The Courage to Cry
The unsung hero of our mental happiness
“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
I remember about thirty of us sitting around in a circle at a retreat in California. It was a retreat where we were going to go inwards and really face whatever our issues were in terms of intimacy. There was going to be openness, vulnerability, and crying… lots and lots of crying.
The instructor said something that I will never forget.
“If someone starts to cry, do not offer them a tissue. Absolutely do not offer them anything.”
Most people in the room looked at her confused so she went on.
“When we offer them a tissue, we are subconsciously telling them that we need them to stop, to clean themselves up, that they don’t want to be messy with tears and snot running down their faces. This is a deep training in our society — to always have it together — to not share your vulnerable sadness.
“Here, we are free to feel exactly what we feel. We can go into the deepest parts of us where we have stored that sadness and completely empty that closet. We will cry, get messy — physically, emotionally, and in every way. We will cry and scream and let it all go… and everyone else will just hold space for us while we do it.”
I love crying. I love having friends and family around me who will cry in front of me and whom I can cry with.
There is something about allowing our emotions to flow freely that just makes us feel alive — like there are no rules on what our truth is in any moment.
When I was researching people who had spontaneous remissions for my book What If You Could Skip the Cancer?, one of the number one commonalities among those who survived was “emotional lability”.
Emotional lability was the ability to flow from one emotion to the next without allowing our brain to get in the way and stopping the natural flow. It was the ability to be laughing one minute, crying the next, angry the next, and then laughing again.
It’s so interesting how we have judged our emotions so harshly. We have treated them like…
