A Complaint Free WorldWell, I think the computer angels are finally coming back to us after three weeks of yucky computer struggles. Computer problems are SO frustrating! My baby mac is still at the doctors, we found out that the hard drive died (very unusual), so I am hoping beyond hope that they will be able to recover all of the data. I have some very special things on that computer, and it will be sad if I have to let it go....computers are an interesting experiment to be sure. The work done on a computer, or here on the Internet, is nothing like, say, growing a garden and harvesting fruits. Computer work is so detached from the earth, so dependant on temporary phenomena like electricity and cheep oil....once those things start to go, computer days will be few and far between. For us though, there is an interesting tie in for technology to the "to the land" movement, in that it is such a valuable educational tool. I love using blogs for my daily news! The things that I have learned from the Internet have helped me to transform my life in magical ways, and reminded me of the importance of eating naturally, among other things. The Internet, when used correctly, can be such an exciting, inspiring place. So, the trick is to use the amazing world of Internet and computers while we have it, and then get ready to gracefully let it go when we need to.
While we were in Tucson dealing with computers, we also got to harvest about 40lbs of fresh off the tree oranges and grapefruits from our friend's citrus garden! Wow, what a treat! I am really feeling a lack of garden time, living out here in the desert, so it was really nice to kick off my shoes and climb up into a tree and pick and pick and pick! Happy monkey girl.
We also got to harvest a load of veggie oil for Pegasus, who will be driving us up to B.C. SOON! I am so excited to be home with my family I am just quivering!
So, the day in Tucson was shaping up to be a really crabby day, after weeks of computers not working right, spending FAR too much time trying to fix them, fuses were a little short. At the beginning of the day I resigned myself to have a crabby day, and I even decided to not even try to avoid the crabbiness, it felt like too much effort to stay happy, so I was going to just let myself be crabby. BUT, it didn't work! I have reached a tipping point of positive thinking, and now the positive naturally over-rides the crabbies even when I am not trying at it! And it should have been a very easily crabby day, to discover we had to spend even MORE on computer programs, and that my mac baby has a dead hard drive, traffic was horrible and we had a terrible time finding parking and drove around for 15 minutes almost everywhere we tried to go just looking for parking, it seemed extra hard to find food that we could eat, and nothing was going smoothly.
What I found was that I couldn't avoid feeling giddy with happiness while picking oranges and grapefruits, and that pulling veggie oil was so satisfying, and that at the end of the day these happinesses out weighed the rest of the frustrating day.
And then, after the sun had set, we went into a book store (following our tradition of "may no visit to Tucson be book store visit-less), and I just couldn't help but feel so HAPPY! And I ran into a book that has passed in front of my consciousness before, in some magazine or someplace, that is a little gem of positive thinking. A Complaint Free World is a book that is taking the world by storm, and if you ever wonder at the power of positive thinking, or feel sceptical, please check out this book! The idea is simple, to go 21 days without complaining. The results are impressive, good things will happen for you in abundance if you can just leave your grumbling behind. The book's author, Will Bowen, has said that going 21 consecutive days without complaining, criticising, or gossiping, and in so doing you form a new, positive habit. By changing your words, you can change your thoughts, and then begin to create your life by design. People have shared stories with Will about relieving chronic pain, healing relationships, improving careers, and becoming an overall happier person, just by not complaining! Consciously striving to reformat your mental hard rive is not easy, but believe me, it is SO WORTH IT!
Now, I think that I have generally been a very positive person, but it is like entering a whole new planet when you begin to be very mindfully positive, and very mindfully avoid negativity. Many great teachers have taught this, the importance of mastering your thoughts. Now, here, in their footsteps is a very accessible concept: to just stop complaining!
From the book: "Complaining is talking about things you do not want rather than what you do want. When we complain, we are using our words to focus on things that are not as we would like. Our thoughts create our lives and our words indicate what we are thinking. Let me repeat that, because if you get nothing else from this book, please let this be it: OUR THOUGHTS CREATE OUR LIVES AND OUR WORDS INDICATE WHAT WE ARE THINKING. Put another way: "What you Articulate, you Demonstrate!"
Reading things like this always feels like striking gold to me, confirmation of what I know to be true! I have for so long felt the power of words, and known what a strong effect they hold on ourselves and those around us.....I lived for seven years with a chronic complainer, and yes, I loved him, and in order to relate to him I would often find myself complaining too. Every time I made an attempt to curb complaining in our house, it seemed to fizzle before my eyes, and I would be ridiculed for being "too sensitive." Perhaps I was not as skillful as I could have been...I feel I understand much better now the means by which a person can be skillful and loving in the face of anger and hurt, but I was embroiled in it at the time. Now that I have left that relationship, I understand even deeper now the importance of words and mindfulness, for living with loving, happy words, and a mindful soul mate is like night and day after living with words that so often made me feel stressed out, unhappy, at-odds, and often lead to tears.
So yes, lets all take the 21 day complaint free challenge! I'm going to give it a try. The more I focus on bringing happy thoughts into my life, the harder it is for my mental hard drive to get fried! As the book says: "To be a happy person who has mastered your thoughts and has begun creating your life by design, you need a very, very high threshold of what leads you to express grief, pain, and discontent." In other words, to get upset over mal-functioning computers is not necessary, bad traffic, ha! Happiness requires a rolling gracefully along with life through all of its ups and downs.
"You can help create a Complaint Free World. Do it for those around you. Do it for your nation. Do it because it's a powerful first step towards world peace. Do it for your children and their children yet to come. But mostly, do it for yourself.
Do this for myself? Isn't that selfish? No. There is nothing wrong with doing something so that you will benefit. As you become a happier person, you raise the overall level of happiness in the world. You will send out vibrations of optimism and hope that will resound with others of similar intent. You will create a network of expectation for a brighter future for all."
One last note on complaining: “Complaining is not to be confused with informing someone of a mistake or deficiency so that it can be put right. And to refrain from complaining doesn’t necessarily mean putting up with bad quality or behavior. There is no ego in telling the waiter your soup is cold and needs to be heated up—if you stick to the facts, which are always neutral. ‘How dare you serve me cold soup…?’ That’s complaining.”—Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth”
So, get ye to www.AComplaintFreeWorld.org, order yourself a little purple bracelet, (or use an old elastic band and save on resources), and see if you can go 21 days without complaining, and see what magic comes in when you put out only happy words!
Here are some happy words for you: WE LOVE YOU!
Love Katrina and David Rain.
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