DeepSummary
The episode discusses the reasons and psychology behind why people sometimes struggle to cry, even during intensely emotional or difficult times. It explores the evolutionary purposes of crying, the different types of tears, and common factors that can inhibit one's ability to cry, such as shock, medication, emotional repression, and mental health conditions like depression.
The host explains that crying serves important emotional and social functions, including providing relief and catharsis, facilitating emotional expression, and signaling distress to elicit empathy and support from others. Factors like childhood experiences, gender socialization, and learned emotional suppression can contribute to difficulties crying later in life.
To regain the ability to cry and reconnect with one's emotions, the host suggests strategies like noticing physical cues of emotions in the body, discussing feelings with supportive friends, and finding creative outlets for emotional expression. The overall message is that an inability to cry often stems from a deeper emotional disconnect that can be healed through self-acceptance, self-compassion, and practices that increase emotional awareness and vulnerability.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Crying serves important evolutionary, emotional, and social purposes, including providing catharsis, signaling distress, and facilitating connection.
- Inability to cry can stem from many factors like shock, medication, emotional repression, and mental health conditions.
- Reconnecting with the body's physical sensations of emotion can help restore emotional awareness.
- Discussing feelings with supportive others and finding creative outlets can aid emotional expression.
- Self-acceptance and self-compassion are key when struggling to access intense emotions.
- Difficulty crying often indicates a larger emotional disconnect that can be healed over time.
- There is no single "right" way to process or express emotions, and crying is not required.
- The goal is not forced catharsis, but regaining vulnerability and emotional attunement.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Crying in this way can also have a self soothing effect. So this was a finding published by a 2014 study that noticed when people cry, this very act also activated their parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us relax.“ by Amy Brown
- “If you're struggling with emotional expression, tap into what you're feeling through a body scan.“ by Amy Brown
- “There is no one way to feel. I feel like I have mentioned that a million times in this episode.“ by Amy Brown
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Episode Information
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
3/19/24
Sometimes all we want to do is a have a big, old fashioned sob and when we can't it leads us feeling emotionally pent up, defective and frustrated. There's an explanation for why we go through periods where we are unable to cry. In today's episode we discuss:
- The evolutionary function of crying
- Crying as an attachment behaviour
- The difference between basal, reflex and emotional tears
- The 4 major reasons we struggle with crying
- How to heal your connection with your emotions
- How we process emotions through the body, and more.
Listen now when you're in need of an emotional catharsis or could really do with a few tears.
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