Sarah discusses the importance of allowing oneself to cry and experience emotions, rather than suppressing or avoiding them. [05:15] She explains the physical and emotional benefits of "good" or therapeutic crying, which allows the release of stress hormones and toxins, compared to "bad" crying driven by self-pity or negative thoughts. [06:09] The speaker encourages listeners to embrace their emotions, give themselves permission to cry without apology, and avoid trying to logic or solve their feelings. [11:45] She suggests scheduling time for emotional release, such as in the shower, and being supportive of others who are expressing their emotions. [12:40] Overall, the speaker advocates for normalizing and destigmatizing crying as a healthy emotional outlet.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi there friends, Sarah Curnoles here, your breakup bestie. And today I want to talk about crying. I absolutely believe that there is a difference between a good cry and a bad cry. And I think you know the difference too, once we start talking about it. This weekend I happened to experience both kinds. I was watching Bridget Jones' diary, the new one that just came out mad about the boy. I think it's it's called, and I don't know what really brought it on, or maybe it was just because I really did need a good cry. I cried through most of that movie. Not that it was, I don't think that movie is intended to be something that makes you cry. I think it was just hitting a few notes for me that brought some emotion up that I've been probably sitting with and not really feeling.
(01:06)
And I cried and cried and it was the kind of cry where it just kept going and it felt so good. And I also had moments this weekend where I was just getting so frustrated and so hard on myself that I was just crying out of self pity. I hate to say it, but that's really what it was. Self-pity and despair, I think was the other feeling. And what really, those weren't the moments that inspired me to do this podcast episode. I was actually coaching a client recently, and I could hear her choking back her tears, and she kept trying to talk and kept trying to go forward with the things that she had to say. And I actually asked her to pause and stop the thoughts, stop the things that she was trying to say, and just let the tears happen and let those come up so that they can come out and we can come back to the thoughts afterwards, but to give some space for the emotion. And I said, you can cry, you can wail, you can rage, but try not to use words or thought. Just let it happen. And she cried, I don't know, maybe a minute or so and just let it out. And then she took a deep breath and then started again with what had been coming up for her and her story. And I asked her how did it feel after she gave herself the time to just let it out and let herself cry? And she said, I feel better and more clear.
(03:15)
And that actually what she was going to tell me changed a bit after she let herself cry. What she was trying to talk herself through before crying and denying herself that moment to cry, what she was going to say there was different than what she ended up sharing after crying. And I find that so interesting, and it got me thinking a lot about crying because I actually spend a lot of time holding space for people to let themselves have their emotions because so often we are denying ourselves that and we're telling ourselves that we shouldn't. And I know holding space is having a moment right now because of a viral interview with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Arrivo. But it's really what I do is I'm kind of pushing out the distractions so that you can actually be with your emotion. And the reason I do that is because I don't know about you, but I was never really given permission to feel my feelings and I was never really taught how, and I had to figure that all out for myself.
(04:32)
And when I went through coach certification, that really helped me and I continue to do embodiment work because I know that it's not just our thoughts alone, but also our feelings and what's happening in our bodies. And so that really helped me get in touch with my emotions. And I find that to be so pivotal in my work with clients. And it made me realize most people aren't given permission to feel, and most of us try to think our way out of it or through it or around it. And I used to consider myself a crier. I thought I was a crier. I thought I was good at feeling that feeling, but that's how I sort of stumbled into learning that there is a difference between a good cry and a quote, bad cry for lack of a better term. And let me first get into the actual benefits of crying and why I think it's important that we let ourselves cry and then we'll get into the good and the bad of crying.
(05:45)
I did a little bit of research crying actually does have physical benefits, and that includes pain management, a reduction of stress hormones and emotional balance restoration. So when you let yourself cry out of emotion, your tears contain toxins and stress hormones that you are releasing by letting yourself cry. How cool is that? That crying is actually like detoxifying. The act of crying can also release oxytocin, which is the feel-good hormone, and oxytocin can dule feelings of pain while also giving a sense of calm and wellbeing, which now gave me some context of why there's such a thing as a feel-good cry when you feel good after you cry. And so that's the research on why crying is beneficial, let alone the fact that it just feels good sometimes to release whatever has been pent up and whatever's been building. And I wanted to talk about the difference between a really good beneficial cry and then the kind of crying that just feels worse.
(07:00)
And I stumbled on this. I actually had a massage after my breakup, and it was probably two or three months after my breakup, and it was a petite Chinese woman who had been doing this for a long, long, long, long time, and she had studied the body and studied Chinese medicine and was obviously sharing a lot of wisdom with me throughout the massage, and she could tell a lot from my body, and she told me that I needed to cry more. I looked at her and I was like, I feel like all I do is cry. And she said I needed good cries.
(07:43)
And I really started to think about how I had been crying because I would've thought those were good cries. I find that there is a difference between when I cry because I'm thinking thoughts that are in comparison to others that are reinforcing my lack of worth or that I'm not enough or when I'm crying because I'm blaming myself for the end of the relationship, or that I should have done something differently to change the end result of us breaking up. And those tears were coming from a place because I was feeling so bad about myself and they were really coming from my thoughts about myself. They were coming from me thinking bad things about myself. I really hate the label of good and bad, I should say, as a side note, because it's all relative. It's all perspective, but they thoughts that made me feel worse about myself. So I'm calling them bad thoughts for now.
(09:01)
And then there's what feels like a good cry where I'm crying out of genuine sadness and it's just releasing the feeling and letting it flow through me and letting it happen without thinking about it, without trying to control it, without trying to diagnose it of like, what's wrong with me? Why am I crying? What's the problem? What do I have to fix? What's wrong with me? If I can turn off the thoughts and just be with the emotion and let that be the thing that's driving it, the cry doesn't last for very long, maybe a couple of minutes and it passes and I feel better afterwards.
(09:58)
Or sometimes if it's been a while since I've had a good cry, it might last longer than a couple of minutes, but regardless, it moves through me and it feels better afterwards. And that to me is what she meant when she said I needed to cry more. I needed more release, I needed more letting go of those toxins that I was holding onto and all those stress hormones that I was holding onto. That's what my body was longing to do and my head, my thoughts were getting in the way. And I think those good cries come when we're just so overwhelmed, we're so tired, we stop thinking and we just let the cry happen. And we don't have to get to the point where we are overthinking it. We want to cut back on the thinking, scale back and just tune into the body and allow the body to do what it needs to do and go through its own natural processes because obviously even the act of crying has healing properties. Our bodies are always trying to get back to restoring ourselves, to wholeness, restoring ourselves to what's right. If we get out of the way, if we clear our thoughts, which are usually the things in the way, and we just allow the body to do its thing, we'll brought back more towards healing, the body wants to heal.
(11:37)
And I want you to think about that the next time you start crying, you're feeling emotional and you feel compelled to apologize. I don't even know why this started. Why do we feel the need to apologize for our tears? Let yourself have your emotion. Let yourself have the good cry. Let yourself be witnessed by someone else. And I know it can be uncomfortable for somebody to see you crying. They think you're in pain, they want to solve your pain. And sometimes I think that's where the apology comes from of like, I'm sorry to make you uncomfortable, but let them deal with their discomfort. That's not your job. That's their job. You're going to stay your side of the street as my mentor, Terry Cole says, take care of yourself. And if what you need is a cry, have a cry without apology, without trying to figure it out or find the reason or the logic.
(12:33)
Just have the cry and be done with it. Let it happen. That's a good cry. That's the kind that's releasing the toxins and has given you a little hit of oxytocin afterwards, and it may help to give yourself more space for this. After I got that advice from my massage therapist and I took it to actually a coach, an embodiment coach I was working with at the time, she suggested that I schedule some time and I liked crying in the shower, so I made showers. I gave myself a little extra time in the shower in the morning, and I even did it in the evening sometimes, and I let shower time be crying time and I just let it be. And so it can help people think I'm crazy when I say this. It can help if you schedule time to let yourself check in with your body and feel your feelings and feel what comes up. Maybe you have a five minute check-in when you get home from work and you put on a sad song and you let your body move in soft, gentle ways in response to the music and just see if it comes up and see if you need the space for the tears.
(14:00)
Or you could check in with yourself of what would be the most loving thing to do right now to support your tears, to support your process of healing, of whatever you most need. So I'd like to start the movement right here, right now, that we all become okay with tears. If we're with somebody who starts crying, let's let them have their emotion. If we feel uncomfortable, we take care of ourselves like they're crying, doesn't have anything to do with me. I'm here. I'm going to support them if they need me, and I'm going to let them have this emotion without trying to solve it or logic it or make it go away, I'm going to let them have the full range of emotions and I'm going to be with myself. So we're going to make this movement of, we're going to start allowing it to be okay to have our tears. And when we feel ourselves crying, we're not going to apologize, we're not going to talk over it. We're going to take the space and we're going to actually let ourselves cry and feel and express emotion and breathe through it and come through to the other side and let it just be an expression, a moment to moment, truth in expression.
(15:23)
How freeing would that be? So I want to know, if you're going to join me in this, let me know. Come on over to Instagram, find me there at Sarah KLEs. I'll put it in the show notes. And I want to hear, are you with me in letting ourselves cry in letting other people cry in taking the embarrassment away from being emotional, in letting it just be an expression of how we're feeling, and we don't have to think too hard about it, we're just going to let it be alright, come on over to Instagram. Let me know what you think. And if this resonates for you and you want some more clear guidance and clear support and clear structure around feeling through your emotions so that you are in control of your emotions and they're not controlling you, that's what I do as a coach.
(16:13)
I help you through those difficult emotions that we all have so much stigma against, and I give you processes that you can feel your way through and feel confident about it while ditching the narrative going on in your head. If that resonates with you, if you are looking for some support through your healing of your breakup, I got you. You can drop me a DM on Instagram and let me know what you're interested in and we can talk more about if coaching is a good fit for you. I would love to connect with you, and I would love to hear from you, and I would love to be a service if that feels good. Alright, until next time, my friends, allow yourself to have your feelings. Come connect with me on Instagram and I can't wait to talk to you more. Take good care of yourself.