by algernon » February 20th, 2012, 7:55 pm
Sad Music and tears.....from reading this interesting thread I realize that promoting tears for many is a good purging of pent up stress and fear that can ease depression if only for a bit and music can be the useful tool to make it so. I've always welcomed tears as a remarkable physical release that really makes me feel better when crying ends. In fact a few times I've been comforted by my G F or mother with their well meaning words like, "don't cry, it'll be alright".....and I sometimes semi-laugh through the tears as I respond with......"I want to cry, the tears feel so good".......so when you comfort someone, instead consider encouraging them to cry and let it all go. (and if appropriate, a huge hug added will REALLY let the person wail freely which is nature's ticket to an emotional regrouping).
For me, I don't seek a catalyst to get the benefits of a good cry. Sooner or later it comes randomly when the elements are all there and often it's a song when I'm trucking and recent events have me conditioned to tear-up and then I ride the wave like a fast sailor and it feels real good. I always thank nature for the built in release mechanism.
I can understand the daily flow of sad and unwelcome emotional triggers that hook into some people and how easily it can be a relentless struggle. Long ago, I read some advice about getting past a bad romantic breakup that included avoiding emotional songs and other markings of the relationship so the healing can be promoted and this made sense to me. When my marriage failed I was tortured by every demon association that I could conjure with a doomsday sense of helplessness, but in my case way back then I was so UN-empowered and self-flagellating so what else could I do but wallow as a victim? That was the worst time of my life in 1987, ending a good ten years or more of being stuck in the mud. Funny thing, but I quit smoking in 1987, a most superb self improvement........we are strange and wonderful creatures.
My niece is diagnosed as bi-polar and she is so very very intelligent. She is a dependable resource for all things psychological/pharma-logical but she would trade that all to be mentally stable we can be sure. It was my niece who drove me to understand that no matter how many self-help books, pep talks, therapy sessions, comfort extravaganzas, religious incantations, flowers and sunshine and the attention of any well-meaning loved one, those that have a depression producing bio-chemical imbalance will not be liberated by any such outside efforts. I must absolutely bow to my niece's case-making, but............
I always come back to make a statement for the ability to make a choice that will make the misery LESS.....even if it's just turning off the radio so that song that tears you apart is gone, or playing a song that makes you cry for the cleansing effect of human tears.......
In closing, I fully respect the experiences well stated in this forum, that people with certain mental states cannot simply cheer themselves up and snap out of it, that they have the bio-chemical hand of cards no one wants..... I pick up pennies whenever I see them, knowing that some people leave them if they fall or even throw them away......but me, I pick them up and save them knowing that the material meaning at the end of my life will be the same as if I didn't......but I will ALWAYS do this. It's with this Quixotic compulsion that I wish all can act in habitual self-compassion, exercising CHOICE....outside the unfortunate grip of a bio-chemical based depression.
Algernon
