Struggling With Big Emotions
How swamping helped me breathe again
For the last few weeks, I’ve been struggling to cope with my emotions.
I haven’t struggled this bad in a very long time. It really has been years.
Of course I understand myself so much more than I ever did, at the age I am now. And with the work that I have done over the years.
But that doesn’t mean these heightened emotions have stopped. That I’m immune to difficult times in my life.
It just means that I can get through them quicker. And with less destruction to my close relationships (usually).
Only this time was a tough one. It was a biggie. And I paid the price.
Yesterday, I couldn’t hide from it anymore. So I decided to face whatever was happening head-on by Swamping.
What Is Swamping?
In her book Pussy, Regena Thomashauer talks about Swamping as the process of moving emotions through our body.
She says:
“We are not all that different from toddlers, who collapse in frustration one moment, hurling themselves to the ground, only to pop up and go play on the swings with their friends the next moment.
Toddlers have not been taught to stop embodying their emotions, so they do it naturally.
But by the time they reach school age, most kids are thoroughly cut off from embodying the way they feel.
By then, they have been taught that their emotions are bad and wrong, and they begin to push them away.”
Numbing our emotions. Shutting them down. Disconnecting from them.
It doesn’t stop what they are doing in our body. It just prolongs the pain. And “deprives us of living our emotional and creative power.”
Swamping, as Thomashauer says, “gives us our power back.”
How My Swamp Looked
Resisting
Yesterday, I had the day off work, which meant I had the chance to Swamp.
I didn’t want to, of course.
What I wanted was to write. Create. Work on my projects.
I wanted to be productive.
I had the day off from my ‘normal’ job, and I had the chance to do the stuff I loved.
I couldn’t waste it by just doing nothing (that was my initial reaction to the idea of Swamping).
Only I couldn’t do the stuff that I wanted to do because I couldn’t think straight.
I had no motivation. I just felt numb.
Surrendering
So I held my hands up and surrendered to the Swamp.
I sat.
I cried.
I journaled.
I screamed.
I cried some more.
Snot was everywhere.
I journaled more. I asked myself questions. I sat with the responses. With the feelings and emotions coming up in my body.
The sadness. The anger. The loneliness. The pain. The guilt. The shame. All of it came up. And I mean All. Of. It.
I listened to everything my body was telling me, everything that had been ’stuck’. I watched it unfold in front of me.
I didn’t run. I didn’t numb it. I didn’t push it away. I surrendered to it all.
And it was one of the worst days I’ve had in a very long time.
The Aftermath
Finally I got to the end of my Swamp. After three long hours—I was done.
(I was planning on a short Swamp—but this had been building for so long that I decided to just keep going and see what happened).
As Thomashauer says:
“Just like a little kid having a tantrum or a meltdown doesn’t last forever, there is a beginning, middle, and end to a Swamp.”
And as I sat there, empty, drained—I realised—there was quiet.
I went to bed. I woke.
And for the first time in so long—I could breathe.
Swamping More Often
I’m still re-learning how to feel my feelings. The ones I was told were too much.
And this time I’ve learned that Swamping helps me. So fucking much.
Now, rather than letting emotions build up, I am planning on Swamping on a more regular basis.
When I feel myself flip-flopping between extreme emotions, that’s when I’ll jump into my Swamp.
No excuses. No feeling that I need to do more ‘productive’ stuff.
Just me. Getting in to, through, and out the other side of my Swamp.
Because as Regena Thomashauer also says:
“What I’ve learned in this process is that rupture is the portal into the woman you’re meant to be.
No matter how huge or devastating your Swamp is, unimaginable beauty, power, and glory is always on the other side.
For on the other side of Swamping—on the other side of rupture—is where we find our radiance.”
Why Am I Telling You This?
Social media is full of happiness and sunshine and ‘look at me.’
It’s full of all the ‘good’ stuff. Not the difficult parts.
But when you’re in the middle of a shit-storm like this, (or maybe as Anna Przy says, a ‘big sad’) it’s hard not to feel like you’re failing somehow.
And so, you do anything to not feel.
But shit-storms and big-sads—they are normal. And the more we allow them to come into our lives, the more we surrender, the quicker they will leave.
So if you’re in the middle of a big-sad or a shit-storm right now—
Find a safe space. Jump into your Swamp. Sit in it. Wallow. Scream. Shout. Cry. Let it all out. All of it.
Take your time to wade through the deep stuff—The fear. The ego. The judgement. The shame. The darkness. The doubt.
It’s not going to be pretty. It’s not going to be easy. And it will take as long as it takes.
But eventually, you’ll make it to the other side.
I promise.