The Counterintuitive Strategy to Manage Tears at Work
We as Loving Leaders seek to foster workplaces where everyone can be fully human. This includes normalizing and welcoming tears, as I described in my last email.
Whether our tears are welcome or not, there are times and reasons when we don't want to cry.
Is it possible to make that choice when we have a strong urge to without unhealthy denial or disconnecting from ourselves?
I learned that it IS, and I learned how cried in grad school.
It was the last day of the first week in residence of my MSOD program. I was exhausted from the long days of intellectually, socially, and emotionally intense work and poor sleep. While I was incredibly happy to be there, I was plagued by thoughts doubting my worth and ability to contribute to such an accomplished community. I was raw inside.
“I only need to hold it together through this final morning,” I thought trying to steel myself.
But in the last group project, the idea I contributed was gently met with more thoughtful questions and the need to first identify structure before ideas for action. I felt foolish and inadequate, and, to my frustration, I began to cry.
The group members were perplexed. Why was I crying? I felt the tension and felt even more ashamed. Not only was I unskilled and inexperienced, I thought, I was fragile too.
The group carried on and completed the project. Afterward, a strong, wise female professor took me aside and offered life-changing advice.
She shared that at one time in her life she also cried when she didn’t want to. She learned that suppressing her tears made them more likely to spill out uncontrolled. She advised me to cry whenever I had the urge and desire. If I did this, over time I would have more control over my tears when I had the urge but I didn’t want to cry.
I took her advice to heart. In fact, I turned my efforts into a small research project! The thesis was this:
If I respond to my urge to cry by crying whenever I want to, then over time, I will cry less when I don’t.
“Wanting to cry” meant I felt it was desirable, safe, perhaps socially appropriate, and comfortable. Not wanting to cry meant I deemed it undesirable, unsafe, socially unacceptable, and uncomfortable.
I created a data collection tool and began to cry as often as I had the urge and wanted to!
Driving the car and a sad song comes on? Cry.
Doing the dishes and thinking about something upsetting? Cry.
Watching a documentary about the beauty and magnitude of the universe? Cry.
Feel overwhelmed sitting in my home office studying? Cry.
Laying in bed anxious about being a single mom raising four children? Cry.
I tracked these experiences along with the times when I had the urge and didn’t want to cry but cried anyway.
And sure enough, after three months of letting myself cry whenever possible, my frequency of both desirable and undesirable crying decreased. And, I became more attuned to that urge, recognizing it as an important source of insight too.
Now I can honor that urge and choose, creating spaces where tears are welcome and don’t need suppression, while also maintaining my power in situations where my tears would be distracting, misunderstood, unsafe, or detrimental.
Do you struggle with the urge to cry overwhelming your choice and will? Try crying whenever you have the urge and desire. You will learn to honor and own your tears.
