Constructive Wallowing

How to Beat Bad Feelings by Letting Yourself Have Them

By: Tina Gilbertson

Narrated by: Kimberly Mintz

Constructive wallowing seems like an oxymoron. Constructive is a good thing, but wallowing is bad. Right?

But wait a minute; is it really so terrible to give ourselves a time-out to feel our feelings? Or is it possible that wallowing is an act of loving kindness, right when we need it most?

Almost everyone loves the idea of self-compassion. The notion that maybe in spite of our messy emotions and questionable behavior, we really aren’t all that bad. In recent years there’s been an explosion of books that encourage readers to stop beating themselves up for being human, which is terrific. Unfortunately, readers who aren’t interested in Buddhism or meditation have been left out in the cold.

Constructive Wallowing is the first book to cut right to the chase, bypassing descriptions of Eastern philosophy and meditation techniques to teach listeners how to accept and feel their feelings with self-compassion for greater emotional health.

It’s tempting to turn away from menacing, uncomfortable feelings like anger, grief, or regret; however, ignoring them just seems to make them stick around. By learning to accept and embrace, difficult feelings, listeners keep their sense of personal power and gain greater understanding and ultimately esteem for themselves.

©2014 Cleis Press (P)2014 Cleis Press

Great book!

I would highly recommend this book! Great insight into the life cycle of feelings and the importance of allowing yourself to feel your emotions. A bit repetitive about the pros of why you shouldn’t repress your feelings, but ultimately drove home the point.

Loved this

This book was wonderful. It helped so much. Wonderful narration, great advice, appreciated it from beginning to end.

My Kind of Self-Help!

Practical, funny and succinct. Good for those in therapy who want go deeper into feeling work or for those who have worked on “feeling their feelings” for awhile. The author offers clear, solid examples and applies her easy to remember strategy to a variety of issues people must work through in resolving feelings. I enjoyed the narrator’s sense of humor and real person approach to a professional narration.

Amazingly clarifying and actionable

This book illuminates and makes accessible the “how” and the “why” of allowing yourself to experience painful feelings and the healing that is possible when that becomes your practice. If you, like me, got good at not consciously feeling problematic feelings (in my case, anger, hurt, defensiveness), this book will teach you how to feel those and other feelings and to develop self-compassion in the process. The concepts are explained well, the exercises are inspiring and doable, and the examples are varied, interesting, and relatable. I appreciated the author’s humor and reassurances. I will wholeheartedly recommend this book frequently to friends and family who are stuck.

Don't think your feelings

I really liked the clarity and exercises for understanding the difference between feeling your feelings and thinking your feelings. Light hearted and playful at times,
with a deep compassion for allowing our feelings to truly heal.

This book is about Manifesting Reality

I found out after wallowing through most of this that thinking reality into being, The Secret and other Napoleon Hill ideas are promoted by the author by name. Not what I signed up for and I wish I had the time I invested in listening to the book back,

did not help me at all.

the book has very obvious content. i did not gain any value from listening to it.