You’re sitting in a lotus position with your mind completely focused on your inner thoughts but then, out of nowhere, you feel a tear trickling down your cheeks, and before you know it, you’re crying your heart out.
Ever happened to you before? Well, you are not the only one.
Shedding a tear during meditation may not sound normal or relatively okay to many but it is pretty normal and common. After all, you’re meditating to help calm your mind and de-stress but then you find yourself overwhelmed with emotions and crying while meditating.
While meditation can be a great stress reliever for many, it can also stimulate complex emotions including crying. This isn’t a bad thing, at all. Letting your emotions out can be considered therapeutic.
In this article, we’ll be exploring what crying during meditation means, what are the reasons you might be crying during meditation, and learn what to do when you cry while meditating.
‘I Cried During Meditation, Why?’
Meditation is a great way to control your emotions and clear your mind. Practicing meditation regularly may also help you decrease your anxiety and symptoms of depression. Other benefits of meditation include:
Fostering kindness and self-compassion
Improving creativity
Improving focus
Reducing headaches
Nurturing mindfulness
Improving sleep
Regulating chronic pain
These may be some amazing benefits of meditation but let’s not forget that meditation also offers us a chance to empty our minds and focus on nothing but our inner feelings. And when everything goes quiet in your mind, that’s when your stronger emotions may come to the surface.
And when these strong emotions surface, we may feel overwhelmed causing us to release our frustrations and bottled up emotions through our crying.
Tears while meditating is not a bad thing and can even be healthy for your mind and heart. Crying during meditation means that you’re in touch with your emotions and are willing to embrace them.
Another thing to keep in mind is that crying during meditation can be because of certain triggers. Here are some reasons why meditation is making you emotional:
1. You’re Becoming Self-Aware
Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself with an open mind and when it comes to emotional intelligence, the ability to comprehend your own emotions and their impact can be considered high. Meditation is a way that can help us become more self-aware. However, a drawback of this is that self-awareness may also underline our imperfections that may end up making us emotional during meditation.
2. You’re Releasing Bottled Up Emotions
When we are too worried about something, too angry, or too sad, it is said that meditation can help in getting in touch with and sorting through our emotions. When you meditate keeping this in mind, you might find yourself crying while meditating as a way to release all those pent-up emotions inside so that you’re no longer burdened with these heavy emotions.
3. You’re Experiencing Gratitude
There’s a mediation technique that focuses on expressing gratitude and where you’re asked to list the things you’re grateful for. During this practice, you may feel an increase in happiness and optimism. Naturally, experiencing gratitude can make you feel lucky and cause you to happy cry during meditation.
4. You’re Becoming Self-Conscious
Crying during meditation can also be because you’re slowly becoming self-conscious and achieving self-compassion. This time, you’re discovering and acknowledging your emotions and no longer want to ignore them. Meditation can also help you forgive yourself, which might lead you to shed a tear.
5. You Feel Free
When we grow up, we are told by our elders that crying is a sign of weakness. Because of this perception, we often hold our emotions inside instead of expressing them.
If you find yourself crying during meditation, then it could be because during this time you feel free from the constraints, letting your emotions flow freely.
6. You’re Changing Perspectives
This reason can be good or bad. On the good side, crying during meditation can help you understand that you’re loved and not as alone as you thought yourself to be.
But on the bad side, it can make you think about your current situation and can trigger feelings of sadness, making you shed tears.
What To Do To Stop Crying During Meditation?
A knee-jerk reaction to realizing that you’re crying is to put an immediate stop to it. However, if you feel uncertain about what to do next, there are a few ways that you can try if you find yourself crying while meditating:
1. Know That Crying Is OK
In many cultures and societies, it is said that crying is a form of weakness and should not be expressed publicly. And because of such attitudes, we learn – from early on – to bottle up our emotions. Remember that, being sad and crying is a part of our human nature. If you cry during meditation, keep in mind that crying is OK and can help release the stress stuck in your body.
2. Learn To Accept Your Emotions
Please keep in mind that the goal of meditation is not to clear your mind but to accept the wandering thoughts and feelings. If you find yourself shedding tears during meditation, you can ask yourself the thoughts you were having during meditation, notice the changes in your body, how your body is affected by your crying, etc.
3. Process Your Experience
Crying while meditating can bring difficult emotions to the surface. Take your time to analyze and process your emotions. If you feel exhausted and vulnerable after the experience, remember that it’s ok and take extra care of yourself in the following days. You can also try to process your experience by taking a relaxing walk in nature to heal.
4. Talk To Someone About Your Experience
Crying during meditation can leave you feeling vulnerable to your emotions but once you’re finished with your meditation, take some time to connect with your support system or someone you trust. Sharing your experience can help you unburden and understand your feelings even better.
5. Have A Good Cry
When all fails, the best thing you can do is to go with the flow and cry your heart out. Did you know that crying can have many benefits as well, including releasing toxic hormones, relieving pain, de-stress, and improving mood? Next time, when you find yourself shedding tears while meditating, just let it be and have a good cry.
Crying during meditation is OK and normal, so don’t feel ashamed for shedding tears while meditating. Crying means that you’re in touch with your emotions and are willing to accept them.
Whether you’re happy crying during meditation or sad crying – it doesn’t matter as long as you’re releasing the bottled-up emotions.
Whatever your reason, make sure that you take time to analyze your emotions, their source, and what you can do to change the situation so you’re not triggered.
Crying during meditation may make you feel uncomfortable and can even make you feel bad but remember that it’s OKAY to cry and let it all out.
If you’re still struggling with controlling your emotions, you can connect with a mental health professional or write to us at info@calmsage.com. You can also follow us on our social media to learn tips and tricks to practice during meditation.
I hope this article helped you understand why you’re getting emotional and crying during meditation. If you’ve experienced the same, let us know in the comments below how you managed your emotions.
Breathe in, breathe out…
Take Care!
Suggested Read:
Why Am I Crying For No Reason? Here’s Why!
Why Do I Cry So Easily? Understanding Your Sensitive Side
“Why Can’t I Cry?” Here’s What Might Be Going On If You Can’t Shed Tears
Is There Something Wrong With Me?
The post Reasons Why Meditation Is Making You Emotional (And What Can You Do To Stop Crying During Mediation) appeared first on Calm Sage – Your Guide to Mental and Emotional Well-being.