Have the Courage to Open the Gift

I have an gob of books with quotes and sayings, and I do mean a gob! When I sit down to create and find myself stumped for an idea, I flip through a book and something usually hits me. This one struck me as I have had several conversations recently with people who are dealing with sadness. The quote reads:

Tears are the Summer showers to the soul.

-Alfred Austin 1913

We’ve had rain almost everyday for the last two weeks. You know the kind that pops up unexpectedly and douses everything with torrents of water, to then suddenly stop, leaving things clean and nurtured just enough to keep them growing. This quote reminded me of these past few weeks. The rain catches us expectedly and changes everything for a few moments by dumping sheets and sheets of water. Then it stops, as if knowing that that amount of rain was just what was needed to wash away the dirt and leave clean, fresh, renewed earth. Sort of like tears when things back up on us and we weep as if out of no where.

For the people I spoke with who were sad or felt like crying, I told them to let those tears flow! Let them out, give way, release that pent up emotion that seems to only be able to be expressed with water running down our faces. Then our nose runs, it gets messy, we blow and wipe and weep some more, then we sniffle with a sign that it’s over, blow one last time and miraculously we feel better. The emotions have been released and we now have the power to clearly face whatever it is that brought on those tears. It is as if that summer storm cleared up, cleared out and made way for us to face the truth behind our feelings.

Some days you just need to cry. You need to let yourself FEEL deeply, give in to what you may not want to face AND allow your mind and body to be as one while you weep. No one has to participate, just let yourself BE yourself. Cry. It is a gift to be able to cry and a gift we have to have courage to open. Not everyone has the courage to open the gift of tears, and the resulting back up of their emotions eventually explodes at an inappropriate place or time. Don’t hold it in to only create a ticking time bomb, let it out. Give yourself the gift of tears and allow them to wash away the debris behind it all. You will feel better for it, so let those tears flow!