This is something about normalizing crying, and I was gonna do a TikTok post. It doesn't quite fit with immersive, but here's some thoughts.
Normalizing crying—I had this thought that crying helps you heal, and it's a powerful force. It's a very human thing of processing emotions. It's how we do it. It's how we release, it's how we let go. It's a tool that we have.
When other people see people crying, it's like yawning, where it can have the effect of, "Oh, this is a safe space to let go and release." And then that process begins in other people. This is possibly why people feel embarrassed, or they make fun of it, or they repress it, or they don’t like that feeling.
And releasing and letting go can be tough! The feeling of letting go brings with it an element of—well, letting go. It’s loss, it’s, you know, it brings up life and death. It brings up all those elements of… it brings up that sense of… it brings up all those feelings which are very complex. The cognitive processing mind is not necessarily, right away, capable or even has the instructions as to how to process the processing, if that makes sense.
Meaning, the conscious mind would have to understand that these emotions, and the thoughts attached to those emotions, are temporary. Instead, the mind seems built to comprehend what is permanent, or at least establish a sense of permanence—i.e. reality, object permanence, things like that. This is what all our minds agree on as our shared reality.
So that's a little side tangent, but all in all, this is possibly why crying in public is seen as something embarrassing. It's not because it's bad to cry. In fact, it's very good to cry. But it creates a prompt, an invitation, a space that other people may not be ready for, and so they would usually prefer not to deal with it, especially in front of other people.
So, it's an interesting thing. Where am I going with this? You know, I personally like to find a place where I feel comfortable enough to cry—to process, to let go. It’s almost like feeling a sneeze coming on sometimes, and I’m like, "Oh, I gotta go somewhere to do this."
But I've noticed, especially after learning about neurolinguistic programming and the subconscious, that I always, always, always feel better after crying. Always. I always feel better. If I don’t do it, then it's almost like putting it on hold for me to do it later in some form—for me to release it in some form.
And I see it that way. I don’t see it necessarily as just a reaction, although it can be. Things that make you cry, like songs and movies, commercials—maybe it’s because they create that space of nostalgia, melancholy, all that stuff. They create a space for processing the past. You’re letting go of the past; you’re processing it.
This is a space to process it, right? The commercial is beautiful—beautiful music, beautiful ideas and thoughts that activate within the viewer these same thoughts and emotions, which are part of the letting-go process.
So ultimately, crying is good, and should be normalized. Especially for men. For some reason—maybe it's tied to the 24-hour cycle—crying I've found incredibly necessary for my personal growth. It’s a great thing.
It's a funny thing, having this point of view—detaching it from this idea that it’s something weak or something that should be suppressed or ignored. Instead, seeing it as just what it is: the subconscious saying, "Hey, we gotta let go of this stuff now in order for us to keep moving along. Otherwise, we’re gonna have to find some other place to put it or deal with it." And that's when it comes out in weird ways, however it comes out.
Just wanted to get all this down. I'm no scientist—I mean, I haven't studied science to get any degrees. And I'm not basing this on any studies I’ve read. This is an intuitive hypothesis based on personal experience and stuff I’ve observed. Something about this feels more correct than anything previous to it.
That’s it.