It is better to ask for what you want than to complain about not having it.
One of the ways our level of Self Esteem shows up is how we handle situations when we feel that we have something to complain about. Some years ago, a woman with whom I had been in a long-distance relationship came to visit me. A short while after she arrived, I took her out in my car, and she started listing a series of complaints. She said things along the lines of “You always…”, “You never…”, and “You should…”, all said in a complaining tone of voice. I hardly knew the woman, and I had no idea that she had so many expectations that were not being met. It must have been one of my better moments because instead of reacting, I said, “It is better to ask for what you want than to complain about not having it.” She fell silent.
The tone of voice that you habitually use may say more about you than your words.
I have thought about that insight a lot since then. There are ways of complaining that, of course, are a way of asking for what we want. There are situations where it is totally appropriate to complain. But what I am getting at here is the tone of voice the person is using, and more importantly, the attitude behind it, in an attempt to get what they want. Sometimes the tone of voice may have a whining, “this is not fair” quality about it, sometimes it might be an angry, strident, “you better give me what I want”, or it could be someone is using a pleading “please be nice to me” tone in their voice.
The tone of voice that we use, especially the ones that we habitually use, may be saying more about us and how we are feeling than the words we are using. Additionally, we may respond or react to what someone else is saying, based on their tone of voice, but they may be unaware of the feelings they are conveying in that way. They think they are just asking, when in reality, they are whining, nagging, or threatening.
Fear of ‘No.’
Why is it sometimes so hard to ask for something that we end up sounding like we’re complaining instead? It is probably worry or fear that if we ask directly, then the answer might be an equally direct ‘No.’ If we feel that the person is likely to refuse our request, our anticipation of a refusal may evoke feelings of rejection or disappointment. By asking in a roundabout way, “It would be nice to… sometime…”, we can potentially avoid the pain of a blunt refusal. Alternatively, we might try to put them on the defensive, with petulantly delivered phrases like “You never…” or “You always…” However, if we are doing something to put them on the defensive, that means that we are attacking them in some way, which can have a corrosive effect on the relationship. Even if they comply and it seems that we’ve won, by getting what we want, it may damage the relationship. We have chosen to manipulate and play out a drama rather than simply asking and negotiating to have our needs met. One of the results of this may be that they feel manipulated, but they tolerate it, at least for now.
Someone using a whining, complaining, or nagging tone of voice is not an empowered adult at that moment.
Children sometimes use an annoying tone of voice or certain types of behaviour to get what they want. When we use tone of voice or behaviour to annoy someone, to get something out of them, we are acting like a child rather than an empowered adult. In a sense, this can be viewed as a primitive form of negotiation. The strategy is something along the lines of, “Give me what I want or I will annoy you till you do.”
There is some justification for children using this form of “negotiation.” Still, it is not a good sign when adults rely on it, at least not as our primary way of navigating through life or in a meaningful relationship. For one thing, these types of behaviours don’t enhance our Self Esteem.
It is right for an infant to whine, fret, and cry helplessly, as their survival depends on it. But as we grow and mature, we need to learn to negotiate as adults. Suppose we feel that we don’t deserve what we want, or don’t have the confidence to obtain it ourselves, and believe we must rely on someone else. In that case, we may be tempted to resort to covert manipulation rather than direct negotiation. We might excuse our manipulative behaviour by assuming that the other person should know what we want without us having to tell them. Our thinking might be that we have the right to punish them for not being as good a mind reader as they should be. Yet, this means they are having to put up with bad behaviour on our part; when more open and honest communication would work better. When we allow ourselves to operate out of low feelings, such as being cunning and conniving, we usually recognize that we are doing so. Behaving in such a way, especially with someone we profess to care about, weakens any respect we have for ourselves and puts us out of harmony with deeper and wiser parts of ourselves.
Physical Complaints
Another type of complaint we can have are physical complaints, in the form of various ailments. The placebo effect, where a fake version of a medicine can cause a person to experience improvements in an ailment, is well-known and scientifically well-accepted. This suggests that there can be a direct connection between the mind and physical ailments. Therefore, it seems likely that there is some truth in the ideas of psychosomatic disorders, which can come from our mind’s influence on the body.
Our attitude towards ourselves can be a key to healing our ailments. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) has emerged as a way to manage difficult emotions as well as chronic physical pain. Yesterday, I was talking with a friend who has had long-term back pain. He told me that CFT is helping him more effectively than anything he has tried before. It can also be helpful for those with anxiety, depression, and struggling with stressful life events. CFT helps the person develop a compassionate attitude and use it to handle challenges wisely and helpfully. It could be worth a try if you have such a condition.
One way to influence or even manipulate others is to fake or exaggerate our ailments to force them into helping us. However, the danger is that our subconscious mind tends to take over any habit we perform regularly (such as walking, driving, or riding a bike) and starts to do it automatically when it receives the necessary cue. What happens to someone who gets into the habit of faking or exaggerating their ailments? If they often pretend or exaggerate a headache or an upset stomach, would their subconscious cause that to eventually become real in response to the associated cue? Can this trigger some sort of reverse-placebo effect, where we get an ailment from mimicking it too often? The ailment might be something far more serious than a headache, depending on how we have trained our subconscious mind. At any rate, such behavior is harmful to Self Esteem as it maintains a weak and ineffectual concept of ourselves.
As you develop your Self Esteem, you look for a win-win rather than a win-lose.
If we sometimes use our behavior and vocal tone as a way of “asking,” this is likely to arise in intimate relationships. This is unworthy behavior; if we want high levels of Self Esteem. We may be trying to negotiate, but our tone of voice and demeanour are all one long complaint about the unfairness of life. This can be a holdover from our childhood, if we may have experienced many refusals, disappointments, or denials from those who were best-placed to meet our needs. Then, later as adults, when we enter an intimate relationship, those old feelings around our unmet needs are likely to surface: the promises not kept, feelings of abandonment, or feelings of neglect. However, this is best used as an opportunity to recognize those unmet needs, take responsibility for finding healthy and conscious ways to have them met (which can include negotiating with our partner), and in this way, heal the wounds to our Self Esteem. This is very important, so let’s explore our unmet needs further.
Unmet Needs
Attempting to manipulate others into meeting our needs weakens our Self Esteem.
Attempting to manipulate others into giving us what we want is not going to boost our Self Esteem, even if we succeed, because we are behaving in ways that are underhanded and overly dependent. This will not help us feel good about ourselves, especially if we adopt a complaining stance in life, caused by unmet needs from the past. Since we are at our most vulnerable and dependent in childhood, this makes it a common source of these issues.
When unresolved feelings are triggered by life’s events, especially in intimate relationships, we do not need to blame ourselves, feel down on ourselves, or assume that there is something “wrong” with us. However, it is also not wise to demand that a specific person takes responsibility for our unmet needs, for they may not be able to. They may not know how to parent us, for that is what we might be asking for, as they may have their own unmet needs to contend with.
We need to take full responsibility for our unmet needs, recognize them, and either let them go or negotiate ways to get them met. For example, if we were affection-starved as children, we could consider getting regular massages or exchanging shoulder rubs with friends. If we were neglected, we could find healthy ways to pamper ourselves. This is a better approach than demanding that our partner meet our needs, especially if we are viewing them as our sole provider. We may hardly even know ourselves what our actual needs are, because we are busy avoiding them.
A possible sign that we have unmet and unrecognised needs is when we expect someone else to “just know” what we want without us having to tell them. That is the kind of attention that babies and infants get from their mothers. Expecting that level of attention from our partner, or using this to evaluate a prospective partner, is probably a step too far. Others are expecting a relationship with an adult, so expecting them to treat us like a baby without some negotiation, acknowledgement, or reciprocation is not fair to them.
Sometimes our partner can and does meet those unexpressed and previously unmet needs, but every “baby” has to grow up eventually. It can get very tiresome for our partner if we refuse to do so. It can also become tiresome for our partner if we don’t reciprocate and help them with their unmet needs in turn (if they want that) because that means part of us is stuck in an early stage of development and is not willing to become mature enough to recognize other people’s needs. As infants, we were rightly focused on ourselves; as we mature, we need to become more conscious of others. It’s good to recognise that we feel emotionally stuck in our early years; it is not good to choose to stay stuck and expect our partner to take care of us.
As we take responsibility for our feelings around unmet needs, we boost our Self Esteem. That way, we can heal and let go of those old feelings and limiting beliefs, so that they no longer run our lives. We can let go of feeling not good enough and of blaming others for not giving way to whatever demands may be hiding behind our behaviour. We can also finally let go of any feeling that there is something wrong with us, because our focus becomes increasingly on what is good and right about us, and developing our potential. Rather than complaining about not having something important to us, we create an intention to obtain it and look at how we can negotiate our way to it. We turn complaints into intentions and then follow through on our intentions.
Try this:
Notice how you behave when you want something, especially from those close to you. Do you negotiate for what you want; ask openly for it, expect the other person to “just know” what you want, or do you manipulate them to get it? What tone of voice do you use, in different situations, to get what you want? If you notice that low Self Esteem is causing you to feel “not good enough” to be open about your needs, explore using Self Talk or Affirmations to build your Self Esteem, especially your Self Worth.