I have cried almost every single day since October 7th.

That is the day that Hamas attacked Israel. I have friends on both sides of this conflict, meaning supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestinians living in Gaza.

This post isn’t about that conflict, except as context of what’s happening around us.

And as a reference point for me to know how long I’ve been crying on a consistent basis.

I Have Wondered if Something is Wrong With Me

This is wildly vulnerable, but I’ve hard major depressive episodes in my life that started with a lot of crying consistently over a number of days.

So when I start crying for days in a row, I feel curious and concerned. This is a more professional way of saying that I’ve asked myself, “Is there something wrong with me?”

The answer to that question is always NO, because the ROOT of that question is shame.

Shame tries to protect us. One way to get to the root of what’s going on is to look UNDERNEATH the shame.

Looking Underneath the Shame of Crying Every Day

When I was around 8 or 9, I moved from my longtime home on Fort Lewis to Mannheim, Germany.

Ours was not a family of tenderly and carefully processing Big Changes. I was expected – at 8 years old – to “buck up and deal with it.”

In fact, my grandmother and my mother both told me that, “Strong people don’t cry.”

It’s taken me YEARS to become comfortable with crying – first by myself, then with another trusted person, and now whenever I need to cry, I cry. Doesn’t matter where I happen to be or who I’m with.

The tears come. I let them fall.

It’s all energy. Let it move.

The World is Hard and We are Soft

The longer I practice as a Trauma, PTSD, and Grief Recovery Coach, the more I realize that our culture works against our mental health. The world works against GOOD mental and physical health. The world works against healthy and functional communities and families, and then BLAMES us, as individuals, for “not succeeding” at living in systems that are ultimately harmful.

I like to remind clients – and myself – over and over again that we have REASONABLE RESPONSES TO UNREASONABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.

There are multiple wars in the world. People are dying in horrific ways, and we have access to real-time information like never before.

People like Matthew Perry, who is part of our larger cultural community, died. I’m crying about that, too.

The Weeping Woman Comforts Me

Today I saw a post on Facebook by Stefana Serafina about the Weeping Woman.

There is a woman across cultures, called by different names in different stories, who is weeping without being able to stop. Day and night, and for centuries now, she cries ceaselessly. In the old Mexican stories, she is La Llorona, in ancient Greece, she is Niobe. And, honestly, I’m so glad to know her: To know that in every corner of the world, there is a universal Weeping Woman who carries the grief of the world and weeps for the children and for what has been lost, and weeps over betrayal and injustice and over the madness of power. She is a grief-bearer who won’t stop weeping even after she is turned to stone, like Niobe, by those who are tired of her tears. But now the stone weeps- it’s still there, weeping, on Mt. Sipylus!

It is simply the Weeping Woman’s job, endlessly: To not deny the grief of the world, to not be afraid to feel it. To carry even the grief of those who have hardened their shell against feeling, beyond recognition.

I love her even more now when we need her so badly. She gives us permission to feel the bottomless grief of our world– but also the responsibility to not drown in it: Because, like the stories tell us, grief like that flows to make rivers and oceans, but it also must flow through our bodies & hearts, and when it does– when a grief is felt and moved and loved inside us– it’s an unstoppable force, a purifying deluge, a power that guides us to action, but from the tenderest parts of our hearts!

I recently brought up Weeping Woman in a workshop I was holding, and the first thing in the room was Resistance. ‘No, I don’t want to go there now…I’ve been a weeping woman before, why touch that again…’ But when we moved with her, we were made new. There was an indescribable tenderness in us and in the space, from which something very precious and gentle was being born.

What I’m saying is, we need Weeping Woman right now. She tells us we all share the responsibility to carry the collective grief, to be made more deeply human by it. To turn to our ‘enemies’ and opponents with a heart rendered harmless by the love hidden in grief. To listen to the guidance of the griefs that so many of us carry. Because, at the end, like Niobe’s tears that now flow from the rock into which she was turned and make everything green with life again, our own grief- undenied- might be the only way for us to grow something new and precious, and hopeful.

Crying is a Reasonable Response to Unreasonable Circumstances

There is immense grief and trauma energy right now, outside of us and – for many of us – inside of us.

The grief and trauma seems to infinitely reflect off each other, like a hall of mirrors.

But I want to remind myself and you that we can feel immense grief and not drown.

As the earlier passage said:

“It is simply the Weeping Woman’s job, endlessly: To not deny the grief of the world, to not be afraid to feel it. To carry even the grief of those who have hardened their shell against feeling, beyond recognition.“

Let the tears fall.

Allow the energy to move.

Grief for yourself and the world.

Grieving is our right and our privilege.

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