What’s Really Going on When Women Sob ‘For No Reason’

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but going to church makes me cry. Like … every single time.

I stand there trying to sing a hymn, or I sit there listening to someone’s poignant share about what their life is like.

And I weep. No matter how much I try to fight it, I cannot.

WTF, right?

Believe me, it’s not that I’m suffering. I’m a perfectly happy person. These days there is nothing inherently ‘wrong’ in my life. It’s just that I find myself crying at times. And damned if I know exactly why.

Is it my hormones? The phases of the moon? Or is it just one of those eternal mysteries, like the missing sock, that has no easy answer?

One minute I am fun, lively, capable and generally solving all sorts of problems. But the next thing I know I am sad and limp … a real wet dishrag. And for no apparent reason.

Speaking as a woman who finds her way to weepiness often, I believe I am not alone. I can still remember my mother crying into her perfectly prepared plate of dinner when I was a child. It was mystifying then, but now I understand.

It’s not that there actually aren’t enough hours in a day. There are and we know it.

It’s that we can’t live up to our own unreasonable expectations.

We can’t always be that perfect mother, wife, sister, neighbor, community leader or career superstar we long to be. Nor can we fix this broken world by ourselves … and especially not all at once.

My daughter Teal used to call me up regularly so she could have a small meltdown. “Oh, mom,” she’d begin, her voice filling with tears. “I don’t even know why I’m crying!”.

In the last few years of her life, before her sudden death in 2012, we had an agreement in that she could call me up any time just to cry for no reason. We figured she was on schedule if she had a weepy meltdown about every two weeks.

Because sometimes, honestly. you just need to cry. But … why? Here are a few ideas.

1. We get tired of holding the world on our shoulders. Yes, we do feel we must hoist it alone … even with a perfectly competent mate by our side.

2. We care too much. About our children, your children, our aging parents, plus our friends, colleagues, the homeless guy down the street and the neighbor’s sister’s cat. No one escapes our empathic radar. We just can’t help it.

3. We are all heart – and then some. We tend to feel our way through life. So when we come a bit unraveled … well, we fall apart. It’s that simple.

4.      There isn’t really enough time in life to get it all done. So we slide into emotional overwhelm sometimes. That’s when we long to be soothed with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s served in a dark room.

5.  Someone still has to do the laundry. Whether it is us, a helpful child, our spouse or the nice lady we hired to do it, we still have to think about it. Along with several thousand other things, all of which are quietly nagging us … all the time … in the background.

This emotional landscape — just like our purses and backpacks — represents a crowded no-man’s land packed with accumulated stuff.  There is just so much. How we long for someone (anyone!) to take it all away.

And that’s about when we dissolve into tears.

The solution is to step away for a moment and fall apart, gently and willingly.

Simply allow all that emotion to come tumbling on through. Know that whatever the issue is, this, too, will pass. Not matter how big or small … having a cry really will make it all better. For crying is actually the body’s way of cleaning house.

I once met a photographer whose work was shooting tears microscopically. Happy tears looked completely different from the tears of grief or anxiety, she told me. In other words, your heart, your soul and your body know exactly what they are doing when you weep. And every last tear has been designed to give you what you need. So stop questioning and worrying.

Instead, start trusting your own beautiful process, and go ahead … sob if you want.

If anyone around you asks what is going on, just let them know what you need. Perhaps it’s just a bit of warm appreciation, like a soft blanket of comfort. Perhaps an arm around the shoulders would do nicely, as well as a consoling word.

Sometimes all we need is someone to listen. Then, together, we can return to the heart of love, for isn’t that what we are made of?

I invite you to think of your next weepy breakdown as a necessary pit stop for refueling.

No shame. No guilt. Just love.

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