Being Sad in Public
Welcome to Day 5 of the feelings theme—today, we are diving a little deeper into a lesson from Spiral 2 Week 2, Day 3, in the feelings theme about wallowing. When I think about wallowing, I think of a pig wallowing in mud. But instead of mud, we are wallowing in our feelings. In that lesson, we discussed when your anxiety is at an 8-10 on the scale; it can be challenging to practice A.S.K., so give yourself the rest of the day to wallow. I put on the movie About Time, pour a glass of wine, grab the Reese's cups and settle in.
The way life works, we can't always take the day and wallow in our emotions the way a pig wallows in the mud. I do a toned-down version of this wallowing when my anxiety is high and I have work to do. For some reason, this concept took me years to figure out. I thought if I was going to give myself permission to wallow, it had to be lying on the couch, watching a movie, eating Reese's, and crying. But that isn't always possible. So when my anxiety is high, and I can't take the day off, I will give myself permission to wallow in the feelings and do my work. I give myself permission to be sad even in public.
For most of my life, I was nothing but smiles out in public, and only once I got home would I fall apart. So giving myself permission to feel something other than happy in public was a process.
I felt so seen when I saw Emma Thompson in the movie Love Actually. For the record, I love Emma Thompson in everything she does—but in this scene, her character has just learned that her husband was cheating on her. She rushes into the bedroom to cry and desperately tries to pull herself together so she can go with her husband and children to the school performance. Emma stands in the bedroom, the music of Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell fills the theater, and Emma Thompson allows herself to cry. As she makes her way back to the family, standing in the hallway, she cups her hands over her nose and mouth and takes a deep breath. She pulls her hands down and shakes them in front of her as if to say, ok, get over it, move on and then walks into her kids' embrace, a smile plastered on her face. I have done that move countless times—specifically the flapping of the hands. All to make sure no one ever saw me cry.
Recently a client shared how this happened to her. "I am so excited to tell you! I allowed my feelings—out in public!" She said over the phone. "WOW! That's awesome. How did it feel? Tell me all about it," I replied. "Well, I had spent the day with my Mom, and you know we have had a challenging relationship. I wanted my boyfriend to meet her so I asked him to join us for dinner and we had a great time. Afterward, my boyfriend and I were sitting in his car, and he said Your Mom is so nice. She isn't anything like the person you described. And I could feel myself tearing up, not from sadness but joy, because she has worked so hard to be a better person. Before our work, my first reaction would be to shut that down, but I was surprised that I just let the tears flow—and they were gone quickly. In the past, I would NEVER let myself cry. I would have told myself that if I cried, it would ruin the night. But in reality, trying NOT to cry is what would have ruined the night because I would have been analyzing and questioning WHY I felt like crying. Just allowing myself that quick cry made a huge difference." That is a great example of a high-intensity emotion in the wild—if we are experiencing a high-intensity emotion (such as joy, sorrow, seething, panic), sometimes just expressing it via crying or yelling, for example, can relieve the emotion and release the energy.
And sometimes, we experience low-intensity emotions such as disappointment, irritation, or nervousness. As we learned in spiral one, feelings only last 90 seconds—however, every time we think about them, that starts the cycle again. With a high-intensity emotion, we will run the 90-second clock, and if we allow ourselves to express it, the emotional energy will dissipate. With low-intensity emotion, we tend to think more about it, so we will think about the situation and trigger another 90-second clock.
In the original lesson from spiral 2, I share how coming home from a tough visit with my Mom, I allowed myself to wallow at home. A few months ago, I had a similar tough visit with my Mom, but we had plans with friends this time, so I couldn't wallow on the couch. Instead, I cried on the way to their house and practiced A.S.K.
A. Acknowledge my feelings: Sad, overwhelmed, unhappy, annoyed
S. Slow Down and Get Into Your Body: I took a deep breath and felt my butt in the seat of the car. I stretched my calves and encircled my foot to stretch it out.
K. Kindly pull back to see the big picture. "Ok, Sweet Peanut-you are full of the feels. It is understandable you don't feel like chatting about it tonight—this is a party you don't want to feel bad!!! And it is ok that you do. So here's what we are going to do. Radical self-loyalty—have your own back. When you notice yourself feeling sad, that's ok- you don't have to be the life of the party—you can be a little mellow. There is a big difference between mellow and crying your eyes out. Today was a tough day, and you want to be on the couch doing nothing—you can do that later, for now, radical self-loyalty.
The key is not pretending to myself that I am fine. Being honest with myself. I don't have to wallow in front of everyone, and I don't have to tell everyone I am doing great. I can be honest that it is a tough time with Mom and move on. OR I can tell everyone work is great and avoid the subject of Mom AND also be loyal that I KNOW it is tough and that is the key.
In the past, I would have forced myself to be happy—faked my good mood, and had a miserable time at the event. This time I was honest with myself, and I had a good time. Chatting quietly in the corner with a friend and giving myself the night off from being a social butterfly.