My history with tears starts as a child. My mother told me I cried too much.
In high school, I could survive for three months before becoming overwhelmed with my effort to get good grades and, in general, negotiate life. My dad assigned himself to putting me back together each episode. He’d come to my room, sit in the wide-bottom rocker by the window, listen to my plea and my complaint, then offer a line or two of philosophy and recommend a cold wash cloth.
By my university years, I managed to get through the semesters and ride eight hours home where, if I had any large issues, my father would have a few words—until my senior year, when under duress beyond my abilities, a call home sent him to the airport to catch a flight to visit me and sort out my discomfort in person.
For many years of my marriage, I had tears of what I can only now call self-pity, which to my understanding means that I felt sorry about something in my life and couldn’t cope. Finally, in my fifties, I recognized that while I was very smart, I was also emotionally immature, like a three-year old, and with that knowledge, I was able to forgive myself all the drama as I began to grow myself up in the necessary way.
In my sixties, as a carryover from my fifties, where my life was taking on spiritual information, I discovered “release crying.” I could understand my situation, but I felt an overload of emotion and would cry like a dam bursting. There was no self-dissatisfaction, only too much pressure. Gradually I found my crying evidenced a huge decrease, to the point where I could barely remember when I’d last cried, and that would have mostly been because I’d banged my head or my hand or my knee.
Then I received a lovely gift from God, one of my last times of weeping. Feeling sad one day, I had a few tears, and Baba said to me that He was holding my tears in His hand, but He liked to keep his hands dry. Could I stop?” And I did.
My realization is, “There may be forces at work in our lives beyond our knowledge. The opportunity exists to always be kind to ourselves, no matter what discouragement may assail us, as there will come a time of understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness.