Written by MJ Ryan, SheEO Development Guide

Photo by Rose-Lynn Fisher

Part of what we’re doing at SheEO is unlearning behaviors and mindsets that do not serve us or the future we want to create. One seemingly small one is that it’s not ok to cry. I can’t tell you how many calls I have been on where, when someone cries, they apologize. We women are still dragging around in our unconscious minds that tears make us look weak and others uncomfortable. We dab at our eyes, suck back the sorrow, pain, fear, joy, love….

What if we gave ourselves and one another permission to let the tears flow freely? To wash us, anoint us, bond us in a collective community where we support one another to not hold ourselves back from crying over the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows that life brings?

Our bodies were designed to cry—emotions are created by biochemical levels in your brain. As the level builds, it signals the tear duct to open and release it through tears. That’s why you feel better after a good cry.

And it’s even more amazing than that!  Check out the electron microscope photography by Rose-Lynn Fisher. Different emotions look different under an electron microscope because they are made up of different biochemicals. According to Joseph Stromberg of the Smithsonian’s College of Arts and Sciences, happy tears are structurally different than sad tears than angry tears than overwhelmed tears etc. Emotional tears have protein-based hormones including the neurotransmitter leucine enkephalin, which is a natural painkiller that is released when we cry when we’re stressed.

So, cry baby, cry! And no more apologies…. This is what human body/minds were designed to do!