Seems like a dream maybe for some of you. And it was a dream of mine I think when I was younger. I was always crying. And always shouldn't have been. Or at least that's the message I got from others. Especially the lovely "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about." I had no right to cry, no reason. And at some point I turned off the tears. I don't remember when. If it happened when I started taking depression medication when I was 11, or when I was a teenager and had to be grown up, or when I was an adult (because adults never cry). But somewhere along there a dam was built behind my eyes, and the tears rarely leak through anymore.
And it's not the wonderful thing I thought it would be.
Sadness is a valid emotion. In the best cases, we feel it, we process it (often though crying), it moves through, and we move on to the next feeling that shows up. But when you can't cry, it often gets stuck. Or at the least it takes a really long time to feel through.The past few weeks I have felt really slow, weighted down, depressed even. I'm not really worried about the depressed part. Since healing from the major depression that was the majority of my life until I was 25, I still slide through depression at times. It too is a valid emotion. It's when we get stuck that it becomes a problem. Right now I'm trusting that I'm just moving through it slowly.
I have realized in the past few years that I feel things others don't. Yes, that sensitive word that I so hated growing up does apply. It has its gifts and it has its discomforts. And the past few weeks I have been feeling the discomforts. So much pain has been going on, and I've been feeling it. Recently I've been able to learn to separate what is mine and what is not, but even though I know it's not mine I still feel it. I avoid the news and don't read much about what's going on except the basic facts for major events, but it's still there. And I've had my own things that I need to feel and process and move through, all of which have been felt very strongly these past few weeks as well.
And I can't cry.
I've worked with quite a few practitioners on this very topic, and always we make some headway. But still, the floodgates aren't open.
And why am I telling you this?
Because nearly all of us have been taught that it's bad to cry. Never let others see you cry. Be strong. Be a big girl or boy. Brush it off. But when we don't allow ourselves to cry, we can't move through the feeling of sadness as smoothly. And we can't move on to feeling the next thing, which could be freaking amazing, but we're spending so much time and effort holding the tears back that we can't get there. I can see the freaking amazing things in my life just sitting there waiting for me to pick them up and feel their joy. But I can't yet because first I need to feel through the sadness- it's next in line. Like cars going through a one lane tunnel, sadness has to be allowed through first before anything else can come through.
My plan is to watch a movie that moves me to tears tonight after everyone else is asleep. That's normally how I can sneak around my block. I thought I'd be okay without doing that, but today I was feeling even slower and more weighed down, so I know I truly need to. For whatever reason, the tears flow easier when they're for someone else. The movie allows me to start crying, and then I can move through my own sadness. That's my plan. Because I really want to move on to those joyful things that are waiting for me. I can hear the fun music from the next car waiting to come through the tunnel. I just have to focus on the one that's in front of me right now.
How about you? Are you holding back tears right now? What would make it okay to let them through?
Much love to you all. You and your tears are a blessing to the world.
