why grown men cry

When is the last time you saw a grown man cry? Openly. Uncontrollably. In public.

It doesn't happen often in our culture. Whether because of conditioning, shame, bravado, or denial, it seems men tend to keep the portal to their feelings under lock and key. And thank goodness for that. Thank goodness they have learned to stay strong when we need them to steady us and hold us up. When we might otherwise be swept away by our own fears, our own sorrows. Thank goodness someone is able to take over for us when we just can't. 

Don't let them fool you, though. 

"Every man has his secret sorrows

which the world knows not;

and often times we call a man cold

when he is only sad."

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

I see this again and again at the writing conferences I attend, a handful of men who are bleeding out with sorrow, shame, remorse, or anger...a wound that has never been cleansed. A wound that has festered untended all their lives until the day, in a writing group, they are invited to take the bandage off and look at it. To see how deep it has gotten. To realize how much it still hurts. When they are ready, they will tell you how it happened. Who did it. And you will see grown men cry.

"You'd be surprised

what lengths people will go to 

not to face

what is real and painful inside them."

~from HPLYRIKZ.com~ 

Often the wound reflects the vicissitudes of ordinary life...rejection, grief, failure, loss. But prepare yourself for this: in many cases these wounds were inflicted by their fathers. During their drunken rages. By their criticism, mockery, and shaming. By their absence. Because their expectations were impossible for a little boy to understand, much less aspire to. Generation after generation after generation.

"If you never heal from what hurt you

then you'll bleed on people

who did not cut you."

~from NotSalmon.com~

This is why grown men cry. When they first awaken to the lineage of wounded boys-turned-men they are part of. When it occurs to them that they might have passed this on to their own boys. This is the story they must tell. This is a wound they must heal.

Which is why it disappoints me that so few men join our writing circles. None were present last week at the Narrative Healing conference I attended. Three men attended the storytelling workshop I went to in June. One of them broke down in tears on the first day and wept openly all week long as his story unfolded. 

Boys don't cry, but men do."

~Malorie Blackman~

Tearfulness is both medicine and art. Don't be ashamed if you weep. It is the way you edit your story. The way you rewrite the ending. The way you close the wound. 

Are you nursing a painful memory or experience? Don't let it fester untended. Show it to us. Tell us where it hurts. We can help.

"Tears are words

that need to be written."

~Paulo Coelho~

jan