Do you have a place where you feel safe to cry?

Yes, men I am talking to you too. I am raising at 12 yo boy, and as far as I can tell, he has just as many tears as his sisters.

When my mom died, I couldn’t cry. As in, I was physically unable to allow the grief to move through my body.

I wanted to cry. I needed to cry. But I couldn’t.

My sister even suggested I go to a massage therapist because the body work might help me release. It didn’t.

Because I had been holding on for dear life for too long.

My emotions were STUCK. With a role model like Spock (held out to me by my abusive caregiver as an aspirational hero) can you blame me?!

I remember when my therapist first told me that crying was good for me. I am pretty sure I raised an eyebrow. Excuse me?!

Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death.

It is also the one year anniversary of the day that same caregiver (the one who raised me until I was 15) entered the ICU for the last time.

And I will be attending a funeral for an uncle on my father’s side. I haven’t written much about my father, but he passed on my 33rd birthday.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the gym. Sitting in the car right outside, the tears were just below the surface, peeking out from time to time, starting to make their presence known.

I consider it a victory that tears are able to move within and through me now. It still isn’t my default, but their presence at all is a huge win.

Old me would have left. I would have been too embarrassed or too resistant to showing anyone my vulnerable underbelly to stay in a place where other people might see me.

I went in anyway; hoping that no one would ask me how I was while making eye contact. Because I knew the tears would come then and I wouldn’t be able to hold them back.

But I also knew that if that happened, it would be okay.

I have been a member at this gym for 5 years. I have witnessed the intentional sense of safety that has been created by the owners and coaches there. I have cried inside those walls before.

I knew that if the tears came, they wouldn’t be afraid of them. They wouldn’t shut me down. They would check on me, yes, and also let me be in whatever process I needed to be in. And I wouldn’t have to be in it alone.

From a very young age, children are told not to cry; when crying may be the very thing they need the most. To let their emotions flow through them and release into the ether where they can no longer cause harm.

Blocking our emotions makes us sick. Full stop.

As with so many things, the process of releasing into our emotional experience has layers. Much of that work is internal.

But there is an external component too. We need to have places and relationships where we feel safe enough to cry.

Where we don’t have to shield other people from the discomfort of our feelings.

Where we know they will check in with us, support us, and allow us to move through whatever process we need to move through; unfazed and unafraid. As if crying is the most normal thing ever.

I hope you have a safe space to cry.

And if you don’t, you can always cry with me.

Love,

Booth