The 30-Minute Wallow

This is from the "Feel Good Manual". The entire thing is linked in the title.


1. How much time can I waste upon feeling bad? Well, I decided to quantify it. I decided to allow myself a maximum of 30 minutes a day to wallow in my misery (I've since changed it to 15 minutes, and I've only had to use it three or four times since 1999). Wallowing is not a bad thing. Wallowing is necessary. People who don't go into their pain deeply are pretending; what they are doing is glossing over the real pain they feel. It's called 'avoidance'. Remember, pain is mandatory (though suffering is optional). Remember, too, that we only heal pain by feeling it first. If we avoid, we don't heal.
There are many ways in which people avoid feeling their pain, and by doing so, they don't heal it. One is by anaesthetising with chemicals, such as drink and drugs. Another is electronic valium ('EV', or television). There are many others, of course, and I'm sure you are aware of your own avoidance techniques.
A 30-minute wallow is perhaps the most efficient way to heal. A good wallow is not a half-assed cry, or a half-baked self-pity session. Those are just usually attention-getters or avoidance techniques that we have learned.
No, by 'wallow', I mean a deep, full-on, heavy-duty misery session. Go to your room; shut the door; bash the pillows and cry your eyes out if you have to. Go into Chaos. Into Kali, the goddess of all that is dark. Go deeper into the eye of the hurricane than you have ever been before. Feel yourself as you are: one small atom in a Universe that will continue whether you live or die.
Feel your aloneness, your loneliness, your isolation. Feel your pain! This will take you deeper into the core of your being. By experiencing your aloneness, you will become stronger, more independent and more free from aloneness. You will discover that your feelings won't kill you (as your Etch A Sketch being thinks will happen). Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Don't do it for attention. Don't do it to get help from anyone. Don't imagine Mum will get you out of this one. Feel your aloneness. You are alone, you know. I believe that until we feel our aloneness, we can't become whole, we can't heal, we can't take responsibility for our whole lives, and we can't feel mostly good most of the time.
Half an hour of intense wallowing in your misery is better than spreading it thin across 16 hours, because to spread it is like smearing your whole day with muck. Half a cry is like half a movie. Half a wallow is like half an orgasm. (In Sydney, we call that "getting off at Redfern", Redfern being one railway station before Central )
You have probably heard that endorphins (feelgood chemicals in your body) are released by crying real tears. Make use of this fact.
Now, you might say to me, "Pip, I've tried to cry, but I can't. The refreshing tears won't come. I feel dammed and choked up. So it's not a healing exercise for me at all."
I can really relate to that. There are many taboos against crying, and times when it's inappropriate to cry, so our bodies have learned control (sometimes too much control). Imagine if George and Sam were on the 76th storey of a building under construction, and Sam couldn't pass George the hammer because he was having a little weep about his childhood. Not a good look!
Firstly, I would say this. You don't need to cry tears for 30 minutes of intense emotional clearing to work. It's quite optional, in my experience.
Secondly, perhaps by saying "I can't cry", you are telling your brain the wrong thing. Try putting it in the past tense: "Previously I had trouble crying but I'm getting better at that every day". Remember, your brain is listening!
Thirdly, it's important to note that crying, with tears, is a skill, just as laughing is. If you have found crying difficult, your muscles have got weak and temporarily lost their skill. You'll improve! With practice, we improve at juggling, saxophone playing, crying and laughing. There will be more on this later, but for now, ask yourself, "How does it feel when I cry? Which muscles move? What feelings are happening to me, and whereabouts in my body? How can I better get in touch with them? How can I improve my ability to release my cleansing tears?"