68 days down, 297 days to go!
Dear ChiWei,
Thanks for asking a great question! You might not like my answer. It is going to sound hokey and unbelievable and well, weird. But the truth is the truth right? I hope my answer is helpful and that it encourages you to give The Orange Rhino Challenge a try.
Cheers,
The Orange Rhino
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Question:
If you (The Orange Rhino) don’t yell, how do you let out those emotions that a nice scream-fest would relieve you of? I mean, not yelling for a year is some serious business, and that can be some serious festering!
Short Answer: I don’t let out those emotions because believe it or not, I don’t feel them building up anymore!
Long Answer: Read below!
I started to write a response and then I realized I needed a graph. Seriously, you would think I am a mathematician based on how I see things in chart and graph form. Anyway, I hope that this line graph answers your question.
Isn't it pretty and fancy?!! ha!
Believe it or not, right now I have little to no festering going on. Yup. You read that right. Little to no festering going on, so not a lot of need to release emotions. But it was NOT always like that. The level of festering has gone up and down, mostly driven by the lack of release, just as you identified. But per the graph, I think my “fester” level will be pretty low, if not zero, from here on out. Why? What changed from start to now?
All of this happened…
Days 0 – 2 of Not Yelling: Hard. As. H*ll. Period. No other way to describe it. Not yelling was exhausting. At the end of each day I had nothing left in me. Absolutely nothing. I was totally spent and frazzled from talking to myself ALL DAY LONG reminding myself to use my indoor voice, to try whispering, to be more patient, to do this to do that all to ensure I didn’t yell. All the talking in my head was enough to make me want to scream! Despite the mental exhaustion (which is why I rated these two days at HIGH) I didn’t miss yelling. Not yelling was too new to have any festering going on. No release needed.
Day 2 ~ 2 weeks of Not Yelling: No room for festering, only feeling fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I had a natural high growing rapidly from the pride and satisfaction of controlling myself, from the improved behavior of the boys, from the greater sense of calm in the house. This natural high easily covered up any built up stress from not relieving said emotions via yelling. That, and there is this great Orange Rhino Challenge Community 😉 that kept “listening” to me every time I wanted to yell. So I guess I did a little releasing in that way, but otherwise, again no need to.
2 weeks ~ 4 weeks of Not Yelling: Hello Reality!
This would be approximately the time I started yelling into my closet, into my garage, into the fridge. Yup. Yelling at anything that didn’t have feelings and yelling wherever/whenever my boys weren’t around to witness it. Why now? Why did I start feeling the need to release now? Because the honeymoon wore off and the reality hit. Not yelling is a lifestyle change and it is HARD work. The pressure of trying to keep it together, to not yell, was intense. The initial high had disappeared, although still came in spurts throughout the days, and I just wanted to quit. But I couldn’t. So I yelled at inanimate objects (that was my “out” if you will). And sometimes I stomped my feet. And I felt better. And it brought me the release. For a while.
4 weeks ~ 8 weeks of Not Yelling: Kickboxing anyone?!
I am not sure, when, how, where or what happened during this time period but not yelling simply became habit. I was over the hump! I lost all desire to yell, both at my kids and at my clothes, it just wasn’t fulfilling anymore (read here). On the outside, I had it all pulled together. Nope, no tension to release via a scream-fest here. But then one day WHOA! My husband said to me: “Babe, you need to take kickboxing or something, anything, you’ve got some serious tension growing!” He was right. I had actually just looked into kickboxing the day before.
8 weeks ~ 10 weeks of Not Yelling: Much smoother Sailing
I didn’t take up kick-boxing but I have made exercise a priority as I find it is my release. And heck, it is way better than yelling. Yelling doesn’t burn nearly as many calories or help my jeans fit! So the substitution is definitely worth it. Between exercising and not yelling, I am less tense, less angry, less worrisome, less everything negative. I truly feel more peaceful and at ease with myself, my parenting, my life AND I feel much more in love with my kiddos.
You see, as I have learned to not yell, I’ve learned to be more loving, more patient, more calm, and more understanding of my kids and their “annoying” actions. As a result, the kids’ behavior is actually LESS frustrating to me which means LESS (no) yelling which means LESS (no) festering. Seriously. So I am not really finding the need to release pent up emotion as much. Because it doesn’t exist.
That said…there are moments when I feel frustration just starting and then I immediately do some of these odd tricks to ensure the feelings don’t grow and have no place to go but out, via a scream!!!
PUSH-UPS. If I know that I am going to lose it, then I drop and do push-ups until I feel better. I know, it sounds funny but it is a double win, quadruple actually. It makes me feel better (releases endorphins or something like that?!), makes my arms look better, it makes me kids stop and go WTF is mom doing which defuses the situation AND sometimes it even makes them want to join in which makes them feel better too. Sometimes instead of push-ups I do wall presses, jumping jacks, or stomp my feet. (The latter is really good at getting a marching band going with you which absolutely defuses the situation.)
MUSIC Nothing like a good ‘ole fashioned dance party to fun music (Girls Just Wanna Have fun?!) to get me moving (more exercise) and smiling.
FACEBOOK Seriously, sometimes in the heat of the moment just typing it out on The Orange Rhino Challenge FB page brings me release. It’s like I took the stressful moment, typed it out (sometimes rather aggressively, for sure) and sent it into cyber space never to be seen again. And if writing it out doesn’t release my stress from not yelling, then just being on The Orange Rhino Challenge facebook page will. Because it brings me peace by reminding I am not alone in this struggle. Seriously.
I think your answer is perfect, and totally makes sense! That it is really hard, and like any challenge, the easy part is right at the beginning, before reality sets in – you know, why the gyms are always full in January, but empty by February :-). But I’m glad you do have an “out”, even if it is screaming into your fridge, and I’m glad it sounds like it becomes a habit, for everyone, almost a change in your family’s way of life. I think I may try this challenge, but with a twist – more to see how many days I can go without yelling, so I don’t feel strapped in for a whole year. I know, I’m a wuss. Thanks for a great answer!