Even though I am a woman, I grew up with a similar narrative that men did. That it is best not to show emotion and it looks tough to keep them inside. It's bad to cry especially the ugly emotions. At least cry to yourself if you can...if you actually need to cry. I would cry to myself and often hold my breath to make it stop because I knew that if I truly let it all out...these tears would seem to never stop. It would be hours of ugly sobbing. So, till this day, I still pride myself on not crying and seeming tough. To be the strong woman and not show that things actually do get to me. And yet people make it a joke that I'm emotionally driven which goes to show I'm not really holding it altogether. It still comes out of me that my suppressed and not-so-suppressed emotions tend to drive me. I still am met with the impression, especially by men, that begin emotional and emotionally-driven is bad. Yet, how can I continue to hold in all these vibrant and strong feelings? These things are apart of me. They're indicators something is going on underneath that I need to deal with.
Is crying in a safe place of people really all that bad or is letting a few tears slip all so wrong?
Aren't we all emotional beings?
Didn't Jesus make us like this?
He certainly showed depths of emotions. He wept as a man, and yet men (and women) feel that is a sign of weakness. I, as a woman, feel this. So, I lock it all inside with an ugly bow of pride as I appear to keep it altogether. It's a world of living in the in-between of wondering which side do I choose, while feeling that I can't pick a side. I am in the middle of being emotionally-driven, but trying to be strong. Holding onto both sides of feelings and impressions. I know that it isn't wrong to be this way. Only society has made it feel like it since childhood. I have always admired men who cried and teared up because it made their shell seem softer. That they, too, were facing emotions within that were spilling out of their faces. That they get it even as a man who is stereotyped as less emotional. I think both men and women were made with a broad spectrum of emotions and were just groomed to show it differently. I think it we take off the mask, "I've got it all figured out." "I'm tough." "I'm strong." "I'm not emotional." "Emotions don't get to me." We would finally learn that there is nothing wrong with expressing healthy amounts of emotion...even the labeled "unhealthy emotions" in the right places. (Note: anger isn't a bad emotion, it's how you choose to let it out) There's a time to weep and a time to mourn. A time to cry and a time to rejoice.
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 says:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
Verse 11 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time.He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
Emotions are normal and being emotionally-driven is not bad.
Emotions are not a sign of weakness.
How you respond to your emotions is your choice.
There is a time for everything.
Thanks Unsplash ^
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