This week I had a shock, a big one. It rocked the stable foundation of my world, opened up a plethora of old wounds and is still at this minute trying to bring me into a horrible depression. Needless to say it sucked balls. And yes I know millions of amazing strategies to deal with situations just like this. However at the beginning of the week when the thunderclap hit all of that flew straight out of the window and I was a complete and utter mess. The fears took over, the tears kept coming. I broke in a very soggy way.
Now I guess you are wondering how a life coach and someone who works on a daily basis with personal development can react so emotionally to something in this extreme way? Well honestly I am human. Most life coaches have experienced traumas, have unresolved baggage and fears just like anyone else. (And if you meet one who hasn’t I would seriously question them about it). The only difference with being a coach is that when these things happen once we get to a place where we have some sense of objective perspective we start to analyse, process and learn from our situation. Eventually we use the tools that we recommend to our clients and begin to recover.
However how do we get there to that stage of objective perspective? Everyone is different. In my case, specifically this week I often resort to the healing power of tears. Crying some people are against it, some people are for it as a healing tool. Personally I agree with the latter. For me tears are cathartic. I am a person with very strong emotions, both a blessing and a curse. When I get upset, really upset, my body becomes so full of emotion it blocks out everything else. For me crying, sobbing even wailing in the extreme times helps me release my emotions.It’s as if releasing the tears, releases the pain physically and sort of empties me out so I can begin to cope.
And science backs me up on this. Scientists have even found by looking at tears through a microscope crying for different reasons creates tears with different cellular structures. Read the fascinating Topography of tears to find out more.)
Moreover in recent years scientists have discovered that when we cry emotional tears:
- The tears release toxins and hormones produced by stress
- The tears released help you manage stress and give pain relief.
- Tears improve our moods and brings a sensation of relief
- Tears actually improve our vision
- Tears kill bacteria
- Tears help clear out our nose and lungs
It’s actually amazing when you look into it how good for us crying can be. (you can read more here.)
I was once in a relationship where if I cried it would anger my then boyfriend as he believed that when people cried it was just to manipulate other people to feel sorry for them. (You can see why heis an ex right!) However on some level he was right. Crying is way to communicate to others that we temporarily can’t cope and need help. We start as babies and carry on as adults. We all need other people and crying when we can’t cope anymore is a way to communicate we need help when we don’t have the strength to ask for it or to speak about our situation.
Trying not to cry is very unhealthy especially for our brains, which get horribly overloaded with stress hormones and problem solving when we are hurt and not crying. Crying things out gives the brain the opportunity to problem solve without the stress.
So if you feel bad about something allow yourself to cry it out. Medically and mentally it is good for us to cry when we are hurt (or when we are happy for that matter). You are not weak if you cry. It is when you think about it part of the problem solving process and is necessary for physical and mental health. Of course if the crying becomes uncontrollable or happens for no reason or even starts to affect your daily activities this is depression and you need to go and seek professional help)
Another benefit I have found to crying, or consciously allowing ourselves to cry is that it gives us a chance to tune to why we are upset. In extreme cases it can often be behind the emotional upset are some deep rooted fears that are being provoked. And this is where crying becomes really useful because if you can identify the fears and begin to work with those then you beginning to problem solve and develop yourself on a really deep level.
So what life lesson have I learnt this week? Simply that crying when bad things happen is actually part of my self development. Surrendering to the stress, to the situation has freed my mind and has now identified some unconscious fears. Of course that leaves me with something new to work through and that’s ok. By processing we learn, we re:root with ourselves and from there we evolve to enjoy our life’s journey. Bad times will always come, and we we allow ourselves to release and see them as an opportunity to grow they will always get better. So next time you need to cry do yourself a favour and let the tears flow unashamedly knowing you are doing yourself and your body a favour.
Have a great weekend <3