grieving

When I really get down to the root of it, probably one of the most destructive things I ever did to myself and others was to stop crying freely.

Children, and adults at times, seem to cry partly to express pain but also to prompt others to come to their aid. To bring the care, empathy, attention and love that they need in that moment to heal and feel safe again. When that's not working or when crying only invites more pain, naturally the child will stop doing it and will instead seek out ways to numb their pain.

If an adult is in a position to tend to their own needs, crying is done primarily to express and release pain. It can seem "pointless" to do so but this function of crying is vital to the health of the body/mind. If that emotional pain isn't released through the tears and bodily convulsions that come with crying, it can stay stuck in there indefinitely, slowly poisoning the body/mind from within. That's why grieving is so important. Grieving is a concentrated period to reduce external activity and focus on processing and releasing this pain. It's emotional healing. Only once you grieve can you really live again, otherwise the gravitational pull of this past pain will continuously draw your attention into its orbit, to the thoughts and feelings that remain unprocessed. You stay stuck in the past. You stop growing, your heart closes and you lose hope, vitality and joy. Life can become a listless slog at best and a burdensome, intolerable hell at worst. All because the pain of the past hasn't been released through crying.

Sometimes I'm a bit stunned at how much there's been to release, but on the other hand it's not surprising in the least. Looking back, I was taking in fresh pain on a nearly daily basis for years without processing and releasing any of it. I just kept swallowing it and getting on with things. That's how most of us live to some degree I think. We rarely stop to feel, we don't make time to.

I'm grateful for this time I have to feel and release. It's probably the best possible thing I can do for myself and everyone around me, now and for the rest of this life. If I don't take this time to grieve, all I'll do is continue spreading pain with my every word and action. I'll remain stuck in that state of a child trying in various ways to get others to provide the comfort I need. All of this unconscious and under the surface but still felt by others on some level, still spreading to and activating their own pain. I don't want to move through the world that way. I want to be fresh and at ease. Available to meet life as it is now, not as it was then.