I was watching this toddler running around in the park not too long ago.
He was having so much fun… Until he fell. And when he fell, he let out a scream that was so loud that every person in the park turned to see what happened. Of course, his mother ran to comfort him, but he continued to wail for quite awhile. From my position, it didn’t look like he was badly hurt or anything, but I just figured whatever happened when he fell completely started him.
For some reason, I’ve been thinking about that little kid and how loudly he cried out for weeks.
We don’t really do that kind of emotional outburst once we reach a certain age. I suppose once we have a vocabulary of words to express our shock or our pain, a wailing kind of catharsis isn’t our “go-to” reaction anymore. But I guess the reason I’m still thinking about this so many weeks later — especially because it was such a normal event in the life of a mom with a toddler — is because as soon as the toddler calmed down, he was back to running around and laughing again.
It was as if nothing had ever happened to him.
We don’t cry out or emotionally unravel the way toddlers do — especially as adults — and if I ever saw a grown person in the park flipping out and screaming when he or she fell down, I’d absolutely wonder what in the world was wrong with that person. In fact, I’d probably pull my phone out to dial 9-1-1 because that kind of scream could only be warranted for a full-blown emergency when it’s coming out of someone who isn’t still toddling around in diapers.
But I do wonder if we could emote or explode like a toddler does if maybe emotional traumas or seemingly trivial wounds would escape from our being quicker and free us up to get back to the better parts of living. For whatever reason, once you reach a certain age in life, it becomes more the norm to stuff a powerful feeling of fear or emotional hurt and then explain it away with words that might actually betray the severity of the wound. But as long as it’s contained, no one on the outside will ever be the wiser, and as adults, sometimes that just works better, right?
I’ve had a couple of really dark times in my life where I felt like I might explode, but I had this sense that it wasn’t really “appropriate” to be so outwardly upset. But when I couldn’t take it for a second longer, I snuck off into a private place and wailed and cried and grunted ugly words about the situation just to void my body of the toxic thoughts.
And you know what?
It absolutely helped!
I didn’t exactly go back to running around and giggling like that toddler in the park, but I did feel lighter and like I could carry on better than I could before. Letting my irrational as well as rational feelings dance around outside of me in a truly uninhibited way was absolutely cathartic, and after I dried my eyes, I realized I was going to be OK.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that keep me stuck in my life, and I realize how much of the “blame” for being stuck rests on my shoulders. I seem to have this capacity to contain too much inside of me, and I manage to work my thoughts into a narrative of sorts that I may not like, but one that at least tucks away my emotions so I can function better.
But what if it were totally “permissible” for us to just blow out a bad moment like a toddler, and then get on with our lives? Perhaps the reason a toddler can benefit from this expression is that in most cases, there is a grown-up there to immediately comfort them and get them all sorted so they can play again. I’m sure that’s part of it. I feel sad when I think about how horrible it would’ve been for that little toddler if his mommy hadn’t been right there to help him, and I realize there are people who go through their entire lives without knowing that kind of consistent care and loving devotion.
At the moment, I’m holding pretty steady in my life, and there is nothing happening in my world that would benefit from a toddler-style expression of feelings. But I guess I feel like I’ve wasted so much time in my life stuffing my feelings into these tiny spaces in my mind. And these feelings have cluttered me with old triggers and pain that would’ve been banished from my being if I could just permit myself to have a good old fashioned blubbering blow out!
