Spilled Milk (and other reasons to cry)

Your self-concept is never formed in a vacuum. Who we think we are, how we think we should behave, what we think we should like, how we think we should feel — all of these ideas are shaped by interactions with society and the individuals within it.

“No sh*t.” (I imagine you’d say).
“I promise I’m getting somewhere.” (Would be my imaginary response).

I was just wondering if you’d ever noticed how few social container we have deemed appropriate for grief and how rarely we’re granted room to experience sadness?

We’re constantly encouraged to perform happiness for the sake of other people’s comfort and at the expense of our own. We’re not really taught how to process our own big feelings, let alone how to hold space for those of others.

We’re taught to keep our emotions to ourselves or to save them for a therapist.

We’re taught that our feelings are a burden and that we should avoid being too much, instead of feeling safe asking for mutual support.

We’re instructed that we’re only entitled to two days of bereavement leave, that our grief needs to be quick and quiet, then forgotten to make space for more important things — like the profits of the stakeholders.

We’re told it’s cringy to cry on social media and we need to save that shit for somewhere more private.

But when we go our whole lives learning how to suppress our sadness we may be prone to doing what we’ve practiced even when we’re alone — invalidating our own feelings, pretending they’re not there or judging ourselves as overdramatic for experiencing what is actually an appropriate response within the normal range of human emotions.

Or idk, maybe that’s just me? Regardless — I’d like to practice something different. I’d like to make space for more.

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