💧💧💧Today I want to talk to you about tears. 💧💧💧
A few days ago, I was speaking with Elizabeth Claire Burr, my long time friend and mentor and one of our amazing support team in our Through the Dark Woods – Real Life Skills for Navigating Grief & Trauma online Membership Group.
We were talking about how much weird stigma there is around crying.
Most people are ashamed to cry. Men especially, but not just men.
Women are ashamed to cry.
Queer folks are ashamed to cry.
I’ve even met young kids who hold back their tears.
It doesn’t matter the colour of your skin, your identity, age, or your social status, most people who grow up in Western society are afraid and ashamed to cry.
We need to deconstruct this.
This shame is literally killing us.
It is killing love.
It is killing joy.
It is killing LIFE.
💧💧💧We need our tears like the Earth needs rain. 💧💧💧💧💧
✨Tears come, not because we are weak, but because our bodies are WISE. ✨
💛Tears are the way our bodies release stress, grief, and trauma. 💛
Tears – YOUR TEARS are absolutely necessary.
I need to cry, you need to cry, we all need to cry.
Same as we need laughter, food and water.
So what is the cure for all this shame? How do we get over it? How do we help each other get over it?? How do we LET our bodies do their good work and just CRY already….
I apologize in advance for the answer, because it’s not easy.
The only possible way to get over it?
Crying in front of other people. Crying WITH other people.
Because as long as we keep our tears hidden, we endorse shame. We let shame have us.
We are basically saying, “Sure shame, you win again, I will hide my biggest gift from the ones who need it most.”
Your tears are a gift.
It takes strength to grieve, because when you grieve you are opening to Spirit, to Life and all it’s uncertainty, to the undeniable reality that really, ultimately, we have no control over life and death.
When you grieve, you are opening to the ONE certainty that everything you love, you will lose.
Everything we love we will lose. That is it. The one big guarantee. Constant change, everything is temporary.
And that takes tremendous strength.
In this community, we work with grief in a way that makes beauty, not as a goal, but as a natural part of the process.
We recognize that tears are a part of that beauty-making.
So the next time you feel tears coming, see if you can let them come.
Let them flow. Offer them to the earth.
💧💧💧The Earth needs our tears, just like she needs rain. 💧💧💧
