We Ring Around The Rosie Until We All Fall Down

In some books, I have also read this as Ring a Ring o' Roses.

So how many of you have played Ring around the Rosie with your emotions until you all fall down?!

A recent incident of someone else's version reminded me of how often I used to play this childhood game... (as an adult).

Something would be emotionally upsetting for me and I would start singing the song, grabbing the hands of any and everyone around me, forcing them to join in whether they wanted to or not.


We would spin faster and the words would get louder, and muddled together until they were impossible to understand.


Sometimes it was because I was saying them so quickly or loudly (as in yelling them). 
And others because they weren't even cohesive.

They no longer made any sense as I added emotion-filled verses that no one knew and that had nothing to do with the original song of point.

Did I mention I was the only one singing?  (It was more like a boisterous rap.)

This would continue until I was exhausted and had drained all those in the circle.
It would finally end with ... and they all fall down!  as we emotionally collapsed to the ground.


I have since tried to be aware when these feelings start to arise, and work them out through what I call "sorting". 
 
This keeps me from having to publicly go 360 degrees to get to what the real emotion and need is that I am feeling.   (And to protect the innocent bystanders.)

"If you don't manage your emotions, then your emotions will manage you."  ~Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman, Transforming Anxiety



It also helps preserve the sound of real music.

 "Ring a Ring o' Roses"
Roud #7925
Musical variations of Ring a Ring o' Roses, Alice Gomme, 1898.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.  ~Henry David Thoreau