Most people we meet only choose to share the good aspects of their lives: our friendships, our successes, our love lives. This goes for both in-person and on social media. The latter, especially, is meant to deceive people into thinking we have the best lives possible.
We only see the good in each other’s lives. Most of the time, we never share all the bad stuff. This leads us to believe that whenever we have a bad day, it is only our person who suffers. This is far from the truth.
There is nothing wrong with sharing good aspects of life, though. People deserve to be proud of the good things going on in life. People deserve to be happy!
I am positive that within everyone’s lifetime, someone has hurt our feelings. How do we respond when someone excludes us from a lunch table? How do we respond when we have a fight with a friend that leads to the dissolvement of the relationship? We feel awful. We feel sad. We feel like we want to cry. In elementary school, we were always taught to share our feelings; I am pretty sure in most schools, students would go around the room and share their feelings, and why they felt that way.
When middle school comes around, everyone’s goals are centered around making impressions – to seem cool and like we have good lives, to participate in the newest trends and to have the newest things. Forget authenticity. Forget sharing how you really feel. Putting on a tough mask is the way to go. It seems that only the outside appearance matters the most. High school can encourage the same values, to a certain extent. People are more mature, though, and are more likely to accept people for who they are on the inside.
Over the years, the impression I got from the outside world was that it was frowned upon to cry. There is a lot of pressure, especially on men, to refrain from crying. They are supposed to be tough, and crying contradicts that. Crying can make someone look weak, or that they can not handle something. Tears have to be suppressed. There is no room for that in public.
I understand that people might not feel comfortable to cry in public; I am one of those people. I want to put on a brave face for everyone to see that whatever just happened does not matter. Even though deep down inside, it matters a lot. You may go to your room and cry. When no one is watching, that is when the tears are finally free to slide across your face.
Actually, from a health standpoint, it is a really good thing to cry. When we cry, our bodies thank us for releasing the negativity and bad feelings. Harvard Health Publishing published a blog post all about the benefits of crying, explaining that each time we cry, endorphins are released, instantly making us feel better, physically and mentally.
I see crying as a balloon. Tension fills up the balloon, to the point where it can burst at any moment. Finally, as soon as one starts to cry and real feelings are revealed, the balloon pops and deflates. Most of the time, we are mainly worried about the rising tension, but once we actually start crying, it is no longer worrisome.
Crying is one of my favorite forms of self care. It seems unusual to equate, but self care is all about striving for a better you. Crying lets go of the negative energy so we can focus on the good, and that can be considered self care, at least for me.
“If somebody hurts you, it’s okay to cry a river, just remember to build a bridge and get over it.”
– Taylor Swift
Crying is not a crime, and it is absolutely not something to be ashamed of. It is just a way to make us feel better after going through something that puts an emotional burden on us. If someone masks their feelings, it is very unhealthy. It is better to be honest with our feelings instead. The true feelings will eventually come out, no matter how hard we try to suppress them.
For those who look down on people crying, maybe it is time to reevaluate how you see crying. Maybe it is a better idea to accept that you do not know what is going on behind the scenes to make someone feel bad. Showing how you really feel should be a safe space.