Growing up, I rarely saw my parents cry.
I’ve never once seen my father cry, and have only ever seen my mother cry a handful of times. But you know, I’m not alone in these observations. Many of you would have grown up with very stoic parents like myself, rarely seeing tears of joy or happiness emerge from their eyes.
But of what consequence is all of this? I’m writing this article because I’m on a quest, a quest to make crying something normal, commonplace and acceptable in my life.
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Whether because of parental, cultural or societal influence, crying has become something swept deftly “underneath the mat”. Crying, to many of us is uncomfortable, awkward and even embarrassing. It signifies physical weakness in men, and emotional fragility in women.
But what is the true weakness here? True weakness isn’t acknowledging your emotions by crying: it’s hiding from them.
Are You Emotionally Repressed?
“The saddest thing is that when you cry, I can hear that you’re still trying to repress your emotions”. These were the words of Sol, after a quiet, turbulent struggle with my emotions, resulting in hot tears and repressed sobs recently.
“Crying is what makes you human. But you’re building all of these emotions up until you explode … Promise me that you’ll cry more”. Feeling immensely relieved from the inner weight I was carrying in me, I agreed to try, every day. So what now? Now I’m trying to relearn how to cry. Now I’m trying to let my emotions flow freely, unrepressed and unhindered, because there’s nothing admirable about being an emotionally repressed person.
If anything, emotionally repressed people create the most strife in the world. Think of the effects that sexual repression has on people and society, and you’ll be given some idea of the havoc that unacknowledged feelings wreak. Even in my own relationships emotional repression has built many mounds out of molehills. Think: emotional and physical disconnection, moodiness, jealousy, and unnecessary drama over the smallest things.
But how can you tell whether you’re an emotionally repressed person who is out of touch with their feelings? Here are some clues:
- Difficulty in crying freely and easily.
- Difficulty in laughing heartily.
- Difficulty identifying emotions.
- Difficulty expressing how one feels.
- Difficulty opening up to people emotionally.
- Secrecy. Not sharing very much about your thoughts, opinions or feelings with others.
- Unexplainable moodiness, melancholy or glumness.
- Inability to express strong emotions like anger or sadness.
- Bottling emotions up inside and imploding.
If you share more than a couple of these traits, chances are that you’ve lost touch with your emotions by burying them away.
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The Importance of Letting it All Out
Question: Why are (most) Latino’s so vibrant and charismatic?
Answer: because they’re in touch with their emotions.
Whether it’s joy, gratitude, anger, sadness, love or lust, Latino cultures in particular know how to express themselves. Their raw, rustic and untamed connection with their bodies and hearts is exactly why I respect them so much.
Even the meek and respectful Japanese have their way of “letting it all out”. According to a recent article published in the UK Independent, Japanese businessmen and women have taken to attending sad, weepy movies just to shed a few tears. The Japanese call it the “crying boom”, signifying the rise in popularity of expressing emotions.
Trend or not, to acknowledge our feelings through crying is an intelligent way of living life. After all, why on earth would we have the ability to shed tears if it served no purpose? Crying, just like laughing, is essential for our well being. But how can we laugh when we’re so jam-packed full of dark and miserable emotions?
We need to learn how to cry before we learn how to laugh. You can’t laugh away your negative emotions. They’re still going to be there, underneath, even if they are diluted.
Crying is natures way of relieving our ‘tensions’ and our burdens. It doesn’t make our problems disappear, no. But it helps us to deal with our problems in a more level-headed way. In essence, crying helps us to live more lively and self-understanding lives.
It’s essential to acknowledge and express our emotions when learning how to reconnect with our souls.
Whether you’re male or female, young or old, I encourage you to put on a sad movie today … and let it all out.
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Yes. I always use to repress my feelings especially at the verge of tears because I saw it as a sign of weakness… However once you let go and let yourself free, you feel totally liberated like something heavy has just been uplifted. When you feel like crying just cry because you’ll feel so much better!
Very true and very wise Jen! I struggle with this issue as well, but I’ve since learned to just let it out, even if it makes me uncomfortable at first. It is worth it in the long run.
Firstly, I want to say, your name is awesome Aletheia Luna.
I’m very interested in crying as a form or emotional release, as often as possible. I am emotionally repressed for the most part.
I have had amazing results to my physical state due to some recent crying.
Some weeks ago, I ended up crying deep and long wails into a folded towel to muffle the loudness. I cried twice that day. By the end of the second crying spell, my lower back pain/tension was gone. This was a tension in my lower back, that I had for close to two months, where sitting and standing for even a few minutes left my back in pain.
Lately, again, lower back stiffness and tension had been bothering me for about a week. I also carry tension in my neck and shoulders. Today my neck/shoulder area was very tight due to a stressful morning. I ended up crying in the afternoon. I wailed deeply, this time, into a bunched up blanket. They were tears of fear and sorrow, grief and doubt, just like last time and triggered by something unrelated. And again, my lower back relaxed and released the tension. A few hours after that, I cried deeply again, only for a few seconds, and my neck and shoulders released most of the tension.
I also noticed that my eyes and face, which normally look tired, looked very rested and plump. I have energy and am in a good mood. I guess tension, or holding negative emotion, can really make you snappy and reactive.
While crying, there is a release of painful emotions but it feels extremely pleasurable if you’re able to let go.
Laughter has similar effects, if it’s deep, uncontrolled, and brings you to tears. It is as difficult to laugh deeply as it is to cry deeply.
But I have relieved a terrible headache and even depression through laughing at something I found very funny.
I apologize for the long comment. I am excited about the results of my emotional release, and I wanted to share it!
RB, I really appreciate your comment and am so happy that you have experienced a release from your physical tension as a result of crying. I know how terrible it is to constantly carry around pain and how it tends to cripple many things you can do in life. I really hope that you continue to carry on this unique kind of therapy, which isn’t really therapy — it is our natural state of being that we have lost touch with.
I don’t cry because I don’t want others to worry. It’s not as though I’m not happy, but I hope you follow what makes you happiest. They say that ‘things get better’ and they truly do. <3
It is always possible to cry by yourself if you are concerned about making others worry. Repressing your sadness by not truly experiencing your darker emotions eventually produces a lot of mental and emotional instability, and sickness as well. While life does get better and is a series of ‘ups’ and ‘downs’, it is still important to cry.
I can’t cry anymore, I try so hard, so very very hard to let it out sometimes, as I go into college everyday with things going on that would usually make me wanna burst out in tears sometimes, but I cant and it all started because I didn’t want to show weakness or that they have got to me, so now I cant even let it out and when I try its not really spontaneous, I feel the pain deep inside hurting me, but I have to think really hard about it and even act it out to feel like its working and I do feel sadder, but I never shed a tear…. PLZ HELP ME I WANT TO SCREAM INSIDE
I’ve felt this way SO many times Jake, so I can really understand the place you are coming from. The best thing to do is to find an intense activity, such as boxing, or running, or something physical that will exhaust you. Put your emotion into punching or kicking or running (or whatever you choose), as this is an emotional catharsis. Also, try screaming into your pillow case until you are exhausted. This lets out a lot of the emotional repression within you. I really hope these suggestions help you – in fact – I am certain they will if you at least give them a try.
I have just today stumbled upon this website. Wow. So much I can identify with, so much fits me and sadly in not good ways.
To my detriment I fit all of the criteria for this article and as much as it may be healthier for me to ‘let it all out’ I simply cannot and an incapable of bringing myself to that.
I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for a number of years and no longer have any idea who I am, what I want or where I want to be; let alone what I feel or what I want to feel.
Regardless of my issues, I simply wanted to thank you and Sol for these articles and the comfort in knowing that there are others who have walked my path.
It is good that you are able to develop some kind of awareness Bones, and for Sol and I to provide that is a wonderful start. You may not be ready yet to confront your emotions, or perhaps feel as though you are incapable, but eventually for your long-term mental and emotional health you will need to consider taking one step at a time. It is tempting to try to correct everything at once, but in my experience that is counter-productive. Focusing on one area at a time helps – hopefully this piece of advice will assist in some way. In extreme cases, going to a psychologist can help, support-groups are also very beneficial and supportive.
I would love to hear how your progress goes in the future. Thank you for taking the time to share here.
-Luna
I agree that crying is awesome. I have to go through a lot of stuff bc of being emotionally repressed during my teenagehood.
Most of the feelings are coming up naturally bc John Sherman’s “look at yourself” method. Its like my system is taking a huge poop and I get lighter every day.
Thanks for the article!
“Its like my system is taking a huge poop and I get lighter every day” haha :)
Crying therapy is exactly like that: a big fat mental excretion. You should also try screaming therapy (also called Dynamic Meditation), it’s an extremely affective catharsis.
Thank you for reading and sharing David!
-L
I cry quite easily. In fact, it is my only real means of expression – I cry when I am sad, I cry when I am happy, I cry when I see/hear beauty, and I cry when I see/hear ugliness. I do not cry when I laugh, but that is the only time. I do suffer from deep depression from time to time, and it used to be that most of the time my outward expression was flat – very few emotions expressed – but now I experience these frequent crying jags.
For a while now I’ve wondered to myself, “Am I depressed?” Even now I cannot say, but one thing that I am certain of is that I am without a doubt emotionally repressed. Growing up I was someone who cried to express my emotion, but the older I got the more people began to look down on my emotional expression. Slowly, but surely, I stopped crying and began to shove those emotions deep within myself.
Quite some time ago, I remember my sister telling me that she couldn’t remember the last time she saw me cry. This got me thinking, neither can I. Sure I’ve experienced some tragic moments since then, and I can recall “crying” once. But they weren’t real tears. Picture this. You’ve just been told that your cousin has died in a car accident and your initial reaction is simply “Oh.” You go see the family and pay your respects and then you realize, you’re the only one not crying. Eventually I forced some tears out, but I couldn’t accept that response.
It saddens me to say this, but I just can’t bring myself to cry anymore.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. In a way, I think I’m just tired of feeling. I’ve witnessed the ugly side of the world, and I just can’t force myself to look away anymore. In the beginning I couldn’t help but feel sad and hopeless, but time went on and I soon realized that the world isn’t this way because it wants to be. We’ve forced it into a hole it just can’t dig itself out of. There are plenty of us out there that have reached the same conclusions, but unfortunately we’re only onlookers in this hate driven world. I know that one day I’ll become a very miserable person by thinking like this and I’ve even lost people close to me because of this, but to me that’s just another reason to not care anymore. Whether or not I’ve made the right choices in life or not will all become apparent once my life comes to an end, and until then this is just how I’ll continue to live my life.
I’m not sure if this pertains to much of what you said, and I do apologize. I just lose myself in my words sometimes. Regardless, thank your for your words.
You and Sol make a big difference to a lot of people in the world by writing what you write and responding as you do! I wanted to reply to Jose too but just could not find the right words. I avoid following the news in general. Always have. I think deep down my intuition warned me not to for my own sanity! I come from a family of worrriers. Several of my friends have liked LonerWolf because I share your stuff. That alone is making a positive influence in others’ lives. Not much. But every little helps, eh?!
Thanks again for taking the time out to respond. I can’t explain it, but reading this really brought a smile to my face. I guess in a way I just feel overwhelmingly helpless. I care so much about the suffering of others that I tried to numb my feelings so I could tolerate that pain and emptiness within myself. I know that I still dwell in the darkness of my heart, but given some time I really hope that I can come forth with something to offer to the world.
I am British – on the stiff upper lip variety – and was raised to believe showing any kind of emotion publicly was inappropriate. As a sensitive child I was unable to see another kid cry without my eyes tearing up. I had no control over it and fought it relentlessly. I felt totally ashamed. When I was 13 I went to boarding school where I learnt it was OK to cry. Thank God. I love crying!! I was on anti-depressants for a long time and – while I recognised sadness and emotion and tragedy – I couldn’t cry. I weaned myself off them with therapy and self-help and nutritional supplements suggested by Dr. Daniel Amen in “The Amen Solution”. It hasn’t solved all life’s issues for me (Life will always be difficult for this INFJ/HSP) but it has certainly helped.
It doesn’t mean you’re ‘weak’ at all.