When I tell people that the majority of my training as a therapist has been spent working with middle schoolers, they almost universally cringe. The mere mention of “middle school” brings most of us back to a place of physical, social, and emotional insecurity, and a time when the smallest hurt or desire could feel like a matter of life or death.
Adolescents experience the full spectrum of adult feelings while at the same time holding onto the childlike belief that the entire world revolves around them. And that’s why I love them: they allow themselves to have all the feels and linger in each one. In other words, they are experts in wallowing.
Wallowing is an undervalued coping mechanism. A skill we used to be so good at in our teens starts to get rusty when the demands of adulting take over. Grownups go through plenty of wallow-worthy experiences — in fact, we probably go through even more of them than our younger counterparts—but we often stop ourselves from fully submerging in the sadness, disappointment, pain, humiliation, and fear that come along with them. Who has time to spend an entire afternoon ugly crying on the bathroom floor anymore?
Wallowing feels dramatic, self-indulgent, and unproductive. But that last adjective is untrue, and the first two can actually help us heal faster.
Sure, there’s some “drama” in sitting in your parked car and screaming out your existential angst, or drinking wine in your pajamas and sobbing over someone who didn’t love you the way you needed them to. And yes, taking the time to do those things is “indulging” yourself when you’re at an emotional low point. But such behaviors are genuine and effective ways to process hurt and heartbreak, and that’s what makes wallowing surprisingly productive.
Heartbreak comes at us in a more ways than I can count, but some of the most common causes include: a formal breakup, an unspoken breakup (ghosting, etc.), unrequited love, romantic manipulation, betrayed trust, and refusal to commit. However it starts, the process of grieving lost love is multi-layered and filled with starts and stops and weird looping-back’s. It can be so overwhelming at times that the prospect of letting all the feelings take over seems downright terrifying. What if we start to wallow and can’t ever stop?
Fortunately, it doesn’t work like that. I double-checked on the internet and it’s not actually possible to cry forever. Instead, wallowing removes the many restraints we put on our emotions to get through our daily tasks, project an image of self-control, and (let’s be honest) avoid what doesn’t feel good in hopes that it just goes away on its own. And it will go away; it will just go away faster if we let ourselves really drown in it for a limited period of time instead of letting the feelings come out in a slow trickle.
Do you still think you don’t have time to wallow? Well, did you know you can literally schedule it like a doctor’s appointment or a haircut? I’m not kidding, and I have my own wise and wonderful therapist to thank for that illuminating fact. This is user-tested free advice I’m offering!
So take a look at your calendar for the rest of the week, find a couple of hours when you don’t urgently have to be an employee, a spouse, a parent, a friend, or a sibling, and set aside that time to let all the feelings out, think all the thoughts, and release whatever has been building up inside you. Go full middle-school mode and put yourself first for that limited window.
In the animal world, wallowing entails rolling or lying around in water or mud as a way to soothe the body. Doesn’t that sound lovely? It’s up to you, of course, whether you incorporate any mud or water into your own wallowing. That’s the beauty of the act: it can be as messy and raw and vulnerable as it needs to be, and no one else ever has to know.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Alice Alinari on Unsplash