Tuesday, July 23, 2024
When I was a young, and I cried over something “silly,” my father would say, “Dry it up, or I’m going to give you something to cry about!” So I had to learn how to “control” my emotions. Once in church when we were little, my brother drew something on a bulletin that got us giggling uncontrollably. Mother pinched us each on the leg so hard that the pain transformed the laughter into tears.
We must learn to “curtail” our emotions, right? No, we must learn to express them. Suppression, repression, and the buildup of pressure leads to violence. No wonder people go berserk. No one knows how to express, release, and let it go into the atmosphere.
Babies express themselves anywhere. They let it out at church, in the middle of the night, or whenever. But they’ve got it. They release it as it arises. When I went through my divorce a few years ago, boy did I ever release it. I had never cried, wailed, screamed, and writhed so much. It came in waves, in heaving convulsions. The demons released. Free at last!
Now, I express myself. I write, speak, play music, work on my physique, grunt and sweat with yard work. I don’t do things I dislike in order to please others. I giggle in church at how seriously people take themselves. I cry for no reason. I let it go. Things and people come and go. I’ve become a nonstick passageway, not a clingy repository.
Restraint builds toxins. Punch a hole in the wall if you must. Take your aggression out, but not on others. You build up the pressure by holding on to people, ruminating over things they’ve said, reliving mistakes you’ve made, and by doing things you dislike. Express yourself. Here’s something to cry about – freedom!