Letting Go. Sometimes, Tears Are Necessary

The day before my Momma died, she had me skipping and singing along with her in the hallways of the hospital.

She told me that many of the patients were crying in pain and struggling to come to terms with their diagnosis of cancer.

She wanted us to give them hope.

That was who my Mom was.

I have been told repeatedly that God takes the righteous ones to spare them.

That never made me feel better.

Like me, my Momma never got sick.

I always believed she was an invincible Super Hero.

How could someone who made primarily healthy choices all her life and who never got sick suddenly get diagnosed with cancer and then 6 months later die?

Was it the aspartame in the diet soda?

Was it her love of candy?

Maybe.

But maybe it was more than that.

Ever since I watched Dr. Masaru Emoto’s documentary in 2017, “Water Crystals,” about water, I have come to believe that it was the tears of pain from hurt, sadness, and what later became bitterness that she kept inside that made her have cancer.

Our blood is made up of 80% water.

According to Dr. Masaru Emoto’s documentary, water has feelings, and according to how we treat water, the water, just like us, reacts.

The water will create brown, disfigured crystals if we say mean things to it.

When the water was given love, the water would form beautiful, healthy crystals.

Could something as simple as loving ourselves (the water within us) make such a significant difference in determining whether or not we get cancer?

Is the water within us beautiful crystals, or are those crystals disfigured and dark?

Are we not being mean to ourselves by repressing tears when hurting?

Why were we made to cry if not to release and let go of all that sadness?

Isn’t it essential to release toxins when we go to the bathroom?

Is that not how we were made?

Weren’t our eye ducts made to release tears?

I believe crying is more necessary than what we have been taught.

If we held in the latter, wouldn’t that make us sick?

Why should tears be any different?

Why do so many of us hold back tears?

Is it because we have been taught that crying is bad?

I am sure I am not the only one who, while growing up, heard the following:

“What are you crying about? You want a reason to cry?”

I remember being told that while I was getting spankings with the belt.

I was a bit of a rebel who spoke my mind to my stepdad, so I am not saying that those spankings were undeserved…

However, I remember thinking I had better quit crying, or I would get more.

This was just one of the many reasons I grew up believing that crying was bad.

I am not perfect.

I have found myself, over the years, with my son saying some things that were told to me while I was growing up.

I remember telling my Son when he would cry over getting hurt from bumps and bruises that he needed to “suck it up and be tough”…

I was raised with three younger Brothers, and wrong or right, I heard this often.

In truth, this was not a bad thing.

That stems from my desire to believe that when it comes to body pain, our minds have a lot of control over the extent to which we feel that pain.

Have we all not seen a child fall and skin their knee, and if we don’t make a big deal about it, they don’t either?

In those cases, we say, “It’s alright…you are okay.”

Don’t those children usually get right back up and get right back to whatever horseplay they were participating in?

How much body pain is in our heads, caused by the negative thoughts that we tell ourselves?

When we say out loud to the universe, “I am getting sick,” how much power just by saying those words did we give that sickness over us?

Almost everything, my mentality, is mind over matter.

There is so much power in the vibrational frequency in our thoughts that can impact who we decide to be each day. That, in turn, affects what we experience in our lives.

Ever notice how if you let the world know that you are having a shit day, the universe delivers more shit?

This isn’t coincidental. This is the energy that you are putting out, so therefore, that is the energy that you will receive back.

Our thoughts also affect our emotions; if we tell ourselves that our feelings are stupid or that our vulnerability to our feelings is wrong, how is that helping our souls move on?

Yet most of us have been taught that it is not okay to express what we’re experiencing fully.

Over the years, as I grew up, I started to question this mentality.

This happened over years of watching my Mom go through painful situations and hardly ever seeing her cry.

My Momma was my rock, I always remember wondering after her marriage ended how did she stay so strong taking care of the four of us kids?

As a teenager, I asked her, “Mom, how come I never see you cry other than when you watch sad movies?”

She said, “Because it is okay to cry over sad movies, it's just a movie.”

The way that I interpreted this response is that my Momma felt that she was able to permit herself to cry over sad movies but that she did not value her feelings enough to let herself weep over the pain of life.

As an adult now, I think she was afraid.

Afraid that if she let herself cry over anything in her life, the floodgates would open, and she might not be able to stop because the accumulation of all that she had held onto would make her fall apart.

I understand this now, especially as a Mother.

As a Mom, the minute my Son was conceived, I had a duty to protect and shelter my Son from hurt.

I had to be strong.

Always.

I know that my Mom also felt that it was essential to always be strong for us…

I have realized that I have followed in my Mom’s footsteps, and I have repressed my emotions as well.

In the last 6 months, I have understood my Mom being afraid to cry.

With no one around, the only person I have to be tough for is me.

Crying comes easier now.

Letting go comes easier with the release of my tears.

There are days that the tears fall for one reason in the here and now, and then 15 minutes later, they fall for the loss of my mother from the year 2007.

That is the accumulation of repressed emotions and me allowing NOW the floodgates to sometimes open.

I learned from my Momma and most others in my life that tears are weakness.

That doesn’t mean I can’t unlearn what I have been taught.

Dr. Masaru Emoto’s studies about water should make us all rethink the idea that water is only essential to keep us hydrated.

His studies should make us think about the importance of honoring our feelings.

One of the most important things we could do for ourselves is to learn to be okay with releasing our tears.

Letting go comes from releasing tears.

How many of us have turned to anger when initially feeling sad and wanting to cry?

What price are we paying to our health and well-being when we sacrifice our authentic feelings of hurt for our “strength” in our anger?

I believe everything in nature has feelings. I wrote about this in one of my other stories regarding my tree’s in my neighborhood.

After removing the grass for water conservation efforts, I remember feeling my tree’s sadness.

I digress.

Tears are water.

Water makes up 60% of our bodies.

If water has feelings and we are holding in pain (our tears), how is this benefiting our health and well-being?

Sadness is in our tears.

Pain is in our tears.

Holding that inside our bodies is NOT honoring and valuing what we feel.

Through our pain, many of us push and find strength to be better people for others.

Some of us have learned from all the pain, hurt, and sadness and decided to be better humans despite it all.

If we already have parts of us broken, at least psychologically…is it too far of a stretch to think that if we don’t find ways to mend these fractures, couldn’t we eventually hurt our health and bodies from these contained emotions?

Releasing all that darkness within us by allowing the tears to come will not heal us completely, but it's a start.