{"id":401,"date":"2009-05-07T12:42:12","date_gmt":"2009-05-07T12:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html"},"modified":"2009-05-07T12:42:12","modified_gmt":"2009-05-07T12:42:12","slug":"how-often-do-you-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html","title":{"rendered":"How Often Do You Cry?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-left\" height=\"165\" alt=\"tears.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/84\/import\/tears.jpg\" width=\"220\" \/><\/span>As people close to me know, I am a cryer. I cry when I&#8217;m sad, happy, angry, overwhelmed. It&#8217;s like my release valve. The pressure of existing as a pretty emotional being has to escape somehow, somewhere. <\/p>\n<p>Everyone has their thing&#8211;boxing, drawing, screaming into a pillow are some healthy ones. Yelling, throwing, and hitting are also popular, but less recommended options. I&#8217;m ok with the crying thing, for the most part. <\/p>\n<p>Sometimes in work situations when I can feel the rains coming I think of baby elephants or if that doesn&#8217;t stem the tide, I drive a fingernail into my hand. Because work + crying = bad, in my experience. It&#8217;s in romance that it really gets in my way. All it takes is one smooch, and somehow the duct channel opens. My lips connect straight to my heart (I seriously think there must actually be a tube of some sort that doesn&#8217;t exist in most people) and a kiss is the key that opens the floods. <\/p>\n<p>I have often wished I had printed cards like the ones some deaf-mutes give out on New York City subways: &#8220;I am a deaf mute. Please donate.&#8221; I would hand mine over pre-kiss. It would say: &#8220;I cry easily when kissed. Not during, mind. But some time after when we have a conversation about whether we are dating or not. And when there is a separation of some sort. Please don&#8217;t take it personally. You didn&#8217;t do anything wrong. And you don&#8217;t need to take care of me. Here are the emails of three former boyfriends who can vouch for my sanity and let you know that once we&#8217;ve been together a little while I will cry much less.&#8221; Ok, I might need a sandwich board to fit all of that. But you get the idea. I think it would just preempt so much stuff. <\/p>\n<p>Our Holly did a beautiful gallery with <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/\">Beyond Blue<\/a> blogger Therese Borchard about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/2009\/04\/How-Crying-Can-Be-Healthy.aspx\">healing benefits of tears<\/a>&#8211;there are actual health benefits! Woo hoo! Check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/2009\/04\/How-Crying-Can-Be-Healthy.aspx\">Healing Power of Tears article here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><strong>How often do you cry? Do you feel like it gets in your way? Or maybe&nbsp;you feel like&nbsp;you actually need to cry more?<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As people close to me know, I am a cryer. I cry when I&#8217;m sad, happy, angry, overwhelmed. It&#8217;s like my release valve. The pressure of existing as a pretty emotional being has to escape somehow, somewhere. Everyone has their thing&#8211;boxing, drawing, screaming into a pillow are some healthy ones. Yelling, throwing, and hitting are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-valerie-reiss","category-holistic-living"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Often Do You Cry? - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Often Do You Cry? - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As people close to me know, I am a cryer. I cry when I&#8217;m sad, happy, angry, overwhelmed. It&#8217;s like my release valve. The pressure of existing as a pretty emotional being has to escape somehow, somewhere. Everyone has their thing&#8211;boxing, drawing, screaming into a pillow are some healthy ones. Yelling, throwing, and hitting are&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-07T12:42:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/tears.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vreiss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Often Do You Cry? - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Often Do You Cry? - Fresh Living","og_description":"As people close to me know, I am a cryer. I cry when I&#8217;m sad, happy, angry, overwhelmed. It&#8217;s like my release valve. The pressure of existing as a pretty emotional being has to escape somehow, somewhere. Everyone has their thing&#8211;boxing, drawing, screaming into a pillow are some healthy ones. Yelling, throwing, and hitting are&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html","og_site_name":"Fresh Living","article_published_time":"2009-05-07T12:42:12+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/tears.jpg"}],"author":"vreiss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html","name":"How Often Do You Cry? - Fresh Living","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/tears.jpg","datePublished":"2009-05-07T12:42:12+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-07T12:42:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/tears.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/tears.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/05\/how-often-do-you-cry.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Often Do You Cry?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/","name":"Fresh Living","description":"Holistic, Health and Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d","name":"vreiss","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","caption":"vreiss"},"description":"Valerie Reiss is Holistic Living Editor at Beliefnet. She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}