Crying

I was basically prescribed by my therapist to "have a few good cries."  It came up in conversation about some of my more depressing thoughts and why they may exist.  Crying is such a natural way to deal with stress and pain, either physical or emotional.  Since I have a tendency to prevent myself from crying (purposely in public, and often non-purposely in private) it was thought that if I cried than it would help relieve some of my depression.

Crying Fairy by Andreth
Licensed under Creative Commons

This totally makes sense.  I'm going to have to put some real effort into it though.  After thinking about it I can see crying as a spiritual practice.  It's often done in public during spiritual events like weddings and funerals.  Unfortunately, in American culture it is often discouraged.  I remember growing up and being told not to cry.  It's easy to think that if someone stops crying then they are no longer in pain, but that is not always the case.  Especially if they've been told to stop crying, then it's likely that now instead of crying they are bottling up their pain and/or stress which can have much worse future consequences than simply crying it out.

I remember a church sermon from Sharon Hogan were she promoted screaming a spiritual practice.  As a "meditation" she encouraged the congregation to scream.  I think it's a good comparison to crying as a spiritual practice since screaming is also a natural response to pain and stress.  It's much easier to scream on demand rather than cry though, which just makes it harder to incorporate crying into spirituality.  However, thinking of crying as a spiritual practice may help me to actually "have a few good cries" occasionally, maybe.