While sometimes we have to hold our tears back, letting them flow in general isn’t a bad thing. Everyone cries and just because you’re in need of a good cry doesn’t make you a weakling.
While a lot of people think that expressing emotions openly, especially negative ones is a sign that someone is unable to control themselves or that they’re immature as a whole, that’s not necessarily true. Those who face their emotions properly are not immature, they’re emotionally intelligent.
Emotional intelligence overall is a person’s ability to be aware of and express their feelings. While you might not want to show that weak side of yourself if you need to cry and let things out, do it. If you never express your emotions you’re only going to end up miserable as they will build up within and cause negative things within your day-to-day life.
If you are someone that just goes through the motions and pretends everything is fine even when it’s not, chances are you’re in serious need of a good emotional release. Ignoring your feelings will lead to an increase in overall negativity and leave you feeling as if there is no escape. We all need to understand that there is nothing wrong with feeling things.
Crying can help you get over things, help you move on properly, help you to process the things you’re going through, and in many ways make you feel better through it all. When we cry we are letting out the things we’re feeling and facing them properly. Instead of being closed off and running away, we’re addressing things, feeling them, and then moving on from them.
Crying is a very beneficial part of life, it helps you to reduce stress and can also work wonders for how you see things moving forward. Crying has a soothing effect and is a great way for us to self-sooth. Once we get a good cry out, we usually feel a lot better and not so swollen inside.
In regards to emotional tears as a whole Dr. Judith Orloff wrote as follows on her website:
Emotional tears have special health benefits. Biochemist and “tear expert” Dr. William Frey at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis discovered that reflex tears are 98% water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying. After studying the composition of tears, Dr. Frey found that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins that accumulate during stress. Additional studies also suggest that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, our body’s natural pain killer and “feel-good” hormones.” Interestingly, humans are the only creatures known to shed emotional tears, though it’s possible that that elephants and gorillas do too. Other mammals and also salt-water crocodiles produce reflex tears which are protective and lubricating.
Crying makes us feel better, even when a problem persists. In addition to physical detoxification, emotional tears heal the heart. You don’t want to hold tears back. Patients sometimes say, “Please excuse me for crying. I was trying hard not to. It makes me feel weak.” My heart goes out to them when I hear this. I know where that sentiment comes from: parents who were uncomfortable around tears, a society that tells us we’re weak for crying–in particular, that “powerful men don’t cry.” I reject these notions. The new enlightened paradigm of what constitutes a powerful man and woman is someone who has the strength and self-awareness to cry. These are the people who impress me, not those who put up some macho front of faux-bravado.
Try to let go of outmoded, untrue, conceptions about crying. It is good to cry. It is healthy to cry. This helps to emotionally clear sadness and stress. Crying is also essential to resolve grief when waves of tears periodically come over us after we experience a loss. Tears help us process the loss so we can keep living with open hearts. Otherwise, we are set up for depression if we suppress these potent feelings. When a friend apologized for curling up in the fetal position on my floor, weeping, depressed over a failing romance, I told her, “Your tears blessed my floor. There is nothing to apologize for.”
I guess the point of all of this is that there is no reason to force yourself to never cry. If you need to cry, do it. Crying can help you in more ways than you might be capable of seeing right now and doesn’t make you a ‘cry baby.’