Every complaint holds a desire.

Every complaint holds a desire.

A complaint is a fight against something - I don’t like strawberry flavoured ice cream. I don’t want to go to the work end of year party, it always involves drinking too much and if I don’t drink then it’s boring. It’s not okay that your next door neighbour looks at me funny when I wear a rabbit ear headband at Christmas time. It’s too hot. I’m tired. I’m lonely but also I don’t want to talk to anyone. The shopping centre is too crowded; why are all these people walking so slowly?

Fighting against things can get really tiring. Endlessly pushing away the things we don’t want, the things that aren’t right, the things that don’t feel good.

So what to do? One thing we can do is look inside the complaint for the desire it holds. If we don’t want strawberry ice cream, what DO we want? If this feels wrong, what feels right?

Sometimes, the answer is obvious (chocolate ice cream, of course).

But sometimes it’s harder to figure out (I don’t want to go to the work end of year party and get drunk, I don’t want to go and not drink and be bored, I don’t want to stay home and feel left out… what DO I want?).

It can be hard to find the desire if we’ve already written it off as impossible (I want to go, not drink, and have a really great time with my colleagues that doesn’t involve talking about office politics or any politics or the weather - but that’ll never happen).

It can also be hard to find the desire inside the complaint if we don’t know that it’s something available to want - we’ve never in our wildest dreams imagined that we could have something like that (what if we had an ‘introvert’s end of year party’ where the venue was a lot of small rooms and each room had an anti-small-talk activity that prompted deeper, more interesting conversations, and the whole experience was curated by a professional who knew how to make real social magic? Is that a thing? I want that to be a thing!).

If it’s hard to find what we DO want in the ocean of what we DON’T want, one thing we can try is to learn to use our bodies as a barometer to help us figure out what the hidden desire might be.

I want to stay home and ignore the whole thing: that feels tense in my chest. I don’t like this feeling. I don’t want to feel left out.

I want to show up and endure it and probably be bored and annoyed: that feels even MORE tight in my chest, my jaw is clenched… that’s not the answer.

I want to feel excited to be there: my jaw is relaxing… this feels better.

I want to be with all my colleagues for the evening: oops, getting tense again - that’s a lot of people in one room. What if they were in smaller groups? That’s feeling better again!

In this way, we can imagine different options and check in with our bodies to see how they feel. Instead of fighting against a loud, overwhelming party, we can start fighting FOR a more connected, intimate experience.

What if we can’t influence the location and circumstances of the party? It’s going to be all together in a big room and Steve from accounting is absolutely going to be drunk?

If we know what we’re fighting FOR, we can start to imagine ways to create that for ourselves within the larger experience. Perhaps we enlist some others ahead of time who might also be more into a quiet corner. Perhaps we bring something to do as a focus, to engage people differently - like a pencil and a pad of paper and offer to draw two minute terrible portraits of people. What could we fight for that will give us the experience we want?

Fighting against - the complaint - requires maintaining defences. It gets heavy after a while.

Fighting for - the desire - requires curiosity and imagination. Curiosity and a spirit of play tends to be much lighter, and much more fun.

As an added bonus, when we know what the desire is, what we’re fighting for, it’s easier to maintain good boundaries. Instead of pushing against what we don’t want, we’re focussed on what we do want, and everything that doesn’t align with a fun experience, we can say no to (this requires practice - but it’s a really good way to start to learn where our boundaries are if that’s something we struggle with.

So your mission, should you choose to accept it - have a look at some of your own complaints in life, and see if you can find the desires inside of them. You know what you don’t want - inside of that, what DO you want? If you tune into your body as a barometer, what feels right, fun, interesting, good?