most people who enter this pattern never