How do you feeling about crying?
About your own tears? About seeing someone else crying?
I used to be embarrassed about my proclivity for crying. Tears felt like an admission to the world that something must be wrong with me.
I know I’m not the only one with baggage around tears.
What if we allow ourselves to release the story we've told ourselves, and allow a truer tale to emerge?
Tears: The Story
There is an accepted story in our collective consciousness that tears demonstrate weakness, inability to do what needs to be done; that they are bad, ill-timed, pathetic…
There is a story about who cries, why they cry and why they keep crying; that something is wrong and needs to be fixed…or you just need to get over whatever is bringing the tears on.
That story exists. I accepted it and gave it juice for a few decades.
But I don’t any more. Tears are a natural way that energy moves thru us. Period.
Blocking or burying energy causes all sorts of discomfort, dis-ease and stagnation.
And…it will come out anyways...sideways. If energy has been forcefully pushed down, it’ll burst out in a direction that may cause harm, like a beach ball that you try to push underwater.
✨Interestingly enough, one of those sideways ways that energy can burst out is through crying that won't stop. I'll talk about this more in a subsequent blog.✨
Tears are a natural way that energy moves thru us. Period.
The Invitation
When we sense an impulse in our bodies to express a particular way, we have an invitation to flow with the energy instead of fighting against it.
When we flow with the energy, we will experience an authentic release, a quieting of our heart, mind and body.
From that point of presence and clarity, we will experience a sense of order as we move forward.
All is Welcome
Tears were building for me, this week.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I could sense the stingle and warmth behind my eyes, in my nose. On Thursday, I made a crying face to let them know it was safe to come. Still no tears.
Sure enough, they arrived on Friday, when they were ready. Hot and wet they rolled down my face. After a little while, they receded. As they did, the particular thing I was working on, when they erupted, suddenly that much more manageable. I could see what I needed to do, where moments before it just felt like a jumbled mess of spaghetti.
Looking Back
I was reminded of a moment, about a year ago, when I had also sensed the building of tears. I had ridden my bike to yoga, and was stopping at the grocery store on my way home. That’s when the tears arrived.
I parked my bike, sat on the curb in front of the store and just sobbed.
It was a deep wave of grief and sadness washing over me, and I let it. Right there.
I knew I was okay and ‘simply’ allowing the energy to move thru me.
A lovely man asked me if I was okay.
I said, “I’m experiencing a wave of grief. I’ll be okay.”
He didn’t look so certain, but allowed me to continue.
Witnessing the Human Condition
It may sound super weird, but I decided to capture what I looked like, in that moment of raw emotion pouring forth.
Initially, I see the pictures and I am filled with sorrow for my experience in THAT moment in time. What I was going thru really, REALLY sucked.
My body in THIS moment feels the pain that I associate with witnessing another person crying deeply.
When we see another person expressing their pain, it our our deeply held pain, or our own experience with difficulties of life. This is part of the human condition. There is nothing inherently wrong when we express emotion in an authentic and natural way.
It may be uncomfortable, that is true. Sometimes life is uncomfortable. As we expand our capacity to be with our own discomfort, we expand our capacity to be with other people in their's.
Listen, Trust, Flow
The woman in the pictures above? She is okay. She WAS okay in that moment; she was feeling big emotion AND she was okay. She was incredibly uncomfortable AND she was okay.
The waves may be big. Things may super suck.
But if we can learn to welcome the energy to move thru us in the way it impulses to move, the wave will recede. And we will know what is next in a way we couldn’t know otherwise.
This is the beautiful order to how energy moves, if we listen and flow with it.
Let it flow. Trust your body and welcome what rises up.
With love,
Rachel
P.S. If you would like some direction and support in listening to, learning to trust, and allowing the flow, let's chat. Schedule a Discovery Session HERE.
Rachel Sartori is an Embodiment and Wholeness Coach. She is kick-ass and heart-centered whether she is showing up as a workshop/retreat facilitator, a private coach, a writer or a speaker. Rachel invites you to exercise your soul, and participate in the healing of your own heart and the world around you. With Rachel, all is welcome, all the time.
Read: Exercise Your Soul: Ignite Healing and Wholeness in your Life and Live from the Inside Out
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