Are you afraid to cry? The hidden power of tears

Do you have the courage to cry? In my experience, the vast majority of people I encounter seem to hold back tears because our culture considers crying in public unacceptable. I wonder how it is that if you and I are going to fully encourage success in life, we can also discourage our emotional response to that life. It seems to me that inhibiting tears somehow means that you are strong and capable; unaffected and disconnected from the influence of others. What I am suggesting is that to be detached from others is to be invulnerable to yourself; to be invulnerable to all your being, to all your life, to all your good.

Not crying when you really want to is not risking but choosing safety. Holding back your tears, whether they are of pain or joy, is choosing the gray mist of indifference towards yourself. That, my friend, is the definition of negligence.

In my own life, I used to wish I didn’t cry. My propensity for tears was always out of my control. I couldn’t contain myself and yet I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want others to see my pain or know that I lacked confidence and self-discipline. Most of all, I wanted to hide my feelings because I associated them with my mother. I thought her tears were a sign of weakness. I thought the emotional ripples from her were the reason my father left us. And if there was one thing he didn’t want, it was more abandonment.

I once believed that my ability to feel life so intensely was my greatest risk. And, once I had a baby, it only got worse. I could cry in the blink of an eye and finally stopped fighting the tears. I cried at home, at work, in restaurants, and at meetings.

Then one day a mentor of mine explained the true meaning of emotions. His translation completely changed my willingness to cry without judging. He told me that the word emote was of Latin origin. She said that E stands for I and MOTE stands for MOVE. Emote means I MOVE. And the more she cried, the more she brought me closer to my authentic self.

I discovered that my tears were a bridge to the intimacy that I had always lacked with myself. And the more I gave myself permission to cry, the more people came to me and said, “Thank you. You amaze me at how you can allow yourself to feel. I was touched and I wish I could do that too.”

And the truth is… YOU CAN! You can touch what is real and make contact with the hidden self. You can taste the juicy sweetness of success that lies beyond the pain. Doing that requires you to change your mindset by acknowledging emotions, not as your greatest responsibility, but as your greatest asset. That means honoring my mother for her profound strength as a human being, because only she gave me the feminine power that she now personifies.

Letting go is much easier to do when you understand that tears are the natural response to arousal, emotion, or stress. That’s why tears come in so many flavors: relief, joy, grief, anxiety. Through tears, your body seeks to regain the balance that so many of us need. Biochemist William Frey, who wrote ‘The Mystery of Tears’, compared the normal moisturizing tear with the tear caused by emotion and found that stressful tears contained ACTH or adrenocorticotrophic hormone. ACTH is associated with high blood pressure, heart problems, peptic ulcers, and other stress-related physical conditions. That’s why you feel so much better after a good cry. You are literally flushing harmful hormones out of your body.

So go ahead, let it out and start moving towards personal prosperity within yourself. Open the door of your heart by feeling what is there and keep that door open for all the goodness that can enter the space you have created within. In the words of Washington Irving:

“There is something sacred in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming pain… and indescribable love.”

My challenge to you is to simply feel what you feel, in real time, with a real purpose. I encourage you to remember that anger is simply a mask for sadness and does not need to be directed at others or at yourself. You may find writing your unexplained emotions down on paper a cathartic exercise. I also suggest that you safely burn what you have written to release that energy in your life.

Until next time, I leave you with a lot of peace.