Cry Until You Laugh

It was a Sunday morning this past April, about 2 months after my husband and I separated.  I had planned my tasks for the day and my big consuming drive was to go to the old house, where my husband was still living, to pack the rest of my things for storage (we had a looming deadline of our lease ending and I needed to get everything out and into storage.)  We had to keep making logistics plans about when he would leave the house so I could get in and pack.  “I’ll be there from 2:00 – 3:00” ”Oops no, life changed, I need more time, can I stay longer?”  “Oh, now I’m done, you can come back to the house.”  I work full time and have a teenage daughter, so any window of opportunity was precious and it was a big hassle to change it all around.  There was also the emotional strain of having to work these logistics with him when everything was falling apart between us, it was a very sad and emotional time.

So I woke up that Sunday morning knowing I had a deadline and a small window of opportunity.  I started the day already stressed.  Then as my daughter was drying her hair, she told me for the first time that she had to do a cooking project for Foods class, due the next day.  She had to cook a dish and do a poster, and this was not on my to-do list.  I had been holding it all together until the school project maxed me out and tipped me over the edge.

My mind raced with everything I had to get done. It all started falling in on me as I tried harder and harder to figure it all out, I’d have to call and get more time at the old house, we had to get a recipe somehow, go to the store, find somewhere to cook (we were just renting a room at that time and didn’t have all our cooking supplies), I still had to do grocery shopping for the week and then get to the old house to pack what I could in the remaining time I had left and keep my eye on the clock still tick-tick-ticking away at the deadline of when I had to have everything out. Whew…

I was emotionally exhausted from the separation and physically exhausted from moving recently and working all week.  It was a perfect storm of too many things to handle and I froze, on the verge of tears.

My roommate, Deborah Shemesh (a yoga teacher for 30 years and a Chopra Center certified instructor) overheard the need for a recipe and brought us one of her cookbooks.  She came into our room and took one look at me and asked if I was ok.  In that moment I didn’t have the ability to lie and say “I’m ok, it’s fine, I’ll handle it.”  I was so caught in the stress of the moment, totally at my wits end and all I had room for was to be totally authentic and say, “No, I am not ok”…and I began to cry.

Deborah came over and hugged me, not just any old hug, but a full-on, I’ve-got-you-if-you-fall, firm holding, full body kind of hug.  I felt so secure and so held as I cried and cried and cried, deep sobbing cries of exhaustion, overwhelm, tension, you name it.  She kept saying “This is good, keep it coming” and I kept on going, getting it all out.  When I finally got to the end and was trying to catch my breath with that sort of gasping wavering thing that happens at the end of a big cry, Deborah said “Ok, now let’s breathe.” Deeeeep in breath.  Then, still holding on to me, she touched the base of my spine and said “Now breathe all the way down to here,” so then again deeeeep in breath, down to the based of my spine.  No sooner did the breath get all the way down there, but something strange happened.  I started laughing!  I mean really laughing with joy and amazement.  I was laughing as hard as I had been crying!  I felt so happy and relieved!  I was so spent that the only thing left was my pure essential self and I found joy there.

After I was done laughing and had dropped the stress I said with perfect knowing, ”Ok, the most important thing today is the school assignment, let’s focus on that and forget the packing.”  So we went to the store for supplies and then to another friend who helped us find a recipe online and let my daughter use her kitchen.  I was able to prioritize what was important and get realistic on what I could really do with my day… and I let go of the rest.  I think I was even able to take a nap that day.

The interesting thing was when I let go, other things came in to support me….the other friend who helped us get a recipe and helped my daughter cook in her kitchen…my out-of-state parents called and changed some plans to come help me move my stuff by the deadline.  I realized I wasn’t alone, I didn’t have to do everything all by myself unless I closed myself to those opportunities.

I told Deborah a few days later that the crying and letting go was like turning a corner for me, life had become a little easier and lighter and brighter since then.  She said that was interesting because she had asked about it with Dr. David Simon of the Chopra Center on a conference call for her class and he said what had happened was that I had bumped into my own soul.  I guess all the stress cracked me open and all the crying washed me clean so next thing I knew, there was my real self.

So, people usually say “I laughed until I cried” but if you are feeling overwhelmed, sad, tense or in a hard place, try letting loose and get the cry out to make room for the laughing.  Joy is there at the bottom of the despair waiting for you to find it.