I Scream, You Scream, We All [Need to] Scream

Facing discomfort. Anxiety. Picture of Mongolian Professional Wrestler before a match. — A Mongolian Professional Wrestler before a match.

Recently I was listening to a podcast interview with Tony Robbins, the life coach. He was talking about strategies for “Getting unstuck.”

As a therapist I hear this concern a lot when people first come to me.

“I feel stuck”

As a human, I’ve felt that way myself for quite a time or two.

It can be when you want to move forward but don’t know how or where. Those urges to do something different, the gnawing drive to change, the fear of what happens if you do, and the confusion of how to get started.

Sometimes the stuck-ness is physical, like your feet feel heavy or caught in cement or going through your day feels like walking through deep sludge.

Sometimes it's the lack of motivation to get up off the couch or up out of bed.

To get "unstuck," one of the methods Tony suggests is to scream.

When I heard this, I smiled.

Sometimes we need to scream. It can feel so empowering to let go and get loud.

I know this, too, firsthand.

In the summer of 2016, I had the privilege of visiting Mongolia with my younger cousin, Hattie. It was an amazing and incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and adventure.

While we were staying on the steppes of the Mongolian countryside, we met with a local shaman.

We were allowed to ask the shaman questions and receive healings.

During this time, I was really obsessed with and studying medical anthropology.

I had heard about this indigenous practice across multiple cultures (the americas and Asia) called soul retrieval.

So when it was my turn to ask a question, I asked this shaman

"Do you do soul retrievals? And if so, how?"

Now my original thought process was not because I thought my own soul was fractured or had parts missing, but rather I was curious about this practice from an anthropological perspective: Did Mongolian shamans also practice soul retrieval and if so, how? What did that ritual encompass?

We had to write our questions on a piece of paper.

When I showed the shaman my question, he said,

“Yes, we can do this. Come with me.”

Stunned, I obligingly followed him outside of the Ger (Americans call them yurts but actual yurts in Mongolia are what you think of as a Native American TP’s; the white, round, canvas-like structures are called Gers.)

He took me around the outside of building with the translator.

It was just the three of us, standing behind the outside of the Ger with the rest of our guides and group inside the cloth structure.

The shaman then told me to scream at the top of my lungs.

“What?”, I asked, thinking I didn’t hear the translator correctly.

“Scream at the top of your lungs.”

Skeptical and bashful, I yelled.

“Ahh!”

He said, “No. Scream. Again. As loud as you can and as long as you can.”

So I did!

This quiet, mousey gal screamed.

And the scream just kept on coming.

I screamed so loud and for what felt like so long that I had memories of hearing screams and witnessing screaming during other times of my life -- including one of my EMDR target memories from childhood.

I screamed until my ears were ringing.

I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore.

Meanwhile, my poor, terrified, younger cousin was freaking out. She was inside of the Ger and had no idea what the f-ck was happening to me. She had just seen me leave the space with this random indigenous healer, not knowing what I had asked (because it was written down and not said aloud) or why they felt the need to take me outside from the group, with no warning of what was to come, and her anxious early-twenties brain came up with a plethora of horrifying reasons why her older cousin was suddenly screaming what sounded like bloody murder.

Major life lesson: when you scream as a way to heal, give your loved ones fair warning. Or do it when no one is around.

(Side note: I still feel horrible about what this experience was like for her – although I have obviously since apologized and we have clarified things multiple times and we’re all good now.)

After I screamed, my body softened.

I felt a bit freer, although it was in a way I couldn’t quite explain.

I can tell you that at the time it didn’t feel miraculous or life-changing right away.

It just felt like I had screamed. Nothing more or less.

But in retrospect, it was a stepping stone and healing moment on my own journey.

I learned it’s ok to let go. That it feels good to release.

And we all have things in life we can scream about.

But you don’t need to travel all the way to Mongolia in order to heal in this way.

You don’t need to have access to a wide open field or go deep into woods.

You don't even have to leave your bedroom.

This is how you scream from home:

Louise Hay*, in her book "You Can Heal Your Life," writes about how sometimes we need to lay down, face first in a pillow and let go, to scream as loud as we can for as long as we can.

*In addition to Anthropology, I am proudly a Louise Hay nerd. Like Tony Robbins, Louise was a big deal in the healing community and was renowned for her wisdom on healing trauma. She insisted the body was holding on to old pains long before Bessel Van Der Kolk, PhD, came out with his book, The Body Keeps the Score.

Both Tony King and Louise Hay promote the healing power of screaming.