Tears

The body purifies by sweating, the soul by crying.

Tears communicate so much, and so deeply. They are a normal reaction and an effective way to regulate. Sometimes, the only one available.

We all have cried for different reasons — sadness, anger, overwhelm, being hurt, causing hurt.

And yet — how tears are handled can produce two very different outcomes.

One processes itself privately and asks nothing of the harmed person. The other processes itself publicly and asks everything of them.

The difference is not in the tears themselves. It is in where they land, and whose emotional labour they require.

Image by dandelionn from Pixabay

When someone cries in front of the person they have hurt as the only response of accountability, the original harm — what was said, what was done, what was left unaddressed — quietly moves to the background. What moves to the foreground is the distress of the person who caused it.

This is not always intentional. It rarely is.

But the impact is the same regardless of intention: the person who was hurt is now faced with a choice — none of which were theirs to make. Do they comfort? Do they stay with their own pain? Do they simply witness, while managing the discomfort of watching someone else's unravelling?

If they are more regulated, or more dissociated, they will often absorb it. Without making it known. Because that is what more regulated people do in dysregulated rooms: they hold what the room cannot hold itself.

And in doing so, they become, once again, responsible for something that was not theirs to carry.

Shame says: I am bad. Guilt says: I did something bad. Regret says: I did something hurtful, and next time I will choose differently.

Shame and guilt keep the focus on the one who caused the harm — on what it says about them, on what they did. The attention stays inward, on the self.

Regret turns it the other way. It asks what I can do differently, so that I don't cause hurt again. The attention moves from me, and back to the person who was hurt.

Public tears, when arising from shame or guilt rather than regret, keep the focus precisely where shame and guilt would have it — on the one who caused the harm, and on their experience of having caused it. The person who was hurt becomes, at best, a witness. At worst, a caretaker.

Processing shame separately — crying alone or with support, sitting with discomfort without an audience — is not a lesser form of accountability. It may, in fact, be a more honest one. It asks nothing of the hurt person. It keeps the weight where it belongs.

The tears are not the problem. Where or to whom they are directed is.

The invitation is not to suppress tears or to process pain in isolation. It is to be mindful of whose labour those tears require.

If this dynamic feels familiar — whether from one side or the other — I'd be glad to explore it with you. You can reach me here.