Heroes cry.

It is cowardly to be afraid to show emotion. It is brave to stay open, powerful to care.

Crying enables resilience through stress and loss—and resilience is the truly tough stuff.

Machismo is ginned up aggression. Aggression is what’s small, what’s weak. But nothing’s wrong with it. Breathe into it. As the Buddhists say, make yourself like driftwood. Still, soft, relaxed. Breathe.

It is brave to stay open. We use our strength to care for others, and our planet. For the helpless. That’s compassion.

It’s not cowardly to cry. It’s not cowardly to be afraid, and to admit it.

It is cowardly to be afraid to show emotion.

What’s tough is to stay open. To stay kind. To communicate openly, without strategy, whether things are good and bad, happy or sad. That’s hard!

That’s better than stiff-upper-lip; better than macho cowboy-up!

We don’t have to exult in our struggles. We don’t have to stew in our nostalgia, or wallow in our confusion. We can take care of ourselves, so that we can enjoy life—and take care of others.

We don’t have to twist our real suffering or painful drama to score internet points. We don’t have to shout about or enjoy our emotionalism—to heap drama on top of drama.

We can dare to feel.

And while we don’t revel in emotionalism, we also don’t shame others for being honest, raw, and messy about their hard times. It’s okay to not be okay. As the Buddha said: not too tight, not too loose: we don’t need to accentuate our pain, but we don’t suppress it, either.

It’s like a rainfall: we may have our agenda, and regard the rain as good or bad. But it does not care about our agenda. It just rains.

We think of crying as a symptom of loss, in a culture that fears loss. Loss is bad. Loss is embarrassing. Loss is contagious, even…if we ourselves are not open or compassionate. You’re crying because something awful’s happened! Get away! Good vibes only!

But, really, crying is honesty in a world dedicated to Public Relations. Crying is tenderness. Crying is our heart, coming through and up into our eyes. Crying is vulnerability. Vulnerability sounds nice when you’re watching a nice famous lady talk about it on Instagram or Youtube or TikTok, but it’s not nice. It’s real. It’s raw, and messy, and can feel embarrassing. But it’s not embarrassing. It’s resilience. It’s honesty. And there’s just about no better way to deal with stress, or aggression than letting go. Crying is letting go.

So, it’s high time for a culture shift on crying. Openness is true strength (you know the quote about bamboo bending instead of breaking, yeah?).

So next time you feel like crying, go for it. Don’t make a big deal of it—crying is just as basic to being human as, say, hugging or running or breathing or eating or smooching. It’s good stuff.

When we let the news, or our relationships, or our values inspire our hearts to finally cry, we let caring in, and we relax the stress in our hearts and on our minds. And that relaxation enables us to stay on the field, helping others. That’s strong. It’s the feeling of stress and anger and discord and exertion and loneliness…melting back into empathy—yes, even love itself.

“Crying and smiling at the same time—the ideal human emotion.” ~ Buddhism

We don’t indulge in sadness. We feel it, we taste it.

We don’t indulge in smiling happiness, either. We celebrate it, we kiss it. Together, feeling both, we are fully human.

We can be cheerful and heartbroken, we can be tender and cognizant of suffering without drowning in it…we can be brave…this is what my parents’ Buddhist teacher referred to as human goodness.