As a kid, I remember teaching myself that crying is a form of weakness. Why would I cry when I could just…not. Years later, I would learn why that would be a terrible decision. I have now learned to allow myself to cry. Let it out.
Holding it in doesn’t benefit anyone. In fact, it hurts you. There’s a difference between not wanting to cry because your environment is making you feel uncomfortable vs. not wanting to make someone uncomfortable (including yourself).
So, these are the lessons that, hopefully, you don’t have to learn the hard way.
Being strong can mean to cry
I remember crying to mom and yelling out that I HATED crying. Based on my own experiences, whenever I would cry, I would either be looked at as a sociopath or a weirdo. There was even one time where I was laughed at by a whole class. It wasn’t fun to constantly be seen as a weakling whenever I cried. So, I just stopped… at least in public.
However, what I didn’t know was that you have to be strong in order to cry. To be vulnerable and let out your emotions. You are able to express your emotions and relieve yourself of them. Whether that’s forever or just for as long as the cry session is.
You’re allowing yourself to become vulnerable, with yourself or someone, and lay your emotions out. That, to me, shows emotional intelligence.
Soon the lion will escape
Crying and not letting out your emotions will result in them being bottled up. All that pressure is going to build up, and it will eventually cause that bottle to break. If you don’t let your emotions out, eventually, they will let themselves out. However, they would have had time to inflate themselves to be a much bigger emotion.
I have one instance where I blew up on someone. This someone was making fun of me, and it wasn’t that their words hurt. It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I honestly don’t remember what happened, but I just know that everyone began to leave me alone. In their minds, I probably became a ticking time bomb that had a hidden igniter. For me, this incident brought me peace from those who kept picking at me. On the other hand, it showed me what would happen if I continued that path.
I didn’t want to be known as the ticking time bomb. So, I remembered that moment as the day I finally released all that pressure. I would cry… just not in public. I just didn’t feel comfortable with that, but if I had to, I would allow myself to have a moment. And as the years went on, I got better at allowing myself to have those moments.
Will I say that it became easier? Yes and no. Yes because I would be able to express my emotions and understand that I’m releasing myself from this weight. No because, sometimes, I would subconsciously suppress my emotions WITHOUT even knowing it! Again, this was just a lesson that I would learn:
DON’T dilute your emotions for others
Sometimes, the weight on my shoulders had to do with what someone said to me or their actions. I would feel like I should keep their actions or words to myself, but I learned that this action was wrong. How is someone supposed to grow when they don’t know what to work on?
People, unfortunately and fortunately, are NOT mind readers. In order for something to be resolved, it has to be addressed. If you can mentally address that issue in hand and bypass it, that’s one thing. On the other hand, if this is something that is bothering you, then you need to say it.
When crying and being vulnerable with someone, it is your job to do this: release that weight. That’s it. If they don’t understand where you’re coming from, even when you’ve explained it thoroughly, then they just don’t understand.
Sometimes, I have seen people not take account for their actions, which in turn, makes that person feel as if their emotions were not justified (that person has been me). I just want to say that this is false. Even if an action has good intentions, it can still have negative consequences.
Perception is in the eye of the judger
I have learned to have the eyes of people roll off my back. People are seeing a percent of the trailer and they think they know the whole plot. NO! Their perception is just the reflection of their own judgments.
I learned that as I observed how people treated themselves and how they treated others. However, it took quite a bit of lessons to learn that. Whenever I became vulnerable with a person and they were cruel, I would slowly learn that it was them NOT me. Does that mean that it doesn’t hurt? NO!
Someone who wants to be heard or seen will feel satisfied when that ONE person can understand and empathize with them. If that one person has to be you, a family member, heck a therapist, IT’S OKAY!
I hope that people understand that this is normal. I don’t want people to feel as if they have zero right to cry because it makes someone uncomfortable, they’ve been shunned because of it, or any ridiculous reasons. If you need to cry, that’s a good enough reason to let it out.
Had a bad day and want to let it out? Great! Our emotions have cycles. You’re not going to be happy ALL the time, and that’s okay. When it rains, guess what shows up after? A rainbow. Those moments of grey allow you to release the grey and allow rays of light to shine through.
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