It still happens so often that, in a coaching conversation, when someone starts to cry, they apologize. “I’m so sorry,” they say. Or, “I don’t know why I’m crying.” Or they reach for the tissues in a hurry, and try to swallow to make the tears stop.
We have been so misled about tears.
Tears are our bodies’ natural system for expressing and moving through emotions – especially grief. They are such a gift. They are one of the most exquisite parts of our design. And they have healing magic.
Crying has nothing to do with weakness. That’s a lie perpetuated by a system that brutalizes us by defining strength as heart-hardening, so that it can keep doing the things only hardened-hearts would tolerate. It’s a system afraid of what we might change, upend, defy, if our hearts were soft.
Crying is simply one form of healthy processing of emotion. We cry because it helps us release and integrate and reset. We are all different on the other side of a good cry, a new peace in the body, and a new openness to begin again.
When you need to cry, or when something helps you to cry, let the tears flow – and – not just for a moment, but until you are done. The well of tears has a bottom, and there is something waiting for you there.
Love,
Tara
P.S. Want more? Here’s another post on the value of tears.
And here are a couple recent posts related to COVID-19:
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon
