It’s Your Life and You Can Cry If You Want To
Learning to recognize that tears are information
I love Mary J. Blige. Remember her song, Not Gon’ Cry? She sings:
I’m not gon’ cry
I’m not gon’ cry
I’m not gon’ shed no tears
No, I’m not gon’ cry
It’s not the time
Cause you’re not worth my tears
What she’s actually communicating in this song is that she is incredibly sad. She is disappointed that her relationship didn’t work out. She’s thinking about all of the years she put into it and now it feels like it was for nothing. That doesn’t match up at all with her insisting she’s not going to cry, but it’s something many of us do. We trick ourselves into thinking we have to pretend we don’t care, or that we are unaffected by things that happen to us, but it’s ok to be affected. It’s ok to cry.
I read an article that said American women cry about four times a month and men cry two times each month. We only equate crying with sadness but there are many kinds of tears. We cry because we’re sad, happy, overjoyed, angry, uncomfortable. We cry because we have something in our eye. We cry because we are in such pain that crying is the only way we can express ourselves.
One day I was feeding my friend’s baby and I started crying. I made my kids’ baby food when they were little and she makes her baby food as well. It made me remember when my kids were smaller. I missed that moment in time, and the sweetness of that interaction made me cry. There are a plethora of reasons for our tears. Whenever any of these things happen, I think we should allow the tears to flow.
When we don’t cry we end up emotionally constipated. We push our feelings down and end up engaging in behaviors that are unhealthy as a way to not feel anything. When we eventually release our tears, it’s terrible. It’s all over the place and we can barely pinpoint the reason why we’re crying because by that point there are so many. I’ve done that before. I’ll tell myself I’m not going to cry and then I’m crying about dropping a light bulb and something that happened in the fifth grade.
Many of us have crying cycles. For myself I notice there are about four days each month where things that do not usually bother me, will set me off. If we take the time to really pay attention to ourselves, maybe we will also notice certain times of the month, or people, or situations that trigger strong emotional responses. It’s good to be aware that these are things that may put us in a crying spirit, and to be ok with that. Crying isn’t something we need to stop.
I have seen people who are very depressed, or anxious and they come in and say they have been crying every day for thirty days. At first glance that may seem like a bad thing, but crying is communication. Even in these situations crying can be helpful because it can lead us to talk about our problems, and get help.
What a gift it is to be able to form tears and have emotional reactions to things. Our tears make us aware that something going on inside of us needs to be talked about and processed. Our tears draw our attention so that we can get to the root of what caused them.
Journal Prompts
When was the last time you had a good cry? What prompted it?
How do you feel while you’re crying? How do you feel after you cry?
Read
Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma to Claim Your Whole, Authentic Self, by Dr. Thema Bryant. You can find this book on Amazon and Bookshop.
Watch
The Last Kingdom. This show is in its fifth season. I recently watched a bunch of episodes on my flights to and from Santa Fe, and I’m almost finished. The show is a historical fiction series dramatizing the relationship between the Vikings and Anglo Saxons in the late nineteenth century. You can watch it on Netflix.
I hope you’re enjoying the Nedra Nuggets newsletter! Please share in the comments how this article resonated with you.
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