I do not keep a box of tissues in my therapy room.
I know, I know – it can be regarded as quite weird that in a psychologist’s office there is no tissue to be seen. I mean, it is a place where the entire range of emotions are shared, especially tears, and then I tell my clients there is no tissue to wipe them away.
Well, that is exactly it.
As soon as sadness comes to the surface, we want to wipe it away. As soon as any uncomfortable emotion emerges we habitually react by pushing it back. And reaching for a tissue as soon as we begin to cry, just conditions us to believe that crying should be stopped.
By wiping our tears as soon as they arise, we unconsciously tell ourselves that we are not allowed to cry. We treat crying as if it is something detrimental to our health, whilst its actually the other way around. Not crying is harmful to our mental and emotional wellbeing.
Nancy Kline writes in her book Time To Think, that “our society is terrified of tears. We have mixed up the release of pain with the cause of pain. Stop crying and you’ll stop hurting. Stop showing your anger and you’ll stop being angry. Stop shaking and you’ll stop being afraid. Just stop it. It doesn’t work. It never has. And not only does it not work – that is, stopping the release does not stop the pain (the pain just ‘goes underground’ and causes all sorts of neuroses and probably physical disease) – but, most important, repression of feeling represses clear thinking. It muddles the mind.”
And it is exactly clear thinking that needs to happen when we are in turmoil or when we are hurt. True thinking is what helps us to become unstuck. Our coherent thoughts open up the space into knowing how we can go forward. But as Nancy right fully says “thinking stops when we are upset.”
Luckily, we can restart our thinking process when we express our feelings just enough. And I agree with Nancy that “unfortunately, we have got this backwards in our society. We think that when feelings start, thinking stops. And so when crying starts, for example, we stop it. When we do this, we interfere with exactly the thing that helps a person to think clearly again.” And reaching for tissues exacerbates our backwards understanding of crying and releasing emotions.
So yes, in my therapy room you unfortunately won’t find a tissue to wipe your tears. However your will find a space for emotional release, and ultimately the space to find a way forward.
“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it…” ― Nicholas Sparks, At First Sight
Kline, N. (2015). Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind. p 74-75.