Therapeutic Whinging
Last Wednesday, I just didn’t want to be me. It wasn’t like there was someone else specifically that I wanted to be instead... I was just tired of being me. Tired of my struggles, tired of trying all the time, tired of being “noble” and “mature.” Sometimes, I just want it to be easy. Sometimes, I just want to whine. But done properly, whining can be very therapeutic.
The trick, though, is knowing the right way to do it. It’s one of life’s perverse ironies that trying to be all high-minded and noble can often lead to getting stuck. Like when you hear that your ex just started dating someone new and you manage, through clenched teeth and forced smile to tell all your friends how very happy you are for them. No really. You think that’s just great. Honest.
But it doesn’t work. To mak e up for the lack of sincerity, we feel this need to repeat it ad nausea to anyone who will listen (and many who really aren’t). Somehow, we think, if we repeat it enough, eventually we’ll actually believe it.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Instead, I’ve found that having a good (though brief) wallow in it seems to do the trick. Of course, like any medicine, you have to use it in moderation. We have a friend who uses Facebook to provide hourly updates on just how miserable his life is. Sometimes, when his personal misery is running a bit thin, he’ll post depressing updates about his friends’ lives. Clearly, this is not a strategy that seems to be leading to increased joy and happiness – I know it does nothing for my mood.
So, what’s the trick? Where is that magic balance? What are the rules of therapeutic whinging?
First, you have to understand what’s really causing the disease. Basically, it’s like a cosmic version of that old joke:
Patient: “Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I go like this.”
Doctor: “So, don’t go like that.”
The discomfort is there to let us know that we are doing something wrong – but first we have to figure out what the “this” is. Usually, we start off thinking that it’s a “that” – as in “he keeps doing that.” Eventually, though, we finally get the “this” – as in “it hurts when I go like this.”
When we finally get it, suddenly it seems a lot easier to let it go. Why? Maybe it’s just the inverse of “if you love something, set it free.” All I know is as long as I try pushing something away, it fights to stay with me, but the minute I embrace it, it seems to float away on its own. In Why God Won’t Go Away, Newberg and his team of neurobiologists suggest that we have a genetic need to find a balanced understanding, one that makes sense to both the left (linear, logical) and right (feeling, poetic) brain. Then it happens, this simultaneous firing causes the corpus colossi a little shiver that anchors the experience and provides us with a deeply satisfying neural experience. Think of it like a brain climax.
But like all climaxes, they’re never quite as fun alone. Therefore Rule #2 – witness. We really are social animals and there is something way down deep in our DNA that says nothing really happens until there’s a witness. It’s the same impulse that causes little kids to calmly look around after they’ve fallen until there is a suitable adult to witness the pending tears. The tears are real – they just aren’t real until Mom can see them.
I know the same is true for me. On Wednesday, I spent the better part of the day feeling silently sorry for myself. Left to my own, I was working a really good sense of universal injustice and righteous indignation. Then, when my partner came home I told him I was tired of trying so hard all the time. He looked at me squarely, and said in a very serious tone of voice, “I’m just glad I’ve never felt that way.” Almost instantly, my carefully maintained pout vanished as I realized that my feelings just made me human and suddenly I remembered that Buddhist adage “this too shall pass.”
So there you have it. When you have to, go into the discomfort, hold it, then let it go. And then find someone who can lovingly, gently remind you that you are special, just like everyone else.
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