We all hate to cry - me, especially. I've had a difficult year, and shedding tears has become a common occurrence for me. During my teenage years, however, I rarely cried; I perceived crying to be a sign of weakness. I also didn't want to fall into the female stereotype of crying all the time. Because of this, I held all of my emotions in - packed them into an internal box, so to speak. My friends and I would joke that I was the stone cold fox (this is also a clothing brand, for those of you who don't know), with emphasis on the "stone cold" part. Because of this, I never gave myself the chance to discover the healing magic of tears - and especially the magic of a woman's tears.
Have you noticed that when men get stressed or angry, they always turn to a physical activity? Running, lifting weights, punching things, etc... This is because men, as I've learned, are wired to release their stress hormone - cortisol - in their sweat. There is much more cortisol in a man's sweat than in a woman's sweat.
Now, we can turn it around; there is much more cortisol in a woman's tears than in a man's. We, as women, are biologically required to cry - without shedding tears, stress hormones within the body have to find much less efficient ways to escape. So, level with me: after crying uncontrollably (or whichever crying style you decide to exercise) you always feel better, don't you? Almost like you could sleep soundly for the first time in a long time - like a weight has been lifted. Your stress was washed away by your tears, along with the other emotions that brought the tears on in the first place.
In short, don't shy away from your tears, ladies. They don't make you weak - they cleanse you, and help you to fight another day.
x Deven
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