Last week I read on another blog about taking a 21 day challenge to be complaint-free. The idea is to wear a purple bracelet (or just a rubber band) on your wrist and try to go 21 days without uttering a single sentence that contains sarcasm, gossip, complaining or other forms of negative speech. Each time you do, you switch your bracelet to the other wrist and start all over again at day 1. According to the book, it takes the average person 4 to 10 months to go 21 consecutive days without negative speech. I have included shouting as part of my challenge because over the first couple days of doing this challenge I realized that raising my voice is more of a problem in my speech than is complaining and it is something I would like to also see gone from my life.
Essentially, Will Bowen is advocating the same thing many of Thich Nhat Hanh's books encourage which is mindfulness. And because I've been practicing Thich Nhat Hanh's practice for years, I figured I had a head start on this challenge when I started three days ago and that I would find being mindful of my speech easier than I would have in the past. And to a point I was right. I find being mindful of my speech fairly easy... I tend to be impulsive though and say what I'm thinking even though I'm fully aware it's not something I should say. So my main issue is going to be working on impulse control and finding better ways to communicate with others.
After a few days I can see that this challenge will not be easy. In his book, he says that the average person complains 15-30 times a day. That's about one to two times every hour we are awake! On day one I complained twice (I started the challenge around supper time). Day two I didn't complain until about 2pm and today I'm on day three and I have complained none but shouted twice. Needless to say, my progress looks something like this: Day 1...1...1...and tomorrow I'll start on day 1 again for the 4th day in a row.
I think this is a challenge that can change our communication with others for the better and bring peace to our thoughts and lives. I encourage you all reading this to take the challenge with me!
If you worry that you wouldn't be good at a purely mental practice like mindfulness, take heart. My husband still struggles with mindfulness due to it being a completely mental practice (something he admits he struggles with) and I think this challenge will be very good in helping him b/c the physical action of moving the bracelet from one wrist to the other brings this practice from being purely mental to being a physical way to train ourselves to be mindful (and my husband excels at physical practices). This physical practice of training ourselves to be mindful can help even those who do not think they are good at keeping with or understand the mental practice of mindfulness.
Check out the book here!
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