Tears

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It wasn’t all that long ago that it was said that ‘crying is for babies’, and tears were considered a sign of weakness. ‘Real men don’t cry’ ~ because real men are strong.

The sayings come from a time when showing our emotions was not the thing to do; and that was true equally for men and women. ‘Just stand up straight and do what needs to be done’ was the theme in those days. Those were different times, with different requirements. And in all fairness, it is partly because of that attitude that we have been able to build our cultures and our lives to where they are today.

Today we find ourselves at the other end of the spectrum where showing our emotions is a sign of strength. It is okay to laugh out loud, to love unconditionally, to show affection in public, and to let our tears flow freely…

As it turns out there are many reasons for us to cry.
We can laugh so hard that we start crying. We can cry because something is ‘painfully’ beautiful. We can cry when we are angry, or frustrated. We cry when we are hurt ~ physically, mentally or emotionally. We may cry seeing a newscast of horrible situations in far away places. We cry out our happiness, we cry over our greatest achievements. We cry when we are saying goodbye.
And in all cases crying is not only acceptable; it is a good thing!

Our tears ~ them being fluid ~ would be part of the water element, and as such be connected to our emotions. When we cry, letting our tears flow ~ then becomes a release of our emotions.

More specifically, the tears are an outlet for emotions that we may not know how to express in a balanced way as we are confronted with them. And when that emotion finally comes out, it finds a release through crying.
For instance, when we cry out in pain because we have hurt ourselves, it is not just the physical pain at that moment that is released, but also the pain of all the times before we have felt hurt before. Often little things that stung, yet in and of themselves were nothing to worry about… And now that we have actually hurt ourselves and have a ‘reason for crying’ it all comes out.

This makes that our tears are much more important us than we might have imagined; because it is this very mechanism that cleanses us from ~ often unwanted or stressful ~ emotional luggage. Whatever big thing is happening in our lives; after having cried about it, we are ready to move on to (even) better things!
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