Here is another hypothesis about why we cry and the effect it has. You will have noticed that after crying you have new thoughts and often feel better. If you are crying after a painful experience, you re-evaluate it and see it in a new light.
I learned long ago that a friend of mine had died suddenly of leukaemia at 34. I was in a very supportive group and cried intensely for a few minutes. I felt as though I was being washed by a white light. At the end, my sadness at her death had changed to gratitude that I had known her.
When we experience joy, like being there at the birth of a child, maybe we cry to deal with the knowledge that life will not be as wonderful as this often.
Crying is just one way of discharging (releasing) emotion. We also talk, laugh, shake, sweat, make angry movements (a tantrum) and yawn. When we do this, especially if someone else is giving us aware attention, we recover our ability to think more clearly.
This explains very neatly why just explaining a problem, even a technical one, to someone who is listening will often help you figure out how to solve it.
I came across this theory via re-evaluation counselling. There is a website here http://rc.org
On Sep 1, 2014 Nick Heap wrote:
Here is another hypothesis about why we cry and the effect it has. You will have noticed that after crying you have new thoughts and often feel better. If you are crying after a painful experience, you re-evaluate it and see it in a new light.
I learned long ago that a friend of mine had died suddenly of leukaemia at 34. I was in a very supportive group and cried intensely for a few minutes. I felt as though I was being washed by a white light. At the end, my sadness at her death had changed to gratitude that I had known her.
When we experience joy, like being there at the birth of a child, maybe we cry to deal with the knowledge that life will not be as wonderful as this often.
Crying is just one way of discharging (releasing) emotion. We also talk, laugh, shake, sweat, make angry movements (a tantrum) and yawn. When we do this, especially if someone else is giving us aware attention, we recover our ability to think more clearly.
This explains very neatly why just explaining a problem, even a technical one, to someone who is listening will often help you figure out how to solve it.
I came across this theory via re-evaluation counselling. There is a website here http://rc.org