We all have a place inside of us\u00a0that holds our emotions. We may have immediate access to this cache of feelings\u00a0or we may have hidden them away so long ago, we forgot they were even there. In
spiritual circles, it\u2019s said that we are never given more than we can handle. I\u2019m\u00a0not so sure about that. Life can be deeply overwhelming. But when I flit from\u00a0one state of being to another in record speed, I try to keep up. It\u2019s like a\u00a0game of musical chairs. We walk round and round, not knowing when the music\u00a0will stop. When it does, we rush to find an empty seat. We hope we won\u2019t be the\u00a0one remaining person without a seat. The one who gets left behind. The one who
has to fight the urge to cry.<\/p>\n
When Alice in Wonderland nibbled at\u00a0a cookie, she shot up to nine feet tall and got stuck in a doorway. She\u00a0couldn\u2019t stop sobbing. \u201cYou ought to be ashamed,\u201d she chided herself, \u201ca great\u00a0girl like you to go on crying in this way! Stop this immediately!\u201d Pretty soon\u00a0she was flailing around in a deep pool of her own salty water. \u201cI wish I hadn\u2019t
cried so much,\u201d said Alice as she swam about, trying to find her way out. \u201cI\u00a0shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned by my own tears!\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of us see tears as a\u00a0punishment, something to be ashamed of. Something to apologize for. \u201cDon\u2019t cry,\u201d\u00a0people say, not because they think our tears are hurting us but rather because they\u00a0don\u2019t how to be with us in our grief. l had a period in my life when like\u00a0Alice, I was so emotional, I couldn\u2019t stop crying for days on end. I thought I
should have better control of myself. No one wants to cry in Yoga class, in\u00a0restaurants, in line at the pharmacy. I had prided myself for being strong,\u00a0powerful and able to withstand whatever life had to offer. But all of that had\u00a0changed. I tried to disappear under the covers. It didn\u2019t work. I had to embrace\u00a0the fact that I was vulnerable, out of control and needy. Whatever was going on,
it was clear that I had to face the music and stop trying to hide.<\/p>\n
What triggered my crying jag doesn\u2019t\u00a0matter. What does matter was how I dealt with it. A dear friend, Bethany, emailed\u00a0me a quote from Ram Dass: “I’ve been asked many times whether this is the
Aquarian age and it’s all just beginning, or if this is Armageddon and this is\u00a0the end. I have to admit I don’t know but whichever way it goes, my work is the\u00a0same \u2013 to quiet my mind, open my heart and relieve suffering wherever I find\u00a0it.”<\/p>\n
I was brought up in a family where\u00a0joy was celebrated and sorrow was buried. When I was fourteen, my parents\u00a0enrolled me in a school in Washington D. C. that offered both academics and\u00a0ballet. I really wanted to go, I was dead set on becoming a ballerina, but when\u00a0they dropped me off and left, I cried myself to sleep. In the morning, I cried,\u00a0I dried my tears, I had breakfast, I went back to my room, I cried, I changed\u00a0into my ballet clothes, I dried my tears and did my day. While I was training,\u00a0the music was a soothing influence, but afterward, the crying jag started all\u00a0over again. I didn\u2019t see anybody else crying so I hid my sadness. It wasn\u2019t\u00a0until I grew up that I realized we were all so ashamed of crying, we hid it\u00a0from each other. It would have been a healing balm to cry together but we were too\u00a0young and programmed to soothe each other. We could barely soothe ourselves.<\/p>\n
The pain of trying not to cry is\u00a0worse than the pain of what is causing it, but we are often too humiliated to let anyone see it. As a ballet dancer, I was lucky I had an outlet. I gripped the\u00a0ballet barre, put my legs in first position, let the music soothe me and I\u00a0danced out the depth of my emotions. I let my sorrow mix with the music and
eventually, I didn\u2019t know which was which. At a very young age, I came to\u00a0understand that if I stayed in the moment and stopped thinking about how I\u00a0might feel after class or if I would cry when I was in my room that night, I\u00a0not only felt better. I also became a better dancer.<\/p>\n
Buddhism teaches us that wisdom exists within our emotions. When we struggle with our feelings instead of being\u00a0compassionate with ourselves, we are missing a chance to know our truth. Transformation\u00a0occurs when we move toward emotional distress without condemning or justifying.\u00a0I knew a woman who was on a blind date. The man took her to a fancy restaurant\u00a0and they were seated in a booth at the front of the room. They were engaged in
a conversation when they touched on a sensitive topic. It brought the woman to\u00a0tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop crying,\u201d her date whispered.\u00a0\u201cSomeone will see you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She gazed at him unapologetically\u00a0and said through her tears, \u201cI\u2019ve cried in better places than this.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that we\u2019re meant to cry\u00a0or we wouldn\u2019t have tear ducts. According to research, crying releases\u00a0endorphins that help ease both physical and emotional pain and it cleans our eyes.\u00a0Perhaps knowing these things can help us see that crying is nothing to be
ashamed of. It\u2019s a way to be with ourselves with love and acceptance. There is\u00a0a famous saying, \u201cThe only way out is in.\u201d The road to transformation is bumpy\u00a0and filled with tears but it offers us relief and compassion as we go along.<\/p>\n
There is a sacredness in tears.\u00a0They are not a sign of weakness, but rather of power. They show us our humanity.\u00a0They speak more eloquently than words and they help us connect to our fellow
travelers. Tears are messengers of overwhelming grief,\u00a0of deep contrition and of unspeakable love. We cry for joy. We cry for sorrow. We\u00a0cry for others and we cry for ourselves. When we cry, instead of apologizing,\u00a0we could use our tears to find hope in the midst of our sadness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We all have a place inside of us\u00a0that holds our emotions. We may have immediate access to this cache of feelings\u00a0or we may have hidden them away so long ago, we forgot they were even there. Inspiritual circles, it\u2019s said that we are never given more than we can handle. I\u2019m\u00a0not so sure about that. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2588,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions\/2588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}