During my first therapy session at the start of my training with RD Laing, I found myself explaining I couldn't cry. I'd learned to suppress my tears the day I started boarding school as an 8 year old - grief stricken to leave the family, wanting to weep my guts out, yet instinctively needing to occlude my vulnerability. Most of the other kids appeared similarly choked, stuffing their emotions down - a few muffled sobs into pillows to be heard that night from the shadows of the cavernous dormitory but none of them mine. Inhibiting and distorting the flow of natural energy within - I didn't have words for it then, I could just feel it viscerally – seemed the only expedient. Strangely, I subsequently found a facility for occasionally disclosing my feelings without shame in conversation with the others – I wasn't embarrassed to say I was scared or homesick, which I'm sure saved me from becoming totally emotionally disfunctional in later life – but refused to display my raw inner truth by going anywhere near the crying zone. Composure was all. I can feel the tightening of my throat muscles just writing about it. Lots of water under the bridge later, having trained as a therapist, then doctor of Oriental medicine, lived with the Native Americans in New Mexico studying shamanism, returned to London and practiced as a healer for some years, hence relatively self-aware – and I still hadn't cried. Then RD Laing, mentor and father figure, died and I cried and cried and cried – for three whole days and nights. He'd bequeathed me the gift of my own tears. Crying, like laughter, is a natural semi-autonomic function, there simply to force your diaphragm, the muscle that works your lungs, to let go, so you breathe out and thus release whichever intense emotion you were holding onto in your chest and abdomen. But it makes mascara run, figuratively speaking, hence often inappropriate to indulge. Knowing bottling it is bad for your health on all levels, the next best thing, the true expedient, is to consciously, purposefully exhale, from deep in your belly. Inhalation follows of itself. Exhale fully again, telling yourself you're releasing the pain, repeat until you feel your chest relax and your throat soften then proceed as normal till you can be alone and have a good old weep.
