There's A Tape Recorder Playing in Your Head

Remember when you were a child. It didn't take much for you to cathart. When I was about five or six years old, my dad, my sister and I were on our way home from grocery shopping. Dad was driving and my sister was in the front passenger seat. I was in the back, leaning over the front seat, eating a handful of cherries.

Dad had told me to be careful with the pits and to hold them in my hand until we got out of the car. I began looking at the small collection of cherry pits in my hand and wondered, "Would they? Wouldn't they?"

I decided that they would. So, I proceeded to take one of the cherry pits and place it into my right nostril. Eureka! I was right! The pit was the same size as my nostril. Satisfied with my accomplishment, I tried to dislodge the pit from my nose. It was then that I came upon another law of nature, that two objects of the same size cannot occupy the same space. When I stuck my index finger in my nose to dislodge the pit, I only proceeded to push it further up my nostril. I knew I was in trouble, and it was time to inform Dad.

Dad was pulling the car up in front of the house when I casually mentioned to him, "Daddy, I have a cherry pit up my nose!"

He did a double take over the front seat and, in a state of shock asked, "You have a ... what? Where?"

Anxiously, I repeated, "I have a cherry pit up my nose, and I can't get it out!"

When I showed him how my finger kept pushing the pit upward, this caused him a certain amount of alarm, and he began catharting. Actually, he hollered. That started my catharting. Actually, I started crying.

My father, in his wisdom, calmed down and carefully pressed his finger over my left nostril. He told me to blow hard out my right nostril. I did just as he said. That cherry pit flew out of my nostril and ricocheted off the front dashboard into the back seat. I thought I had invented a new kind of pea shooter.

Once the emergency was over, my father dared to ask, "Marion, why did you put a cherry pit up your nose?"

"I wanted to see if it would fit," I replied innocently.

I can only imagine that my father was very happy I wasn't eating a peach!

When you were a child and had an accident, you ran all the way home to Mommy. When you got to her, Mommy kissed you, cleaned and bandaged your bleeding knee. Then Mommy began to shush you. She told you to quiet down and stop crying. Depending on your age, Mom stuck in your mouth either a pacifier, a bottle, a cookie or a soda. You heard messages like, "Stop that sniffling! What are you crying about? Wipe those tears out of your eyes!" We have all heard, "You want to cry about something? Get over here! I'll give you something to cry about!"

There was a hidden message which simply said that you're not supposed to cry. Over time, the accumulated effect of those messages began to take its toll. (Actually, you were born with a tape recorder in your mind set on "record.") You have been recording messages about crying and laughing since the womb. Some of you have a tape full of messages that need to be erased.

However, parents are not the only ones responsible for suppressing your cathartic tears. Sometimes, even your friends, television shows, or songs you heard taught you that it was not cool to cry.

Growing up, I don't think I ever saw Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke cry one time, regardless of how bad he got shot up. Miss Kitty and Chester seem to do all the crying. Listening to Dick Clark's American Bandstand, I heard songs like "Big Girls Don't Cry." Crying was only for weak individuals, babies, women and sissies.

Do you know what happened to all your pain? It went inside and stayed there. Come on, be honest with yourself. You can remember times when you were physically or emotionally hurt, and you did everything you could to prevent the tears from flowing. Isn't it ironic that the same world that told you not to cry is the same world that tells you, "What you need is a good cry?"

What is a good cry? It is catharting out all your pain and the hurt. A good cry is an emotional cleansing finished with a loud sigh of relief. Where do you go to have a good cry today? I once went to a church (not my denomination) because in the back of this church they had a cry room. I went into that area, sat down, and began sobbing with all my heart. A lady came over and tapped me on the shoulder.

She asked me, "What are you doing?"

I told her, "I'm crying!"

"You can't stay here," she replied.

I asked, "Why not?" Isn't this a cry room?"

"Yes, but you can't be more than two years of age!" she exclaimed.

Do you see what I mean? After you reach age two, you're not supposed to cry.

The way in which God created us is truly wonderful. Scripture tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 137:14) Being single and having my share of frightening dates, I have found myself praying, "God, I have met the fearfully made. Now, could I please meet the wonderfully made?"

Talking about the fearfully made, I was giving a presentation in Dallas, Texas to a group of single Pentecostals. After the presentation, one of the fearfully made approached me and shared the fact that I reminded him of his late grandmother! I burst into laughter. Somewhat insulted, he reassured me that he meant that as a compliment. I told him, "I know you meant to be nice. I only wish your grandmother could have been alive!"

Say out loud to yourself, "Hearty is healthy!" In order for you to cathart, it must be hearty! Even though crying is emotionally healing, it never ceases to amaze me how we'll stop ourselves from doing it.

A woman came to see me for counseling. As she began telling me her story, she started crying. I handed her the tissues, and she mumbled, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to cry."

I encouraged her to go ahead and let the tears out. We almost wound up in a knock down, drag-out fight over whether or not she should cry. She kept insisting she couldn't cry because she wouldn't be able to stop. I kept insisting that she could and would stop.

Finally, in desperation she hollered, "What makes you so sure I'll be able to stop?"

Resolutely, I told her, "This session is going to end in about fifty minutes, and after that I'm going home!" Fortunately, she saw the humor in that and laughed.

As a therapist, when someone starts crying in my office, I've learned not to offer them tissues. Every time I do, they cease their crying to say, "Thank you." Then they wind up apologizing for their tears. So, I have learned to let them sit there and cry. (You would be amazed to know the number of people who don't even reach for the box of tissues sitting there on the table next to them.)

Those old messages repeat over and over in your mind like tape recordings. They haunt and prevent you from the satisfying feelings of heartily catharting out your emotional pain. Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist's Way, speaks about how we are "victims to our own internalized perfectionist, a nasty internal and eternal critic, the Censor, who resides in our (left) brain and keeps up a constant stream of subversive remarks that are often disguised as truth." She encourages us to remember that "your Censor's negative opinions are not truth." Ms. Cameron reminds us to "stop taking the Censor as the voice of reason and learn to hear it for the blocking device that it is."

I'm thinking of starting classes, entitled, "Cry Your Way to Health!" I believe that people would be lined up at the door waiting to enroll. However, I have devoted myself to the other natural, cathartic release -- laughter.

As an infant, just a few weeks old, there came from within you the first of many giggles. It has been said that a normal, healthy four-year-old child laughs, on the average, five hundred times a day. The average adult laughs approximately fifteen to seventeen times a day. What happened to that laughing child? It heard messages like, "Wipe that smile off your face! What do you think is so funny? What are you grinning at?"

You grew up believing that in order to be a mature, responsible adult, you must be very serious! I like the saying that states: We must have a sense of seriousness to excel in this world, but we must have a sense of humor to survive.

Unfortunately, people are taking life so seriously that it's killing them from the inside out.

© ©1999,2000,2001 YourFamilysHealth.com. All rights reserved