Crying is a way of releasing emotions. Going through a significant emotional event such as divorce is stressful and at times it may seem like you are on an emotional rollercoaster.
And you are.
Crying is a natural way of dealing with these emotions. After days of crying you may begin to wonder why am I crying so much and when will this be over.
You will stop crying when you’re emotionally ready to stop crying!
The media and perhaps even your upbringing may have taught you that crying is a weakness. Television sitcoms tell characters on the show to ‘tough it out’ or ‘suck it up’. Parents or relatives may have told you as a little girl ‘Big Girl’s Don’t Cry’.
Society teaches us you’re a stronger person if you stuff your feelings deep down. Reality is, some of the strongest people I know both men and women cry when they feel sorrow or joy. It is their tears that demonstrate they are comfortable in their own skin and care not how people judge them.
Let me share their secret and awareness of why they shed tears.
I was brought up by parents who understood the healthiness of expressing emotions in a constructive manner; it was okay to cry. However; in my marriage, my husband was not raised in such a household and he didn’t take well to my tearful emotions. Overtime I learned to suppress my feelings to keep peace in the family. What I didn’t realize is that I was also suppressing me.
When it became evident that our divorce was eminent; my tears started to flow. I cried every day for many months. What I discovered is that all those feelings I had stuffed down over the years of my marriage were emerging. I can honestly say, it was an exhausting process but it felt so good to reconnect with myself.
In the beginning, I was ashamed of my tears; but with people around who supported me who understood that my tears were my feelings all bubbling to the surface I was able to rediscovering myself.
Crying is not a weakness:
It’s a natural, human response to sorrow, pain, fear, anger, shame, grief, despair, depression and sadness. During my emotional healing I felt all of these feelings and had to learn to reconnect what I was feeling with a word that described the emotion.
A friend had suggested to me, when you feel the tears coming; ask yourself … “what are you feeling?” In the beginning, I couldn’t identify the feeling because it was foreign. After a period of time, I started realizing it was loneliness, frustration, anger, etc.
Overtime, you will find your tears diminishing and this will be in direct correlation to you becoming emotionally healthy. You may find yourself again starting to cry; but this time it is different. You see, crying is also a built in response to joy, feeling deeply touched or loved, being awed, and experiencing tenderness. But I couldn’t get to the positive emotions associated with crying until I reconnected with myself.
Lesson Learned: Crying is something to embrace; it is part of YOU and will help you to step into a life of JOY!
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