Crying Isn’t Weak, Though
Sadly, crying has a poor reputation.
All too often, it is perceived as a weakness. We see it in fiction, when characters are portrayed as stronger for refusing to shed tears. We see it in real life, when one person tells another (whether hostilely or soothingly) not to cry.
But crying is not a weakness.
In fact, it is a strength.
Check out my book (here) about mental health and healing.
Crying is often likened to passively giving in to one’s own emotions.
Of course, many choose to suppress their tears (and, thus, their emotions) because they are afraid of exposing their vulnerabilities. But many choose not to shed theirs because they view crying as an act of lacking self-control. Because, to them, to cry is to become a victim of one’s emotions.
But that is not so.
There are emotional reactions that signal a sense of passive reactivity to emotions, but crying is not one of them. Crying is not equivalent to yelling at someone when you are angry, or misbehaving when you are jealous. Unlike these kinds of reactions, shedding tears hurts no one (neither you nor those in your vicinity); on the contrary, it can be more harmful not to cry when your body wants to.
Crying is a natural expression of emotion.
Crying is to sadness, grief, and countless other feelings what laughter is to joy. It is an emotional response that arises naturally, sometimes as entirely beyond our control as the emotion itself. Like eating food or getting fresh air, crying is an action each of us takes to varying degrees, but it is always natural and never harmful in itself.
Indeed, letting your tears flow can have a positive effect on your health.
Because crying is not the same as caving in to impulses or giving up. It’s our bodies’ way of processing the emotions that arise by telling us that we need to pause for a moment and check in with our needs (a popular notion within evolutionary psychology, among other disciplines). We may think that crying is useless (and worthless) when we’re facing more important tasks, like finishing an article for school or slaying a dragon.
But tears are not roadblocks; they’re signs that show us where to go.
And if we continuously, constantly suppress those signs and force them down along with our emotions, we suppress our bodies’ natural emotion processing systems. We leave the feelings untended, not fully felt. And that can be more harmful than shedding tears can be.
Crying is a strength.
For it takes courage to stare directly into your feelings and not push them aside — but, rather, to walk straight through them and get to the other end.
