It’s no secret that 2020 has been – well, it’s been a year. With lockdown restrictions varying across the world, we’ve all experienced hiccups in our plans or new realities from cancelled trips, to extreme boredom and even having to re-arranging weddings. Struggling Melbournian, Tess Roberts came up with an idea for some much-needed relief and created the Facebook event ‘Stand on Your Front Porch and Scream‘. When speaking to The News Daily, she admitted that she created the event as a bit of a joke and had no idea 74,000 people would get involved.
This is Melbourne’s Story of Gratitude for the power of social media and its role in connecting communities during Covid19 lock downs.
Having lost her job in Administration due to the virus, Tess found comfort in her 10 Medicare-funded psychology sessions but was starting to reach the end of the list of “healthy coping mechanisms” suggested by her psychologist. When she started to feel a little lost, she figured the best way to express how she was feeling was to “literally just to walk out into the outside world and just yell because I think there’s something cathartic about that”.
Tess was certainly onto something, as scientific study suggests that screaming has indeed proven to provide psychological benefits, with a report from Life Hack explaining: “for the first time in the history of psychology there is a way to access feelings, hidden away, in a safe way and thus to reduce human suffering. It is, in essence, the first science of psychotherapy.” — Dr. Arthur Janov
The Facebook event feed was flooded with videos of people taking part in the porch-screaming, as well as documenting screams of others that could be heard around their neighbourhood. Responses on the Facebook feed were extremely positive, with comments including: “That felt good”; “Can we do this next Friday night same time”; ”the best lockdown activity so far. 5 stars” and “my throat hurts but my heart is happy”.
Imagine if we all screamed to let our negative emotions out instead of bottling them up or taking them out on our partners by being less-than-a-pleasure to be around. To avoid scaring your neighbours, unless you live in a very remote area I’d recommend screaming into a pillow or perhaps giving sing-screaming a try. Let’s all try to practise healthy coping mechanisms to get us through these difficult times.
What are you grateful for? Say thank you the best way we know how, by sharing your story on sharegratitude.com