It's Ok to Cry.
About a week ago I wrote about how finding new appreciation for things since the acceleration of the COVID-19 crisis has helped me to clear the way to focus on what I was put on this earth to do. The week before that, I was in tears.
The human suffering and chaos on display in social media videos coming out of Italy, one of the hardest hit places by the virus, left no room for doubt about the severity of the situation. Doctors and other medical professionals, contrary to normal practice, invited cameras into their hospitals to show the devastating effects of COVID-19. They implored the rest of the world to be better prepared than they were, showing that the young are susceptible, too, and that it doesn’t just affect a few people. The messages coming out of Italy, urgent, transparent and portending, stood in stark contrast to those coming out of China in the earliest days of the virus.
As I was digesting the harshness of the effects of the virus on people’s health and families, countries’ economies and society at large, an advert for the Donkey Sanctuary appeared on the TV. That did it for me; I was in tears. The sight of suffering animals, in addition to suffering people, opened up the proverbial floodgates.
That afternoon, my wife and I took the dog for a walk. I used the walk as an opportunity to reflect on the meaning, and value, of suffering, particularly in relation to the meaning of life. I have strong beliefs, built on top of strong experiences, in each of these areas, so the walk was a good opportunity to reconnect with them. This internal reconnection meant that my sadness in the moment didn’t degenerate into despondence or despair.
When we got home from our walk, we made a new plan in view of our new reality and haven’t looked back since. It was a pivotal day of engagement, reflection and action in our household, which has had a big impact at individual and collective levels.
This is a summary of what I did:
Engage: Engaged with the emotion early, allowing tears to come naturally – not letting my sadness linger, fester or degenerate into something worse;
Reflect: Made sense of my emotion through reflecting on the meaning of its stimuli and the meaning of life itself;
Act: Made a plan and took action to prepare for and mitigate any possible negative impacts of the new situation on our family.
Had I resisted my feelings of sadness in the first place, however, and instead chosen to harden myself, I would have missed a valuable opportunity. Supposed ‘self-protection’ through hardening, perhaps even callousness, comes at a high price to individual learning, development and wellbeing, to say nothing of its impact on relationships.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” – Revelation 21:4
Bad for the Body
There are also psychological and physiological implications to repressing our emotions. Gabor Maté writes of the high price that is paid for emotional repression in his book When the Body Says No:
“Repression—dissociating emotions from awareness and relegating them to the unconscious realm—disorganizes and confuses our physiological defences so that in some people these defences go awry, becoming the destroyers of health rather than its protectors”
The effects of emotional repression on a person’s health can be deep and varied. And it isn’t necessarily possible to know beforehand what those effects will ultimately be either.
I’m not suggesting that we’re proactive about crying per se; it may or may not be cathartic. Instead, I’m cautioning against the repression of emotion and the dogmatic avoidance of crying due to a perception that it’s ‘bad’, being a sign of weakness.
Take Care of Your Own Morale First
Speaking to colleagues in the Truman administration in the aftermath of WWII, General George C. Marshall declared:
“Gentlemen, enlisted men may be entitled to morale problems, but officers are not... I expect all officers in this department to take care of their own morale. No one is taking care of my morale.”
In order to take care of our own morale and thus be in a better position to effectively serve others, whether family members or staff, we cannot afford to repress our emotions. It isn’t sustainable. Ultimately, we will break.
Crying is not synonymous with breaking; it’s having the courage to fully and honestly engage with your emotion and express it.
Parents, leaders, and anyone else who is looked to as a role model, please be mindful and respectful of your own humanity. Don’t act like your impervious to the challenges of the day – you’re not. And that’s ok. Engage with your emotion, reflect on its meaning and then take appropriate action.
This too shall pass. Let’s ensure that we’re in good shape to move forward when it does.