My author friend, Randy Carpenter asks, “What if our tears were color-coded?”
He gives examples such as red tears may indicate anger, yellow tears could represent happiness, green for envy, and blue for sadness.
Simple, but brilliant! I think about how tears represent much more than sadness. Frequently, my life coaching clients apologize for crying. They approach tears as a sign of weakness.
Some people cry readily. Some of us suppress the need to cry.
My mom frequently celebrated her tear ducts. She’d cry when she opened a gift or received a welcomed surprise. She’d sob when she saw anyone neglected or harassed.
Looking back, I regret how we teased Mom about her sensitivity. I grew up afraid of emotions. When I saw someone cry, I panicked. I wasn’t taught how to handle tears healthily. As I grew older, when Mom opened a gift that touched her heart, she’d stop mid-stream and say, “Don’t worry. Those are happy tears.”
In her book, The Language of Letting Go Melody Beattie writes that many of us learned to shut down the emotional parts of ourselves to survive certain situations. She discusses how we dismiss anger, sadness, fear, joy, sensual feelings, and love.
Beattie acknowledges that sometimes we live with people who refuse to tolerate our emotions. We’re shamed or reprimanded for expressing feelings.
Ahhhhh.
Between Randy’s colored tear proposal and Melody’s insight, I sigh in relief. Similar to how we react to different colored traffic and emergency lights, I ask, “How would my response differ if colored tears indicated certain emotions?
What if it was universally acceptable to cry? Yes, we need to use discretion with tears, but sometimes? A cleansing cry would do us all a world of good.
Tears can alert us to compassion, defeat, frustration, and happiness. I challenge all of us to consider what trigger may cause someone to cry or shut down.
If tears become more widely accepted, maybe we need to notify our tissue makers of an upcoming flood of production and sales.
If I indulged in a good cry, my tears would be colorful. For now, I jump off the FROG Blog and swim toward a river of mission-minded adventures.
Reader! Your turn.
How would your response be different if tears were color-coded?
Let’s learn from each other. Please keep your comments kind and uplifting.
Christina,
Lover of snail mail, Hobby Lobby yarn, and Wal-Mart gift cards
“And God will wipe away every tear from our eyes; there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying…” (Rev. 21:4).
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