The Sacred Tantrum

What if tantrums are actually a sacred part of the process?

Think about the steps a toddler takes when in the act of throwing a tantrum. They stomp their feet. They shake their bodies and flail their arms. They shout and shriek at the top of their lungs.  These are all ways of releasing emotions from our body.

Do I really need to expound on this any further?

Probably, since I have taken steps of experimentation that you may not have. As someone who has been labeled overly sensitive all their life even though I shut my emotions off for quite some time in order to protect myself I still felt things more keenly than those around me. And now that I have been practicing feeling my emotions, expressing my emotions, and healing from those emotions that have been stuck in my body for decades I can honestly say that tantrums are an important part of the process, and the weak adults who were not taught how to feel shamed us when we partook in this sacred event.

Over the last, almost decade now, I have been learning a lot about the many different paths and ways to heal the trauma I endured in the first decades of my life. And after a few years of being unable to control any part of how I felt, embodied, or expressed the present emotion I was finally able to recognize the buildup. Whereupon I never used to be able to do this as if I was on autopilot, and the emotions I felt moved so quickly from building to being shoved down in a dark abyss I knew not where. This recognition of simply being able to tell when an emotion was building was more important than I could have recognized in that particular moment.  It led to an impromptu experiment in the middle of a card game with my kids. We were playing Phase 10 and I had been stuck on one particular phase for about 6 rounds or so. It felt like forever! It was to the point that the boys were nearly finished, and I was still stuck in the middle of the phases. I could feel my rage and unworthiness building. I was on the verge of tears. As ridiculous as that sounds, because it’s a stupid game. But, if you’re honest with yourself I’m sure we can all say we’ve been there; enjoying a normal activity and something goes awry leading to a remembrance of emotions we shoved down many years ago and many times before and all of a sudden, you’re in a completely different mood and or state of mind.

Fortunately for me, I had been doing enough healing work that I recognized what was happening. I then verbalized how I was feeling to my kids (lead by example, right). I told them I was getting really upset and frustrated at being stuck and felt like I was going to cry. Then, I had an epiphany! I said, I wonder if I pretend to throw a tantrum, I’ll feel better? Or something along those lines. And so, I did. Right there in the middle of the living room where I sat. I put my cards down nicely on the table and performed a mock tantrum. And so as to give an accurate sense of what I did, I didn’t sit there and let the tears flow and scream my head off. I sarcastically stomped my fit, whined and waved my arms and bounced up and down in my spot on the floor. You know the same way our parents did in order to make fun of us when we were actually realty upset about something and couldn’t hold our emotions in.

An amazing thing occurred. I could hardly believe it. I felt 10x better. I no longer felt the buildup of emotions in my chest and behind my eyes. I no longer felt like I was going to cry, and I was able to return to the game with a have fun attitude and lose gracefully.

I realize the world we have created doesn’t allow for this necessary, sacred step of being human. So, I think it is necessary to create a world where we do allow it. Can you imagine if having a ‘cone of silence’ was a real thing? How about if people were so whole that we could freely express our emotions without anyone taking them as a personal attack. As someone who not only feels my emotions but yours as well, this is something I look forward to immensely.

So even though this isn’t feasible to do out in public, the workplace, or school, this is definitely something we can start to implement at home. Like every other part of the healing process it will take purposeful choices, repetition, and lots of loving communication and forgiveness (of both the self and the other person).

How can you safely incorporate the sacred tantrum into your life?