{"id":6644,"date":"2019-09-30T04:15:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T04:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/churchedge.com\/illustrations\/index.php\/2019\/09\/30\/a-complaint-free-world\/"},"modified":"2019-09-30T04:15:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T04:15:31","slug":"a-complaint-free-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/a-complaint-free-world\/","title":{"rendered":"A Complaint-Free World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Will Bowen, a Kansas City minister, has designed an innovative tool in the fight against negativity, murmuring, and complaining.  It comes in the form of a simple purple bracelet, which he first offered to his congregation with a challenge to go 21 days without complaining.  Each time one of them complained, they had to switch the bracelet to their other wrist and start again from day one.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was simple but effective metacognitive awareness training,\u201d reports Tim Ferriss of the HUFFINGTON POST.  \u201cThe effects were immediate and life-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Complaining, Bowen suggests in his book A COMPLAINT FREE WORLD, is a habit which can be broken.  And once broken, one can be liberated to enjoy a life of greater gratitude, contentment and happiness.<\/p>\n<p>According to his website, his idea struck a real chord.  His organization has, to date, distributed more than 10 million purple Complaint-Free bracelets to people in over 100 different countries.<\/p>\n<p>Research has found it can take as little as 21 days to replace an old habit with a new one.  Switching the bracelet from one wrist to the other after each complaint, until the bracelet eventually stays put for 21 days, is a simple and easy exercise that yields huge rewards.<\/p>\n<p>As Pastor Bowen puts it, \u201cDon\u2019t be an ouch looking for a hurt.\u201d  Break the habit of whining and complaining about life.  Take the 21-day challenge to help reset your mind\u2019s default setting from the negative to the positive.  As you speak fewer and fewer negative words, you\u2019ll generate fewer and fewer negative thoughts.<br \/>\n     \u201cDo everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you.  Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people\u201d (Philippians 2:14-15, NLT).<br \/>\n________<\/p>\n<p>Note: You don\u2019t have to order the purple bracelets to take the challenge.  Any easy-on\/easy-off band will do.  Our church used Dollar Store jelly bracelets.  Others have used string friendship bracelets or even loose fitting rubber bands.  The power isn\u2019t in the bracelet; it\u2019s in the resolve!<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #22648]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Will Bowen, a Kansas City minister, has designed an innovative tool in the fight against negativity, murmuring, and complaining. It comes in the form of a simple purple bracelet, which he first offered to his congregation with a challenge to go 21 days without complaining. Each time one of them complained, they had to switch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1874,2165,2163,2164,2166,2161,2162],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}