Why You Should Be A Cry Baby
GUEST POST BY REBECCA DETTMAN.
This week I had a really out-there experience, which made me realise something INCREDIBLY important: adults never cry, and this is profoundly unhealthy.
Let’s begin at the beginning. My husband did a mandatory Child Protection course a couple of months ago (read: seven hours of hearing about child abuse). Not a picnic, although clearly very important for assisting children. He came home physically and emotionally drained. I didn’t want to hear ANYTHING about it – let’s just say, for someone who is lucky enough to be able to say that I’ve never experienced any abuse in my life, I had a HIGHLY over-charged reaction to this subject matter. I immediately retracted back inside my Perfect World bubble and stuck my fingers in my ears and said La-La-La.
One of my favourite expressions is, “Do the thing you’re most afraid of.” Ironic, huh? Next thing I know, the universe is tapping me on the shoulder going, “Guess what? You have to take that course too!” I was doing some work with teenagers and the law said I had to complete Child Protection first. WELL. I was sooooo dreading that course. And guess what? Twenty-four after I’d finally done the bloody thing, I got sick. REALLY SICK.
So I’m driving home from a friends’ place (who had just given me a ‘Purification’ essential oil), and my throat is like razor blades and I’m hot-cold shivering and thinking about child abuse and purifying myself and all of a sudden I thought, “I think I need to cry!” Ten o’clock at night, in the car, just like that. So I did. And BOY did I cry. To be completely honest, I unloaded a whole episode of grief that must have come from a past life (something about soliders sexually harming babies) and the noises I made were EXACTLY the same noises I made when I was in labour!
To cut to the punchline, I processed whatever was coming up for me emotionally / spiritually over the following week. But the crying! After I had howled, sobbed, groaned, wept, cried out unintelligble things and trembled like a leaf for thirty minutes that night in the car, a strange calm descended upon me. I was through. I was done. I’d gotten it out. Whatever it was had passed and was gone… from lifetimes ago!
In the Western world, adults don’t cry. We bottle stuff up for YEARS. We don’t schedule in time for a good cry – and why?! Is crying really so embarrassing and bad and vulnerable? It is actually INCREDIBLY therapeutic as I discovered last week. And funnily, just like giving birth, even though it feels very intense and painful and overwhelming when you’re right in the middle of it, the moment it’s passed you feel FANTASTIC! Total buzzing endorphins! I look at other cultures who publicly weep and wail and show their grief very vocally (Middle Easterns, Italians, Africans) and I think how healthy that must be. We seem to close up and suppress our throat chakras in this culture, not truly expressing ourselves or giving our deepest emotions the chance to come out in a really healthy way.
Wouldn’t you rather a deep, cleansing, fulfilling cry than a bottled-up miserable feeling that is not released for decades and ultimately results in you numbly self-medicating yourself with drugs, alcohol and worse?
Footnote: I told a friend all of this, and she said, “Oh, I cry in the car all the time! I love crying in the car! It’s the BEST place.” Then she mentioned a friend. “Helen! You know Helen! Helen cries in the car too.” So, some of us might still be choosing somewhere deliberately ‘hidden’ and private to shed our tears, get all blotchy and screechy and erratic, but at least we’re regularly prioritising it! Go the car-cry, I say! If you haven’t cried lately, I highly recommend that you try it. I can’t convince you enough: as long as you really allow yourself to ‘go there’ without inhibitions, it feels AWESOME – and so will you afterwards!
When was the last time you allowed yourself to have a good cry? How did you feel afterwards?
Want to know more about the health benefits of crying? Click here to read Four Reasons To Have A Cry.
Positive affirmation for the day: I honour myself by allowing my emotions to surface.
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POSTED IN: cleansing, cry baby, crying, emotional, emotions, sobbing, tears, throat chakra
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Great post!
Cry is such an important and healthy way to share and release emotions.
I hear so many people say “don’t cry!” as if it is really embarrassing.
We have been told from such a young age not to cry that we see it as a weakness rather than a strength.
I personally cant remember the last time I cried. Maybe I should watch the Notebook again to schedule in a good of fashion healthy sob 
Great post!
Crying is such an important and healthy way to share and release emotions.
I hear so many people say “don’t cry!” as if it is really embarrassing.
We have been told from such a young age not to cry that we see it as a weakness rather than a strength.
I personally cant remember the last time I cried. Maybe I should watch the Notebook again to schedule in a good of fashion healthy sob
Go the car-cry! I don’t do it often enough, but I do it when I REALLY need to, ie when I can’t hold it in any longer! It is the absolute BEST stress relief and I can’t praise it enough. I have been doing a bit of ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) and I am even learning to STOP telling my kids to ‘stop crying’ or ‘don’t cry’. Instead I talk about what got them crying in the first place, how they feel etc. This is so effective with them and I hope teaches them both, but especially my son, that it is better to get the feelings out rather than bottling it in…
I love this post¡ thank you very much. JESS AND REBECCA
I cry sometimes – not for very long usually but when it’s over some sort of release comes. Yes ‘bottling things up’ is not good, for women or men. I don’t know what percentage of men would cry (??), (except for sad occasions like funerals, partnership & marriage breakups etc. ) , and of those who do, I don’t know how many would tell about it. Sometimes if Kristine cries it can set me off in sympathy to get teary – to be expected really, after being married for 31 years and most happy with a great wife. Kind regards, Lyall
Awesome! This is exactly why I love watching a good tear jerker movie, in the house when hubby is out on a boys night or otherwise occupied. Kids are in bed and I blubber to myself over whatever movie pick it is. I feel good afterwards and sleep so well! It’s my own therapy!
I loved this. I cry several times a week, almost always when I’m reading something that touches me. It drives my husband mad. I tell him it’s not a bad thing but it makes him crazy to see me cry. I do agree a really GOOD cry is therapeutic and a wonderful release., I must do that more often! Any child abuse story is almost to much to bear and will haunt me for days. I cannot stand it.
Oh wow, it’s so good to hear that others do the car cry, it is the best place for a good wail. After a particularly bad day taking my mum to get chemo years ago I screamed and cried and wailed for the whole 30 minute drive home(after I dropped her off of course) I was shattered when I got home but felt so much better, it was very cathartic. Sitting on the floor in the shower is another good place too
Rebecca, I can totally relate to this!.. I work in Health and was a Paramedic for 18 months.. during that time I did not cry once.. it is a culture where you are expected to suck it up and move on with the day after seeing death and dying. I thought I was fine.. then bam 18 months in to the job, anxiety and panic hit me like a tonne of bricks. I cried 18 months worth of tears for no apparent reason. Moral of the story. Crying and emotion is good.
Hi! Yes! Totally agree! That is why I TOTALLY relate and practise Aware Parenting and Hand in Hand Parenting – allowing your child to cry in your presence – it has proven scientific effects and adults also need to let these stress hormones out through our tears! Soooooo imporant!
So apt. I had just written about this same thing here http://loveyourselfnaturally.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/im-crying-again-but-dont-worry-its-all-good/
Emotional crying actually releases toxins in the tears as opposed to crying from an onion. Crying, like laughing, is paramount to a healthy human being. Great post.
The mourn not think it’s a bad thing, provided that benefits can be drawn from within what we have been all week. I tend to agree with most text dle, very well written