Meet the moms who gather in a field to scream
Sometimes, you just have to scream a little bit to feel better. And that's exactly what one group of Massachusetts moms is doing to release some stress.
On a recent January night, Sarah Harmon, a mental health therapist, yoga teacher and founder of “School of Mom” gathered a group of local moms for a screaming session in a giant field that would muffle the sound. She said the idea first came about at the beginning of the pandemic while talking with moms about rage.
“I was educating them about anger and how underneath anger there’s so many more emotions — there’s sadness, there’s anxiety, there’s fear, there’s resentment — and they had no place to put it,” she said on TODAY Friday. "Moms were at home and not in community, and just struggling."
Harmon initially brought up the idea of a screaming session casually while talking with clients, and they loved it. So she planned the first event in March 2021. Recently, her clients were hungry for more, so Harmon planned another screaming session.
"We got together and we let it out," she said.
During the session, Harmon led participants through five rounds of screaming. They eased into things with a regular scream — nothing too fancy — and she used her child's light-up unicorn as a prop to cue the scream.
Up next, she encouraged the moms to yell profanities. The group then moved on to a "free for all" scream where everyone screamed whatever they wanted to.
Harmon then encouraged the group to scream in honor of everyone who wasn't available to scream with them, and finished things with a screaming contest to see who could scream the most.
"I think it's the body’s intuition to release," Harmon said on TODAY. "Emotions move through us when we allow them to and rage is something we all know. We can feel it and it's such an emotion that's often taboo, especially for women."
Harmon hopes people take one lesson away from her story.
"Hopefully this message for people is permission to let it out. Go somewhere safe, grab a friend and release it," she said, adding that she feels lighter just watching the video and can't wait to do it again.
TODAY anchor Sheinelle Jones agreed that there's something about the experience of collectively screaming together that makes you feel good, and said she used to do something similar in college before final exams.
"But I never thought about doing this as a mom," she said.
"I have never wanted to scream more in my life than I do right now," said Craig Melvin
And so the entire 3rd Hour team let it out together — with the exception of Sheinelle.
"I have throat issues; I can't do that. You feel good?" she asked her co-hosts.
