Two Little Words That Can Stop Complaining in Its Tracks: “It’s okay.”

A friend of mine was getting ready to go on vacation with a relative who has a habit of complaining when they travel together. The hotel isn’t quite right. The restaurant takes too long. The weather isn’t cooperating. The room is too hot. Something always seems to be wrong.

My friend was already anticipating it before the trip even began.

I told her something I had noticed about myself: When I start complaining and someone simply says, “It’s okay” or “I don’t mind it,” something happens inside me. I stop.

They aren’t arguing with me. They aren’t telling me that I’m wrong. They simply aren’t joining me in the complaint.

And strangely enough, I feel better.

Why Do We Complain So Much?

Complaining isn’t necessarily a character flaw. Often, it’s an attempt to regulate an uncomfortable feeling.

Something isn’t matching our expectation, so our brain focuses on the discrepancy: This isn’t how it was supposed to be.

Talking about a problem can also be a way of seeking connection and validation. We may unconsciously be asking another person, Do you see what I’m seeing? Doesn’t this bother you too?

But there is an important difference between talking about a problem and repeatedly dwelling on it.

Psychologists use the term co-rumination for repeatedly discussing problems, revisiting what’s wrong, speculating about causes and consequences, and focusing together on the negative emotions surrounding them. Interestingly, research suggests that co-rumination can make people feel closer while simultaneously keeping negative emotions alive. (PubMed Central (PMC))

In other words, complaining together can feel strangely satisfying without necessarily making us feel better.

Then Someone Says, “It’s Okay.”

Imagine that I say:

“This restaurant is taking forever.”

And you respond:

“I don’t mind. It’s okay.”

You haven’t dismissed me.

You haven’t told me to stop complaining.

You haven’t argued that the restaurant is actually fast.

You’ve simply offered my brain another interpretation of the same situation.

Psychologists call this cognitive reappraisal—changing the way we interpret a situation in order to change its emotional impact. Research has found that reappraisal can reduce the experience of negative emotion, and studies suggest that another person’s perspective can sometimes help us reappraise a situation even more effectively. (PubMed)

The restaurant hasn’t changed.

My relationship to the restaurant has.

Maybe waiting ten extra minutes really is okay.

The Part I Didn’t Expect

After I pointed this out to my friend, I started noticing my own complaining much more.

And eventually I began doing something even more interesting.

I started saying “It’s okay” to myself.

When I catch myself mentally complaining:

This is taking too long.

It’s okay.

This isn’t how I wanted this to go.

It’s okay.

Why does this person have to do that?

It’s okay.

And it works remarkably well for me.

The complaint seems to lose some of its energy.

There is actually a good psychological explanation for why this might happen. Rather than suppressing the thought and pretending we aren’t irritated, we’re changing the meaning we’re giving the situation. Research on emotion regulation generally finds that reappraisal is more effective at reducing the actual experience of negative emotion than simply suppressing its outward expression. (PubMed)

That’s an important distinction.

“It’s okay” doesn’t have to mean “I like this.”

It can simply mean:

I don’t need this moment to be different in order for me to be okay.

Complaining Can Become a Habit

The more I’ve experimented with this, the more I’ve realized how easily the mind finds things to resist.

The traffic.

The weather.

The person walking too slowly.

The hotel room.

The delayed flight.

The restaurant.

The family member.

Sometimes there is a real problem that needs to be addressed. If something is unsafe, harmful or genuinely unacceptable, “It’s okay” isn’t the answer. We need boundaries, problem-solving and action.

But much of everyday complaining isn’t solving anything.

It’s simply rehearsing our dissatisfaction.

Research on rumination and co-rumination suggests that repeatedly revisiting negative experiences can maintain negative affect rather than resolve it. (PubMed Central (PMC))

That’s when these two little words can become surprisingly powerful.

Try It for One Day

For one day, notice how often your mind complains.

Don’t judge yourself for doing it. Just notice.

Then, when the complaint is about something that doesn’t actually need to be fixed, try answering yourself:

It’s okay.

See what happens.

You might discover that the world doesn’t have to rearrange itself quite as often as you thought it did.

The hotel doesn’t have to be perfect.

The meal doesn’t have to arrive immediately.

The weather doesn’t have to cooperate.

And the people around us don’t have to behave exactly the way we would prefer.

Sometimes peace begins with something much smaller:

This isn’t exactly what I wanted. And it’s okay.

The Physio-Zen Lesson

We spend an enormous amount of energy trying to make the outside world match the picture inside our heads.

But what if we practiced changing the picture instead?

That is one of the ideas at the heart of My Physio-Zen World: our experience isn’t shaped only by what happens to us. It is also shaped by the meaning we give to what happens.

Sometimes the situation doesn’t need to change.

Sometimes we do.