Lexie, Sydney (my daughters) and I are doing a 7 Day Mind Detox. No complaining or negativity is to escape your lips for 7 days. If you mess up, you have to start again. All three of us had to start over within the first hour.  So here we are, days later, and we are struggling to make it longer than 24 hours.

For this exercise, I am using the following definitions, from dictionary.com :

1.  Complaint –   an expression of discontent, regret, pain, censure, resentment, or faultfinding
2. Negativity –lacking in constructiveness, helpfulness, optimism, cooperativeness, or the like

Refusing to accept a situation and take responsibility for changing it, we lay the blame on others. After a while, it becomes a habit and that habit can become our life.

The average person complains approximately 30 times a day. When we complain, the feelings we get are passed on to anyone who is around and suddenly it becomes a race to see who can out-complain the others. It just so normal to bitch and moan. We seemingly like to sit around and one-up each other with how bad things are. Sometimes our complaining is a way to feel some comradery. “The weather is really awful today.” “I can’t believe how long the lines were at the supermarket.” It can also be an icebreaker for awkward moments.

What’s wrong with complaining? We listen to others complain and others listen to us complain. All this complaining is quite discouraging and unhealthy. It starts, keeps and reinforces our feelings of “I’m not good enough”, “what is my purpose”, and holds us prisoner as a victim. Healthwise, it raises our stress levels which raises our blood pressure. It can weaken our immune system, cause gastrointestinal problems, heart problems, headaches, and various other issues.

I challenge you to try this 7 day mind detox with us. I mean really try it. The goal of this exercise isn’t to see who can get to 7 days the quickest. It is to help us be more aware of our own negativity, the negativity of those around us and how all this negatively impacts our lives.

Leave a comment and let me know if you are going to try it. Later we can compare notes on how we’re doing, how we feel about it and share some ideas. Stay tuned.