An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 33, February 2, 2012
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I woke up today feeling very sad. “Good morning sadness.” I said to myself. “Welcome, and what do you have to teach me today?” A tear came to my eye when I said that to myself. “Hello tear.” I said to myself. “Where do you want to lead me today?” I remember a long time ago before I made friends with my own sadness that feeling sad scared me. I remember believing that life was about wanting to be happy, and that if you felt sad, then something was wrong and it needed to be fixed. “Oh don’t feel sad”, everyone told me, and then I or they went about to stop the sadness as if my sadness was some kind of illness or affliction needing to be cured. I remember when I was young and entering into adulthood that I rarely felt sad, but I also remember that I rarely felt happy. It wasn’t until I set about to make friends with real happiness that I discovered what I originally thought to be my enemy: real sadness.
I discovered that the more quickly I assuaged or avoided my sadness, the quicker my unhappiness returned. I began to feel like a big steam boiler, and my sadness was the pop-off valve that opened to let the pressure out. I found that the cycling between pressure valve open and pressure valve closed was very small, and that besides sadness I had temper tantrums and a myriad of other pop-off valves letting out the pressure inside of me. The idea of allowing my sadness to grow deeper and stronger terrified me, and the idea of not doing something about my internal pressure state terrified me even more, since I was beginning to feel violent.
I finally decided to seek help from professionals as I could no longer tolerate myself in either a pressure valve open or pressure valve closed state. I bought myself a book that listed all the world’s therapies for young men that felt like unhappy steam boilers, and I read about them one by one. I was astonished to find that virtually all therapies enable the patient to understand the boiler better, or talk about the boiler better, or act upon the boiler better. But none of the therapies seemed to value draining out the whole boiler. I even picked a half dozen therapies supposedly most successful at helping people, and I went to meet the practitioners. I became very distraught when I only found professionals who were highly trained, highly pressurized, and highly managed steam boilers themselves. What was I to do? I loathed the idea of at best becoming a very well managed boiler with a well practiced and understood pop-off system.
That is when I accidently discovered Arthur Janov and Primal Therapy, which was not even listed in the long list of coping-with-self therapies. I read how brand new Primal Therapy patients begin an isolation intensive where they voluntarily spend three weeks alone, and where they refrain from any behaviors to close the pop-off valve. The patients then have open ended sessions each day where they are accompanied by a supportive person while they quite literally fall apart. I imagined myself all alone for three weeks with no one to talk to, and with no defensive behaviors or vices whatsoever, and just the idea brought on fear and anger and sadness.
Imagine yourself completely alone in a safe hotel room for three weeks with no one to talk to. You agree not to watch tv or movies, no phoning or texting, no cigarettes or alcohol or drugs, no working or sports, no compulsive eating or drinking, no sex or masturbation, no reading or playing music that is defensive, no computer, and no behavior whatsoever that keeps yourself glued together. No avoiding of sadness or depression, no avoiding of anger or fear, no running from anxiety or angst.
I am happy to report that all people fall apart and have nervous breakdowns of sorts when they can no longer hide from themselves. I remember coming unglued in my own way. I remember immediately realizing that sadness is not an illness or affliction, but simply a symptom. Sadness is the steam of a very unhappy and very hurt boiler. Sadness leads to more sadness, and more sadness leads to sorrow, and sorrow leads to grieving, and properly effected grieving leads to health and happiness. I realized that draining my own boiler was my only hope for happiness.
Every time I have trusted my sadness to intensify, I found awful feelings and memories that I felt I could not bear, and yet I welcomed them with all my heart. At the end of an awful self boiler draining that I would not wish on anyone, I only found my own small inner child self just sitting there waiting for me. “Hello there little boy”, I said. “Who are you?” “Hello there”, he said. “I am the you that you had to forget, and thank you for coming back for me!” I remember the sweet agonizing tears of finding the me that was sending all those messages up to me. And I vowed to never feel bad about feeling sad again.
This morning I woke up feeling sad. “Good morning sadness”, I said to myself. “Welcome, and what do you have to teach me today?” A tear came to my eye when I said that to myself. “Hello tear”, I said to myself. “Where do you want to lead me today?” I decided to just lay there basking in the luxury to feel very sad, and let my tears fall. I will no longer be afraid of myself and what happened to me. My only terror is if I cannot feel anything. If that happens I may not ever get to visit my own little boy again. “Hello there little Roe!” I long to say as often as possible. “Hello there!” I say to myself. “Thank you for coming back for me.”
May you too trust your own feelings to lead you home to yourself.
See you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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