Sometimes I feel awful and journal and as I journal my eyes bleary up and in that very short moment I feel myself becoming unstuck. But it is such a short time and very few tears and I wonder is this enough? Or does one have to be in floods of tears for any difference to be really had?

[seventyeight]

i don't have an answer for you, but i've wondered the same thing. when i cry just a little bit, it's like i feel stuck - like i didn't really get "it" out.

I rarely cry and I'm making progress. I think everyone mourns in their own way, some cry tears that drip down their cheeks and some have afew here and there and other cry tears internally. In the end it's not the amount or type that matters, it's how you feel.

I am not a crier, just was taught not to. But my t seems to thing that with crying, the more/ harder =better. A complete meltdown just thrills her to pieces apparently (& i agree) i store all my emotional pain in my body, which is one of the reasons that my body is so sore and achey all the time. But if i happen to break down and cry a lot, the aches lesson

Tears shed from emotion contain a higher amount of hormones than tears shed from, for instance, chopping onions. It's not unlikely that it is the release of those hormones that make you feel better. But I don't really know, nor do I know whether this is something that is known or if there are just various theories about it.

For me it was a strange experience. But I guess I didn't trust it. Unyet the deep dark hole I felt myself to have been in left. I felt as if my bleary eyes was the deep, deep place I had been running from but craving at the same time. I felt numb unyet I felt pain too. It really was a strange few moments.

[WikidPissah]

I welled up in t on Thurs. A few tears slipped out. I sobbed one night in my room alone at residential. It was painful. I hadn't cried hard in 20 years.

Originally Posted by earthmamma

For me it was a strange experience. But I guess I didn't trust it. Unyet the deep dark hole I felt myself to have been in left. I felt as if my bleary eyes was the deep, deep place I had been running from but craving at the same time. I felt numb unyet I felt pain too. It really was a strange few moments.

This sounds really significant. Also, I think it's great that you're so tuned in to what's going on inside you. For me, that's where the answers lie, and T is just helping me remove some of the blocks that are holding "stuff" back. I don't know if the amount of tears is all that important, though. I've cried at home once or twice about T stuff where it was just huge, wracking sobs that was almost physically painful. But the most powerful, important one, the one that was almost overwhelming, was nothing more than my eyes overflowing and tears running down my cheeks. It was just a deep, quiet sadness that seemed bottomless. It went on for 6 hours. It was months ago, but I still tear up whenever I think about it.

You say that this has never happened before, so you may be getting in touch with some long-buried stuff. It makes sense that it wouldn't just burst through all at once in a huge explosion, but start off slow. Sort of like your mind/body is proceeding with caution to make sure you can handle what's coming to the surface. IDK, it just sounds like a good thing is happening and that your therapy is really progressing.

[BlessedRhiannon]

I think with tears, it's not how much or how hard you cry, but whether you allow yourself to full experience the emotion. What I mean is, if you start to cry and then distract yourself or force the tears back, that's probably not helpful. If you cry and it's just a little bit, but you don't try to stop the tears or force away the feelings, then that probably is helpful. There's not set limit of "you must cry for x minutes for it to be healing." It's just however much you need to release those emotions.

[livie15]

Originally Posted by earthmamma

Sometimes I feel awful and journal and as I journal my eyes bleary up and in that very short moment I feel myself becoming unstuck. But it is such a short time and very few tears and I wonder is this enough? Or does one have to be in floods of tears for any difference to be really had?

However much you can get out is enough. If you feel emotions coming up when you journal let as much as you can out but don't force it.