Enlightened Crying

I was new to teaching and I had only one student.  She was a middle-aged woman who told me one day that she needed to go have a “good cry.”  I turned to her and told her not to do that.  She looked at me like I was insane.  She KNEW that her “good cries” in the past were cathartic.  What she didn’t know was she was using them like a plunger to a backed up toilet.

Having a “good cry” is like sticking your finger down your throat to vomit. 

If it’s time to vomit, vomit happens naturally.

And so it is with natural “enlightened” crying.

So why were her “good cries” cathartic then?

Because during her forced crying episodes, some old clogged crap came out.  But afterwards, she just returned to her normal routine which created the log jam in the first place.

THE defining issue with egoic people, the very thing that makes them what they are, is that they closed their hearts years ago as a defense mechanism and escaped into their minds.

They were never given the proper tools for emotional wellbeing (aka – “Emotional Intelligence”) as children because their parents were also broken and could not pass along the skill set.  So when pain and grief arrived they had no useful response except to try to shut down the “intake valve” also known as the human heart.  If we shut down the “intake valve” pain can no longer enter, makes sense right?

The problem with this is that the “intake valve” is also the “exhaust port.”

The human heart is the portal through which we experience the present moment – aka reality - in this form.  It is where we take it in and the means with which we “touch it” or rather connect with it.

And there is a major backlash to this strategy of “closing it off” and that is it doesn’t stop a stubbed toe (or a toilet overflow...)

I often use this as a pointer.  In other words, suffering still gets through, doesn’t it?  If it’s enough, if we’ve built it up until it overflows then we’re wading in it regardless.   It’s a short term solution to the pain we don’t know how to deal with, but it doesn’t GET RID OF THE PAIN.  In fact, we store it and it attempts to release in “Pain Body Episodes” from time to time.

So what is the net sum gain?

The net sum gain is we close ourselves off from reality, AND from the joys present in reality EVERY MOMENT.  But we don’t actually stop any pain.  We simply store it for later.  Like a credit card bill that keeps amassing debt while we’re still using it.  At some point bankruptcy (which takes the form of depression, anxiety, etc. in emotional terms) comes a calling…

So, instead of going and having a “good cry” it would be FAR MORE useful to open the valve and let the body do its thing.  Crying is just a release of energy.  If it is time to cry a normal, healthy, body/mind will cry without your assistance. 

Unclog the pipes and they will work again as they were intended.