Not for any particular reason other than I felt sad … so I took a deep breath and let the tears flow.

It was uncomfortable and not easy at first … I kept breathing and reminding myself “this is a feeling, let it move” and as I allowed myself to feel the feelings, to allow the energy-in-motion, emotion, to move through me, I felt the tears on my face and the ache in my heart.

I became aware of my thinking mind and how tempted I was to tell myself a story about WHY I was crying. I wanted to find a “good reason” to justify my tears and yet I knew, I didn’t need a reason because I was already feeling sad.

Once again I took a deep breath and I reminded myself “focus on the breath and keep letting go … keep letting go … keep letting go.”
After a while my breathing slowed, the tears stopped and I began to feel less constricted … more spacious.

When I reflected on this experience I realised that in the world today we tend to view someone shedding tears (particularly in the public domain) as a “breakdown”. Given the definition of the word means failure, malfunction, crash et al … categorising any public display of tears as a breakdown implies that there is something wrong with the person expressing sadness, pain, hurt, grief hence the oft used “sorry” which accompanies tearful displays of sadness.

Well guess what? I didn’t have “a breakdown”, I let myself feel and let the energy flow and although it was uncomfortable, it was also liberating,

There is nothing wrong (or right) about expressing your feelings. Every human being feels things and the key is to accept that when you feel something, it’s ok to feel it.

Feelings are not facts … they exist to be felt and they let us know what we are feeling about whatever is occurring so we can respond. This means we can change our mind and think something different, we can breathe and allow and let go, we can cry and laugh and sit and be still … and we can feel.

When we can feel, we can heal.