After reading this post, you are going to let go of your strong self and just cry....

Understand this....
Life will happen to you...
You will lose someone you love...
You will lose a relationship or friendship you value...
You will lose opportunity, money or time...
Some have lost parents, family, marriage and everything in between...
Life happens to us all - despite faith, race or status.

When life happens, we are told to be strong...
The emphasis on being strong is the reason why we have people whose pains are bottled up and at every little provocation, they snap. If you are in a relationship with someone who has mood swings and could go from being sweet to being bitter in a split second, they are dealing with bottled up pains. Show them this post.

I was raised to be a strong male - the first born of an African family is like a deputy parent who must always be strong for the rest of their siblings.
Then I grew up to become a spiritual leader and again, spiritual leaders are expected to be strong, act strong and distribute strength.
I didn't know how to cry. I wasn't taught how to cry.
When I hurt, I would bottle up the pains and continue bearing the pains of others...
This is why I was on a death bed last year and was still posting everyday - encouraging and mentoring others while living in fear that I could be gone any moment.
I've known pains, betrayals, disappointments and heartbreaks. It was only recently that I learnt the importance of breaking the bottle and allowing yourself to cry so you can heal.
Since I started practicing how to cry when my soul is heavy, I've started functioning better. My productivity has also increased and my emotional health is better.

I'll quickly outline 4 scientific and psychological benefits of crying here and I hope they help you to change your mindset about crying...

1. Crying helps you Restore Emotional Balance

Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain. If you cry longer, you could heal yourself of both body pains and emotional pains.

2. Crying reduces the body's Manganese level. Elevated Managanese level in your body causes Anxiety and Depression. Manganese is important to brain function but during pregnancy, Manganese levels can rise in the body and thus become toxic leading to depression and anxiety in a person.
Crying helps to reduce the body's Manganese level and resultantly prevent anxiety and depression.

3. Crying activates the Parasympathetic nervous system through the activation of the lacrimal glands.
This is our Rest and digest mode. While the benefits aren't immediate, however. It may take several minutes of shedding tears before you feel the soothing effects of crying. You need to shed tears to experience a deeper level of Rest.

4. Stress hormones escape through your tears when you cry.

I could mention more scientific and psychological benefits of crying but I will stop here and encourage you to allow yourself to break down.

You've been through so much...
Cry out that rejection...
Cry out that loss...
Cry that stress out....
You can do it in the privacy of your room or in public. Don't ever be ashamed to cry... Just as you are not ashamed to breathe... For where there's life, there must be pain. And where there's pain, it is OK to cry to heal.

My name is Charles Awuzie and I want you to learn how I cope with difficulties by losing control of my tears.

Maranatha.

Lalasticlala