It Is Okay To Cry

My Mom told me growing up, “it’s okay to cry.” I always appreciated this because so many TV shows and movies portrayed crying like something was “wrong.” I cried a lot growing up. Much of the time, I didn't know why I was crying. I was sad but I couldn’t articulate why. Some nights I cried so hard, I think I scared my Mom, as she tried to console me. One night, the conversation ended with my Mom telling me I could take a “mental health day” from school. At the time, teenage Hannah thought “hey, I get to miss school tomorrow!” Looking back, I appreciate my Mom’s intent, which I believe was to teach me that mental health is just as important as physical health. This is one of the reasons I feel the Universe gave me great parents. I say this with curiosity and I mean no offense (I love you, Mom!) but I can’t help but wonder, if by crying and then missing a day of school, did my subconscious mind pick up on a different message? Usually when you miss a day of school (i.e. because you’re sick), it is because something is wrong. Something has happened to where you would not be able to function efficiently as a student and you need to take a break. Anytime I was seen crying growing up, I was met with some variation of, “what’s wrong?” Not just from my parents, but everyone - friends, teachers, siblings, extended relatives, society. I’m realizing now that no matter how sincere or well-intentioned the question, my brain just kept hearing the word “wrong” associated with crying. And for a highly sensitive person who cries a whole heck-of-a-lot, I started telling myself, subconsciously, “it must be me...I am wrong.”

Eventually, a pattern emerged. Crying made me feel shameful and the shame made me suppress (albeit, not well) the crying, which resulted in repressing my emotions. Cry, shame, suppress, repress, repeat. I can say now, after a lot of self-reflection, that because of this repression, I ended up not knowing how or why I was feeling anything negative. When an emotion would come up, it was so jumbled with all these other unresolved feelings that I couldn’t identify which emotion I was feeling or from where it came. My way of dealing with this was to retreat from anything that felt too emotionally taxing. Retreating took on many forms. Sometimes it was drinking to avoid my social anxiety. Sometimes it was ignoring phone calls/texts from friends and family. Sometimes it was staying in bed instead of going to class or having a conversation with anyone. As I’m writing this, I’m a little ashamed of just how much I avoided in my teens and twenties.

The first step in changing this pattern was recognizing its existence. I attribute this spark of recognition to my husband. He was the first person I opened up to who helped me process my feelings in a helpful and sustainable way and for that, I am forever grateful. I will always remember the moment I knew I was falling in love with him. We were talking on the phone about a job opportunity. I had just finished the interview and the company wanted to hire me but I was hesitant and feeling so conflicted. On the one hand, I would be utilizing both my major and minor from college and I felt like it was what I “should” be doing since I had recently graduated. On the other hand, I had this intuitive feeling that it just wasn’t the right job for me. I was crying as I told him how I really didn’t feel right about the position but I was afraid if I didn’t take the job, I would have wasted all of the money my parents gave to put me through college. He listened, patiently, as I told my whole story and could barely control my sniveling. Then when I was finished, he responded by acknowledging my feelings. He repeated what I said, adding, “it sounds like you’re feeling anxious.” How empowering that was to hear him name the emotion! For the first time, I felt a sense of detachment. The anxiety was no longer all consuming. Anxious was not my identity, I was just feeling anxious. For the first time, I felt like a romantic interest truly heard me. He acknowledged my opinion and wanted to learn more about where it came from. I had never processed my emotions in this way before. In that moment, I realized “this is how it feels to fall in love.” I knew I wanted to be with him for a long, long time because I knew he would be the best person to help me grow.

It’s been over 7 years since we had that conversation. My husband is not always comfortable when I cry. I think he, too, wonders if something is “wrong," but he is a researcher at heart and does not shy away from digging deeper. He asks what is going on and together we process my emotions. Even if it’s an uncomfortable conversation, he talks through it. I do my best to describe how I’m feeling and if I struggle, he helps me to name the emotion. There is so much power in being able to name a feeling! It creates the separation, the space, the detachment needed to get curious about what’s happening. Once there is detachment, we can calm down. We can observe the feeling and figure out how to manage it. The feeling is no longer in control. Before, I didn’t know how to detach. When I had an emotion, it took over my whole body. The emotion wasn’t something Hannah was experiencing. The emotion was Hannah. Learning how to name the emotion, then take a step back from my ego and observe has made a huge difference in my life. I haven’t stopped feeling by any means. I still feel very deeply, and I cry, but when I do, it doesn’t take over my entire life. I am able to emote without guilt, look (somewhat) objectively at the situation, fulfill the emotion, and eventually, move on.

For a minute I thought I had figured it out: life, that is. I thought, “Wow, I can cry now without ruining my day!” And then I noticed that I was crying less and less. I noticed that I wasn’t getting upset as easily as before. I started doing well enough that I thought, eventually, I would just be happy all the time because negative emotions would no longer affect me.

This didn’t last long because, obviously, life happens. Something happens at work, we get injured or sick, a family member irritates us - whatever it is, a circumstance arises that triggers an emotion. As soon as I felt like I was doing really well and I was happy, something would happen and I would find myself in low mood once again. Except this time, my low mood was compounded by the fact that I thought I had done all this work. I thought I had “gotten over” this emotion. So now, I’m upset about the circumstance and I'm upset at myself for being upset. And around I go, again. Pay attention to the loops. If you find yourself in a loop, or a repetitive pattern, there’s probably a “glitch in the Matrix,” or your record is skipping. Whichever analogy you choose, it means you have to stop, take a step back (detach), and analyze what’s happening. Analysis means actually feeling and talking about the uncomfortable emotions.

I realize now I will always feel emotions, positive and negative, for the rest of my life. I learned that my goal is not to get rid of negative emotions - that’s impossible. Negative emotions will come up regardless of how much we participate in personal development. Emotions exist to guide us, to let us know what is and is not working in our lives. Think of them like signposts or roadblocks while you’re driving. You may be trying to get to “Paradise Pl.” but then you run into a “resentment roadblock.” You could just plow through the roadblock but that’s going to damage your car and will most definitely cause problems down the road (metaphorically and literally). The best thing to do for the long term is to stop for a moment and re-evaluate your plan. Maybe it’s a tree branch that is easily movable. Maybe it’s a bigger roadblock and you’ll need to call for back-up to get past it. Whatever it is, it’s telling you that you need to stop for a moment and reevaluate your situation. This doesn’t mean you will never reach Paradise Pl. You might need to cry a little, but it doesn’t mean you were wrong to start this journey in the first place! It’s all a part of the process. Anyway, what I learned is my goal is to acknowledge and realize all emotions, including - no, especially - the negative ones.

In my current relationship with crying, I can confidently say it happens when I am feeling deeply. When I get passionate, I cry. It feels rewarding now. Crying is a trigger that something is important, that I need to pay attention, or that it's time to ask for help. Crying is a natural part of the human experience, no more or less significant than laughing. Like laughing, crying is a sign that I’m alive, I’m authentic, and I’m in line with my true self. I feel a physical shift in my body when I am done. My head is more clear, my chest is less heavy and, dare I say, my skin is glowing afterwards. I respect crying now. I believe it is an important part of who I am and I welcome the tears as the come.

And so, to my Mom, thank you for planting the seed of knowledge that health comprises the mind and the body equally. I recognize it is my job to water the seed - to find my own way into fully understanding and building a healthy, happy life for myself. Just know that I’m working off a solid foundation, starting from both you and Dad - I cannot thank you enough. 

Gender Roles

When I was about 9 or 10, I remember sitting next to my dad on an airplane. As we waited for the plane to take off, I was sitting there with my right leg crossed over my left leg - my right ankle resting on my left knee. My dad looked at my posture and said, “that’s how a boy sits.” He took my right leg in his hands and moved it so that the back of my right knee was touching the front of my left knee, so my thighs were touching and legs were closed. He jokingly moved my leg back and forth a couple of times explaining, “boy sits, girl sits”. Even though I recognize this as my dad being playful, and I know he wouldn’t have been upset if I sat the other way, this memory sticks out to me. “Why is this a rule,” I thought, “when I’m physically capable, as a girl, of sitting this way?” 

Categorizing people, places, and things is something we do as humans. It’s helpful to understand the world around us. A category provides information about what something looks like, acts like, and how it relates to the bigger picture. When events happen that are outside of the expected behavior of a “category,” it confuses people and we want to find a way to “justify” the behavior. We have categories for food like fruit, vegetables, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, etc. When deciding what to eat, you may pick a combination of these categories to make sure you have a balanced diet. Have you heard people argue about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable? Some people can get really animated. We categorize learning curriculum based on different subjects. It is understood that someone pursuing a degree in mathematics doesn't necessarily need to take a drama course in order to be a successful mathematician. We categorize locations based on climates and we expect certain weather patterns based on these categories. If you visited San Diego, CA in the middle of July and it was cold and raining, you would think “this is unusual weather for southern California.” 

As a culture, we’ve categorized people as either male or female largely based on their biological sex organs. If a baby is born with a penis (or what looks like one), it is called a boy. If a baby is born with a vagina (or what looks like one), it is called a girl. Then as the child grows up, it is taught to behave in a way that a “girl” or a “boy” would behave. But gender is not that easy to define! Gender is not just “girl” or “boy”, “male” or “female”. Even sex organs are not as easy as "penis or vagina," “testes or ovaries”, “XY or XX”. The term intersex describes a variety of conditions in which a person’s sexual or reproductive anatomy does not fit the typical definition of female or male when they are born. Around 1 in 1,500 to 1 in 2,000 babies are born with atypical genitalia. The point is, even biologically speaking, sex is not one or the other. 

I think, in general, categorizing can be helpful. However, when it comes to something as nuanced as a human being, categorizing behavior based on a binary idea stifles self-expression and causes a great deal of shame and guilt. Gender is a spectrum. Telling a boy he is not allowed to play with dolls just because “boys don’t do that” is different than telling a boy he can’t flap his arms and fly away. Why do we teach children to behave in a way that is not based on their physical capabilities but instead on a belief that we made up?

My parents never forbade me from doing anything that was too “boyish” when I was young, but all the media and cultural “norms” I grew up with definitely “steered” me in a direction. In elementary school, girls were required to wear a dress or skirt uniform while boys wore pants or shorts. Outside of elementary school, I grew up watching Disney movies which taught me, as a girl, that I am a “damsel in distress” who must be “saved” by a prince. When I was a preteen, I remember reading my older sister’s Teen Vogue (or was it Seventeen?) magazines which talked about make-up and crushes on boys and first kiss stories. On the one hand, my parents would say things like “you can do anything/be anything you want,” and I knew that was theoretically true. On the other hand, I saw the way my classmates poked fun at the androgynous choices one girl made during free-dress days and I didn’t want to stick out. So I spent most of my time growing up trying to “blend in.” I went to a public high school, so no uniforms. I did what I could to express myself through clothing, but I was still very soft spoken and didn’t have many close friends. In a school of 3,000 kids, I flew under the radar enough that I didn’t fall prey to any “mean girls” (at least not to my face). When I started having sex, I knew I couldn’t talk openly about it because 1) I didn’t have a boyfriend and 2) I didn’t plan on turning my sexual encounters into an exclusive relationship. If I had been a boy, my friends would have cheered me on, celebrating my “conquests.” Being a girl meant I was a “slut” to anyone who knew about what I was doing. I remember one time, I was hanging out with a boy from one of my classes. We had smoked some pot together and were casually watching TV. Suddenly, he said his mom would be home soon and asked if we were going to have sex or not. I said “no, why” kind of surprised and he said “oh, I thought that’s what you do.” In that moment, I thought “oh shit, who else thinks this about me? Who told him? Who has he told?” 

When I met my now husband, I hadn’t had a long term relationship before. I had “dated” (read: slept) around, but he was the first person I could see myself committing to long term. So growing sexually was a new concept to me. Up until this relationship, the only sex I was used to having was the spur-of-the-moment, lustful sex you have with someone who you don’t plan on seeing again or are only dating for a short time. Before Zach, I had never been with anyone long enough to get past the new relationship energy. After Zach and I made it out of the “honeymoon phase,” we started exploring alternative ways to get each other off. I was so used to being in the submissive role that when the idea presented itself that I could be dominant, I got a little nervous. Being dominant means I have to make decisions? I have to be assertive? I have to initiate and lead the sexual experience? Damsels in distress don’t lead! Being more assertive and decisive has always been a goal of mine. I know I can be flighty and timid. I’ve always wanted to work on this so you would think this was my perfect opportunity, right? Well, it was, but it took me awhile to appreciate it. It’s not easy for a timid person to jump right in to being dominant. Luckily I have a supportive partner who helped me by telling me what he thought would be sexy so I had a jumping off point. I’ve always enjoyed the art of acting so I started by “fleshing out my character” based on the skeletal structure that was my husband’s fantasy. It started off as acting, but as time went on, I realized I was getting really into my character. We would finish a scene and I’d be turned on and want to keep going. It was exhilarating and liberating to take on a new role in the bedroom. And low and behold, this “role play” I started experimenting with slowing started bleeding into my everyday life. I attribute much of the confidence I’ve gained over the years to these “acting” lessons. I guess there is some truth to the “fake it ‘til you make it” phrase. And if you do it right, some of the “faking” can lead to a very real orgasm.

Another memory I have from being a kid was always waiting until the last minute to decide on my Halloween costume. One year, I was particularly late. It must have been down to the day of Halloween. I decided I would dress up as a businessman. While the other girls my age were dressing up like their favorite princess, I was wearing a mascara mustache, one of my dad’s sport coats, and went trick-or-treating with his briefcase to hold my candy. It was last minute and it was awesome. My mom did a great job with the mustache. If I wasn’t prepubescent, people would have thought I was a real businessman. My point is, nobody else is you and no one’s idea of who you should be should matter, except yours. My wise (and slightly drunk) husband once said, “Gender is an idea” to the 711 attendant who was making fun of him wearing my “lady’s” sunhat. Yes, my love, you are exactly right. Thank you.

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