The gift of tears

I often hear as I go about my work, rest and play when someone is trying to come to terms with a difficult personal struggle, a major life-changing event or struggling to come to terms with the death of a loved one. “I was strong, I didn’t cry”, “I didn’t shed one single tear” or “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, and here I am letting myself down”.

Have you ever heard yourself saying something similar?

Yet like most babies in the animal kingdom when we are born a human baby only has the crying response, the noise which crying brings to alert its caregivers that it has a need waiting to be fulfilled. Once the baby is cuddled, changed or fed the noise of crying subsides and the emotional response changes into contentment, peaceful sleep or coo’s and gurgles until the same or a different need arises the same cycle is played out until needs are fulfilled.     

We arrive into life with a very productive function and a necessary release mechanism to 'cry' when we are emotionally hurt, or wounded or when even the opposite, happy, experiencing something beautiful. 

The naturality of shedding tears is a gift from nature empowering us to release anything from sorrow to awe from the heart and soul since both can be unhealthy if we ‘hold’ them in our bodies.

We can learn a lot from observing babies and small children as their needs arise and are fulfilled. 

As adults, we can think of crying like a pressure cooker frustration, hurt, feeling sorry for ourselves, sorrow or wonder build up inside our body and once the ‘pressure’ has reached a certain point it needs to be released to ensure our emotional, psychological, physical and spiritual well-being. Pressure can be triggered in a few seconds or over many days, weeks or months.

The release comes from letting the tears roll, once relief has been achieved the cycle begins again, change is inevitable, and our emotions are transitional.  

How does our crying response become suppressed and repressed?

As we grow through childhood our natural response mechanisms are suppressed as we hear the adults around us say things like “Be strong”, big boys don’t cry”, “try harder”, “don’t be weak, a girl, a sissy”, “don’t be this or don’t be that”, do it this way or don’t do it at all.

Many children arrive to adulthood not knowing how to respond emotionally when life becomes difficult or wonderful and this can lead to dysfunction in our emotional responses to life’s problems.

A natural human response

Crying is part of healthy coping; therefore, it can be thought of as a strength rather than a weakness, it can be thought of as emotional intelligence if you fulfil your needs when your needs arise.

Realise through tears you, let go, cleanse your emotional world, restore you and make you healthy.   

Next time you feel yourself repressing your emotions pause, think, allow, and let them flow.