THE BAD, THE GOOD AND THE UGLY

There is a type of therapy called Primal Scream. First you are tied down. Then everything you want or crave is taken away. After that you are poked or irritated in some way until you break down and scream. Not a nice little yell but a serious uncontrollable long scream. Screaming and thrashing and then afterwards you cry your brains out.

Whether this sounds terrible or wonderful to you, it is a way of release. Holding in feelings can be a good short-term social survival tactic, but it is detrimental to our souls as a long-term mode of operation.

With the social breakdown comes identity breakdown. If you are a yoga teacher, performer, chef or any other job that has been nixed during the pandemic there is bound to be a crumbling of self-worth.

 We can primal scream in our apartment but then what? The feelings of unfulfillment still linger. Primal Screaming is just the first layer then the deeper layers need to be worked on. This is work, hard work, but what comes out of it is a better more well-adjusted you. The next layer is to write down all the things you think you are – a parent, a jolly person, a yoga master, an artist, etc.… Then in the next line over, write

I am not a parent.

I am not a jolly person.

I am not a yoga teacher.

I am not an artist.

What is the reasoning behind this? Well, in-between the swinging pendulum of ‘I am good’ and ‘I am bad’ is the real incomprehensible you. By holding these rigid beliefs about who we think we are, we actually create a self-fulfilling end of feeling like shit. We cannot live on the tightrope forever; at some point, we will have to get off the rope, and then the identity crisis is waiting for us.

Scream your brains out then loosen the straps of self-concepts. We may emerge from this crisis either completely f*cked-up or more well-adjusted.