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Why Crying it Out is the Best Medicine.

The Power of Re-parenting Ourselves.

By Judy Walker Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 4 min read
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Why Crying it Out is the Best Medicine.
Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash

About halfway through my twenty-minute silent sit on the park bench this morning, I registered the voices of a man and a child. Since my eyes were closed and I was “supposed” to be meditating, I assumed they were playing in the playground. Suddenly, instead of happy squeals, the child broke into a loud cry, a full, unbridled, using-all-her-lung-power sort of cry.

Being a mother, I knew this type of cry could only come from a place of sudden hurt. I opened my eyes and saw a little girl, maybe four-years old, hugging one of her legs close to her chest as she sat on the sand. The man, likely her father, was kneeling opposite her, his hands around her shoulders and his face a few inches from hers. He spoke calmly to her and after a minute or two, she returned to happy playing once again.

This made me reflect on what happens with our emotions as we move into adulthood. For some reason, we no longer express fully, the hurts we feel. I recall cutting my thumb some time ago on a sharp knife I had left on the bottom of the sink when washing dishes. The cut was deep and bled profusely.

Instead of tears, I berated myself about how stupid I was to leave a sharp knife in the sink. “I’m 55-years old for God’s sake. I should know better.” I swore under my breath and tended to the cut while muttering, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

And what of our inner hurts? The ones that don’t show up on our bodies as cuts or bruises, but instead, tattoo themselves on the surface of our hearts. Do we allow ourselves the luxury of a loud, no-holds-barred cry session?

I was raised in an age when babies were left in their crib to cry it out. This was a method used years ago to teach a baby to self-soothe. I imagine I cried, but since there’d be no one coming, I eventually fell asleep from exhaustion. As I grew older, I was told to, “Stop crying” or, “There’s nothing to cry about,” or my favorite, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

I recall a scene I had witnessed at Walmart a few years ago. I had rounded a corner with my cart into the cereal aisle and came upon a man and a small boy. The man was shaking the boy’s shoulders and his face was stern. “Stop crying right this minute!” I overheard him say, “or that ice cream I promised you…forget about it.” As I walked by them, I saw the little boy holding back his tears with everything he had. His cheeks were wet and his lips drawn tight between his teeth. He was whimpering and clearly fighting the sobs from escaping.

I accept that this snippet of real life was out of context. I don’t know what led up to the child crying, but seeing this child fight his emotions and stuffing them deep down inside his small body to please his dad broke my heart.

This leads me to question how we deal with hurt as adults. Most of us are hesitant to reach out for help when we are hurting. We have been programmed that public expression of emotion is not acceptable and makes others uncomfortable. We are handed a box of tissue to dry up our tears, maybe given a loose hug with a few pats on our backs and hopefully, we’ll stop crying and return to the status quo.

But the best thing to do for our wounded body and heart is to cry; to scream and shout and swear and if need be, hit that pillow. The hurt gets flushed out with our tears instead of being buried in our bodies, or worse, exploding when triggered at some later date, passing the hurt on to someone else.

It’s true. We may not have a loved one near us each time we feel sad, hurt, lonely, or angry. We may not even be able to explain what is causing the pain. But what is stopping us from speaking to ourselves the way the man at the park spoke to his child? Our internal parent, the part of us that is eternal is always available to us. All we have to do is treat ourselves the same way we would a most cherished child.

We can exercise our courage and acknowledge our human limitations for hurt; acknowledge to ourselves that we are in pain, that life is hard, that sometimes we mess up and make mistakes.

We can heal by letting the tears flow when the pressure in our chests builds up. Once we’ve cried ourselves out, we can open our internal ears to the love that lives inside our hearts and hear the sweet nothings it whispers to us all day long.

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About the Creator

Judy Walker

Love & Life are my true inspirations.

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