How to handle "Chronic Complainers"?

Everyday you might come across people whom always seem to be in "complaining mode."
It doesn't matter how good things might be, they seem to find a fault. For them the weather is always lousy, the boss is always not apt to do his work, the food is either too warm or too cold, the list is endless.
Chronic complainers are a very powerful source of negative energy. Want it or not, they have the power to bring down an entire establishment.
The greatest example of this comes from The Mahabharata. When the great Karan went to fight, his chariot handler constantly kept complaining about his inability to defeat Arjun. Slowly Karan started believing the same and finally succumbed to it.

Complaining is like an emotional cancer. It starts slowly with initially not many paying attention to it.  Slowly and steadily by the virtue of constant repetition it finds a place in the subconscious mind. Once settled there, it becomes a powerful source of negativity, irritation, frustration, anger and impulsivity. Everyday at workplaces, homes, classrooms, colleges one person or another is falling prey of it. 

How to handle chronic complainers and prevent their negativity affecting your emotional and working potential-

1- Identify a complainer

As a friend, as human being, as someone socially and religiously caring you might want to help a friend/family members/work colleague or classmate who you always find sad and negative.
In the need to become "superman" we fail to identify who we are dealing with.
A complainer is someone who is enjoying his/her pain.
The more positive counseling you give him, the more negative he/she will rationalize.
What starts as a friendly discussion, ends up becoming a clash of egos.
It's important to identify a complainer.

2- Solving their problem becomes your problem

The problem with a chronic complainer is that you need to give him/her hundreds of options to solve a problem, and still he/she will find a fault in every single of them.
When a person repeatedly fails to motivate a chronic complainer, he/she starts to question his/her ability to solve problems.
while you might be extremely practical and efficient in solving a problem, constantly meeting with failure to motivate that one "chronic complainer" might induce doubt in your mind about your abilities.


3- Anger back fires onto you.

Its very logical to get frustrated when someone you trying to help doesn't listen to you.
The moment you get angry on a complainer their sadness increases.  This doesn't affect them in anyways, but you tend to become guilty of having committed a sin.

4- Soon you become one of them.

How many times happens that when someone doesn't follow what you want them to, you end up complaining about them.
I was recently invited to a office to provide mind-body consultancy for the employees.  My task was to help them deal with daily stress and increased professional efficiency. Finally I had found a bold HR manager who gave me freedom to really provide help to the employees and just not put up a "futile" show. Well to cut a long story short, during my interactive sessions it was intriguing to see how they spent majority of their productive energy in creating ways to complain about each other.

5: Ignoring them becomes attention-seeking

Once you have developed a bond of friendship with a chronic complainer, he finds in you a way to get attention. Its doesn't matter how much you try to ignore him, he/she will come back hunting for more attention.
It turns into a viscous cycle. 

6: Following their lead can be dangerous.

If you start agreeing with what they say, be ready to walk bare footed over fire.
The moment you agree to be part of their complain syndrome, you are making yourself prone to unwanted professional and personal hurt.

In the same office I had mentioned earlier, I met a rather sad 26yr old gentleman, who quietly asked for my card and later on came to my clinic. A very dynamic and work oriented personality, he was battling to save his job. His fault, while trying to be in the good books of his boss (who was a constant complainer), he also started complaining about the establishment. He always felt his boss to be a great supporter and well-wisher. While he got more and more entangled into complaining, he found his heart-broken when his boss refrained from defending his attitude in-front of a "disciplinary committee" set up by the management.

I have hundreds of such cases. I recently consulted a 35yr old lady, who initially started by imitating her mother's complaining behavior to get attention from her husband, only later for it too become deeply imbibed into her personality. At 35, with one child her husband who didn't have the same "adjusting" personality of her father, decided to end the relationship.

7- Help them and help yourself
I started this section with the most important point - identify a chronic complainer.
Once you identify one. It's very important that you also Identifying the cause of complaining
Most complainers have one of the following reasons for their behavior.
a. personality disorder
b. clinical depression or clinical levels of anxiety

If you want to help them:
a. empathize - listen to them and understand the origin of their problem.
b. its important to understand that only they can solve the problem. Not YOU.
c. if they are not ready to listen to your ideas,  don't be too pushy about it. Don't make it an ego-war.
d. If you really want to help, then help them seek professional counseling. Professional counseling is different from daily regular counseling, because its not about "positive" "feel good" talk.. its about a complete personality analysis, identifying which life-events have started the problem, look into the family history to understand the genetic make up, psychometric tests to understand which brain areas are hyperactive and designing specialized therapy modules which target at using self-healing energy, counseling and other modalities to bring calmness to the brain.

Dr.Hemant MittaLMotivational Speaker - Mind-Body Healer
(MBBS, PG.DPM, M.D.(Mind Mantra Wellness Concepts - Mumbai))
(Specialize in Emotional, Behavioural, Sleep, Memory, Concentration and Sexual Health)
(www.mindmantra.in)
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Email - eksoch@gmail.com
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