{"id":546,"date":"2007-10-09T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2007-10-09T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html"},"modified":"2007-10-09T11:00:09","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T11:00:09","slug":"complaintfree-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html","title":{"rendered":"Complaint-Free? NOT!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our happy car was on its way to West Virginia to visit my in-laws, when Julie, my sister-in-law, spots Katherine\u2019s purple “a complaint free world” bracelet.
\n“Katherine, have you promised not to complain for 21 days?” she asks her niece.
\n“What are you talking about?”
\n“The other day Oprah had on her show the guy who started the movement to wear purple bracelets, to remind yourself not to complain for 21 days. He started with his church, and word spread, and now it\u2019s this huge deal.”
\n“Ahh,” I said. “That explains the book and the bracelet<\/a> I got in the mail the other day. Word must be out that I\u2019m a whiner, a professional and prolific whiner<\/a>.”<\/p>\n


\n“It\u2019s harder than you think.”
\n“I’m sure it is,” I said, “because you have to cancel all of your plans for three weeks.”
\n“What do you mean?”
\n“Well, you obviously can\u2019t go to therapy. Or if you do, I guess you could say something like, “I don\u2019t really have anything to talk about today because I\u2019ve achieved the perfect balance between motherhood and career, between raising kids and what I see as my ministry of educating people on mental illness<\/a>. And the sticker-system is working out just great for David\u2019s behavioral issues\u2014except for, you know, yesterday when he hit the babysitter. But, truly, what a gift that was: he has learned to express himself in body language! And I’m given the delightful challenge of finding a new sitter, an activity I just ADORE.”
\n“I don\u2019t think therapy is complaining.”
\n“And I\u2019d have to cancel all my doctor\u2019s appointments. Because when my endocrinologist asks me if I\u2019ve been experiencing symptoms of pituitary problems, I\u2019d have to say something like: ‘I have been skipping my periods again, but that means our family can save on the cost of tampons and I can start wearing white again with confidence! I\u2019ve also begun lactating, but how awesome is it to have an in-house dairy bar, and a bra packed with breast pads!’ When she asks me if there were any side effects to the medication I was on before, I could say, ‘Just the pregnant belly effect, but I’ve been dying to pull out my maternity clothes again<\/a>, and play the how-far-along-do-you-think-I-am? game with friends and family. Yippee!'”
\nAnd forget about coffee with friends. Or any conversation that gets too personal, like “What\u2019s new with you?”
\n“Oh gosh, our family just had the most magnificent opportunity to ride in the ambulance<\/a> the other day! David has been waiting for his chance ever since little Will got to go in it after he took the polar bear plunge a few years back<\/a>.”
\n“I\u2019m sure there are definitions as to what consists of a complaint,” Julie said.
\n“I\u2019m sure there are. In truth I only read the first sentence of the book: ‘In your hands you hold the secret to transforming your life.’ If I told you why I didn\u2019t have time to read the book in entirety it would sound like I was complaining, so let me just say this: my mission in life is to be real, and that involves a few complaints. I think that not being real is what contributes to so much of our sickness and disease, especially in this country. Everyone feels the need to wear the McDonald’s Happy Meal face all the time. It\u2019s unnatural.”
\nThe First Noble Truth of the Buddha<\/a> is that suffering exists in life, that there is no getting around the pain. M. Scott Peck began his modern day classic<\/a> with these three words: “Life is difficult.”
\nNow maybe I was just born with a relatively low happiness level<\/a>, or maybe I insist on seeing the cup half empty<\/a>, or maybe I\u2019m threatened by a guy telling the world not to complain because I make a living from whining<\/a>. As Eric often points out to me, “What happens if you get totally healthy and normal? There goes our livelihood.”
\nBut I\u2019d like to think otherwise\u2014that I simply honor truth. That means praising God in the happy moments\u2014like yesterday, when David and I picked apples in a beautiful orchard with his school friends. As I looked at him run through the maze of haystacks with that stunning smile of his, I said a prayer of thanksgiving for this blessing. But I also pick up the phone during those times of sheer terror\u2014like the afternoon of Katherine\u2019s 911 call<\/a>\u2014to reach out for real friends who allow me to tell them how I\u2019m REALLY doing<\/a>\u2014scared, shaky, confused, and a tad mad at God.
\nIn fact, I may very well design my own bracelets with yellow happy and sad faces that promote honesty, “a real world.org,” take the 21-day challenge. Let\u2019s see which does more good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our happy car was on its way to West Virginia to visit my in-laws, when Julie, my sister-in-law, spots Katherine\u2019s purple “a complaint free world” bracelet. “Katherine, have you promised not to complain for 21 days?” she asks her niece. “What are you talking about?” “The other day Oprah had on her show the guy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\nComplaint-Free? NOT! - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Complaint-Free? NOT! - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our happy car was on its way to West Virginia to visit my in-laws, when Julie, my sister-in-law, spots Katherine\u2019s purple “a complaint free world” bracelet. “Katherine, have you promised not to complain for 21 days?” she asks her niece. “What are you talking about?” “The other day Oprah had on her show the guy…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-10-09T11:00:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Complaint-Free? NOT! - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Complaint-Free? NOT! - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Our happy car was on its way to West Virginia to visit my in-laws, when Julie, my sister-in-law, spots Katherine\u2019s purple “a complaint free world” bracelet. “Katherine, have you promised not to complain for 21 days?” she asks her niece. “What are you talking about?” “The other day Oprah had on her show the guy…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2007-10-09T11:00:09+00:00","author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html","name":"Complaint-Free? NOT! - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-10-09T11:00:09+00:00","dateModified":"2007-10-09T11:00:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/10\/complaintfree-not.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Complaint-Free? NOT!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}