By Chaplain Joy Le Page Smith, MA

It is said, “Healing the soul is like peeling an onion.”  This is true.  The layers of pain, resentment, bitterness, and sorrow come off one by one.  No matter how many conferences attended and books read in hopes of getting more comfortable in our skins, most of us come to a notable realization: The hidden pain in our psyches hasn’t gone away.  It takes more than understanding.  We are going to have to deal with it.

Here is the crux of the matter: If we want to be whole, we have to fight against all inclinations to gulp down feelings.  Instead, when we feel tears at the corners of our eyes, we must admit what we are feeling, then allow the tears to flow, in a place where we feel safe.  Most often, this takes place in privacy.  Without a doubt, your body and your soul are healthier when you let those tears flow.  Trust this natural, God-given process.  Remind yourself that this emotional work does pay off.  Freedom from your inner pain is on the way.  Days of living with less stress lie ahead.  Learning to grieve life’s losses in this manner was a major factor in my becoming well after having to wage a serious battle to stay alive.

My “Get Well Program” involved praying, meditating, and studying Scriptures.  However, I also journaled and listened to my dreams.  One dream in particular spoke loud and clear about all my inner angst.  In this dream, I am shown a huge mountain of frozen tears.  The dream scene is an awesomely cold place!  I awaken knowing that a piece of truth has paid me a visit.  I see, clearly, that a mountain of frozen tears resides within my psyche.  Those frozen tears need to come down, but they have to come down slowly, not all at once.  I have to own up to all that stored grief, now so remote and hard to reach.

Eventually, my mountain of frozen tears began to thaw, allowing me to feel and to release that old, buried pain.  I learned the value of tears and the need to let them have their way when they want to come.  Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).  The fact remains that coming to truth can take a lot of time and diligent effort when we have repressed a great deal of emotion, hoping it will “go away”–if we just stay busy enough.  Or, drink enough … do enough drugs … recreate more.  Clearly, if we want the change which brings a better life–one that is honoring to God–we have to do the work.  And, for a lot of us, tears initiate the process.

The truth about tears is that they help to heal our psyche (soul).  And, amazingly enough, this little bit of water that begs to run down our cheeks helps our bodies.

Science indicates that tears are always present in the eyes and contain water, mucins, proteins, oils and electrolytes to keep the eyes moist, protect the eyes and facilitate the smooth movement of the lids over the surface.  Tears are essential and their functions are many.

William H. Frey II, Ph.D. and Muriel Langseth, are authors of Crying: The Mystery of Tears.1 Dr. Frey, a neuroscientist, at the Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, suggests that physical benefits are gained through releasing emotional tears.  He studied tears for 15 years, analyzing two types:  1) tears that come while crying when we are emotionally upset or stressed; and 2) tears arising from eye irritants, including onions.  Dr. Frey and his colleagues also found that all tears are not the same and that stress-induced tears have a 24% higher protein concentration than tears caused by eye irritants.  Dr. Frey proposed that weeping is an excretory process which facilitates the removal of substances that build up during times of emotional stress.

One of the compounds found by Dr. Frey and his colleagues in human tears is Adrenocorticotropic Hormone (ACTH).  This chemical is known to increase in the blood during stress.  This doctor’s studies demonstrate that 85% of women and 73% of men feel better after crying.  This indicates that suppressing tears over long periods of time may reduce our ability to alleviate stress, while increasing our risk of stress-related disorders, which include high blood pressure, heart problems, certain ulcers, and perhaps even memory loss.

More and newer research is showing that our bodies are helped when we pay attention to those moments when we feel tears arising, or when we have a lump in the throat.  On, Nurse Connect, in a posting titled “Nursing Dynamics and Clinical Issues,” a nurse writes: “Without tears most nurses would be emotional wrecks.  Let’s face it, nursing is an emotional profession; on any given day we may witness pain, suffering and death, or extreme joy, relief and gratitude … encouraging a colleague not to cry, to ‘be strong,’ is detrimental to their psyche.”  This nurse concluded that chemicals built up in the body during stressful moments are removed by tears.  We all have challenges, disappointments, and stressful times.  Yielding to a good cry is a definite way of lowering our stress level and potentially helping our bodies to release harmful stress-related chemicals.

Ultimately, allowing our tears, permits both physical and emotional benefits.  For one, tears carry a promise for better times ahead.  We can be certain that clarity about what is at the root of our sadness, confusion or anxiety brings a certain joy of its own.  Progress is gained as we are encouraged with increased understanding of how this restorative assistance for better health truly works.

1. William H. Frey, Muriel Langseth, The Mystery of Tears (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1977).

About the author: Joy Le page Smith, MA is a Board Certified Clinical Chaplain. Visit Healing-with-Joy.com for Joy’s blog along with many helpful articles addressing life’s difficulties. Her books and blogs are read in up to 32 countries. Her second site is at Healingwithjoy.blogspot.com

By Chaplain Joy Le Page Smith, MA

Early in life at youth camp, I sang with fervor, “Shut in with God in a secret place, there in His presence beholding His face. Gaining new power to run in this race—oh, how I long to be shut in with God.”

Then, as an adult, I discovered what it was like to be shut in with God in the “secret place” of both physical and emotional pain. That place did not seem at all what the song inferred. Yet, in the end, it proved to be the very place where empowerment was gained for running the race that my eventual “call” involved. Truth be known, we cannot see, in advance, what we are being prepared to accomplish within our lives.

At age 18, I threw the first blood clot into my heart and lungs. The doctor told me, “For you, life will be like living on a stick of dynamite. You will never know when it will blow.” This began my adult life which played out just as predicted.

Many blood clots traveling . . . many hospital stays . . . until the day a new, life-saving surgery became possible at age 35. A Teflon screen was sown into my vena cava below my heart. Afterwards, two years of living mostly in bed, while on oxygen from damaged lungs found me gaining hope that I would live.

In between those earlier bouts of pulmonary emboli, children came one-by-one, three sons, but I couldn’t be sure of living long enough to raise them. With ongoing emboli episodes, it was clear my existence was tenuous. Being in and out of the hospital I felt my life was never going to get started. Obviously smart, I received nearly 100 on the US Gov.’s Civil Service Test. I longed to use my brain . . . do something worthwhile with my life. A prevalent sense persisted; there was “something” I was supposed to do.

During those early years, I savored and enjoyed my three little boys, Ted, Tim and Todd. Yet, I feared my being sick and divorced would somehow warp their sense that life was good. Looking back, as it happened each of them became “more” not “less” because of those years in which they, too, lived with uncertainty.

But, then at age 26, I met Gary Smith. On Dec. 25, 1966, we married and the boys soon claimed him as “Dad.” This man did amazing things to bring his new family through hardships that continued, right and left.

Other great things happened, like friends. I recall, years later, spending a weekend with Hilda and Nandor in Green Valley. Hilda, at 73, sensed some of my anguish. I, in turn, surmised she was someone who could hear what needed to be said. Finding an hour apart from the men, we talked. This wise woman of years was undisturbed by my tears. The essence of my lament was: “I’m tired of a body that fails so frequently. There is something I am supposed to be doing! But, it feels like I am caught in inertia!”

Hilda listened. Her words, well placed and few, went right to the heart. “What’s your hurry? What are you running from?”

“Fear,” I said. “Fear that my life will slip away, unfulfilled. And, perhaps I’m running from the pain of the past, old grief that seems not to heal.”

Hilda, tall and stalwart, her very presence gave me hope toward waiting for God’s timing. In moments of high inspiration I have been known to pray, “Make me what I ought to be, make me more like Thee … Burn off all dross that encrusts this soul.” Then, comes the fire of more “waiting,” more hospital trips . . . in no time at all, I inwardly scream for release.

It was once said, “There is no music in the rest, but there is the making of music in the rest.”

The words of “great waiters,” historically, can give comfort to us all. In the book of Job, one man’s experience of God is illuminated, “Oh, that I knew where to find Him . . . that I might ask Him why . . . how long . . . would he abuse me? But He knows the way that I take and when He has tried me, when He has tested me, I will come out as pure as gold.” (This is a paraphrased passage of Job 23:9-10.)

The treasured passage in 1 Corinthians 10:13 promises that God will make sure we are not tested beyond our strength. Whatever we are going through, it is for sure God will give us a way out of it. Meanwhile, we are strengthened through enduring.

How could I know my years of struggling was the best preparation for the work I would do after raising my family. As a clinical chaplain, I feel totally “in the right place” helping people in the fox holes of life, handling pain, uncertainty, some waiting for it all to end. I can be “with them” as they wait. I can feel what they are going through. Having been through “the University of Mammoth Problems” I can help them find meaning and purpose.

And, for sure, God is not finished with the process of refining this soul of mine. Life is a course of development—one that at times is quite far from easy.

Someone once said, “When it is easy, it will be over.”

About the author: Joy is a Board certified clinical chaplain. Her websites and books are reaching readers in up to 32 countries. View her children’s YouTube on this site’s home page.