Hi, this is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

In this one, I want to talk to you about something that has had a big impact on my life, and I know that for all the men that I've met that have been on this portion of a journey, it's been a big one for them as well. You see, I grew up under the tutelage of a father who did the best he could with what he knew. Unfortunately, one of the beliefs that he bought into was one that he passed on to me and that I struggled with for many years until I managed to get past it.

That is whether or not to cry. You see, my father's from the long line of stoic men that suck it up and build a bridge and don't show any sort of so called 'weakness'. In fact, in my life I've only seen my father shed two tears. One was the day that he told me I was adopted, and the second tear I saw was when my mother died.

It's unfortunate because that belief that he passed on to me probably because he didn't know any better is something that has impacted me quite strongly up until the last dozen years. It's taken me a lot of effort to explore and be comfortable with this concept of crying. A lot of men are taught from a very young age that to cry is to show weakness. So we learn to suck up our pain, to not acknowledge it, to shut down feelings of sadness, grief, disappointment.

It effectively cuts off a good chunk of who we are, and for me I found it to be damaging to my overall health. That's not just my emotional health, but also my mental health, my physical health, because all of these things are intertwined. One of the best things I could do is explore this concept of the tears, where they originate from and why we are so determined to view them as a weakness.

One of the things that I realised was the people that are truly strong are the ones that can put everything out there and have no fear of judgement, no fear of ridicule and not be embarrassed. They don't feel any guilt or any shame around showing all of their emotions, and it's taken me a lot of work and a bunch of men that I know have put in those same efforts.

The people I admire most in this world are the ones that can bring those sorts of things present and foremost in their existence, in the way that they present in the world, in the way they deal with things. The question that I posed for this podcast for this episode is "Should men cry or not?" Having been on both sides of the equation, my answer is an emphatic yes.

To cry is to acknowledge all of your emotions, to acknowledge all of your existence. It is to invite back into yourself parts that have been disowned, ignored, repressed, hidden away. These emotions or aspects of yourself being welcomed back are what allow you to feel whole, complete, and better able to deal with things. If you can't acknowledge a so called 'negative' emotion, how can you deal with it? How can you learn from it? How can you take it for its opportunity of growth and not go with it?

It's to hide away from part of who we are. Being sad is a natural part of life along with all those aspects like grieving, fear, disappointment, all of these things that are lumped under sadness. All of this means being able to acknowledge them and experience them, means you get better at dealing with them and then being able to choose something else. Ignoring, suppressing and hiding from these other aspects are what causes them to lay dormant beneath the surface. Or we think they're dormant.

What they're doing is they're actually slowly infecting all parts of our life so that we feel these emotions creeping up again and again, stronger and stronger each time, until eventually they become too much and we succumb and we collapse and have breakdowns and crises. These are not good for us. These are not things that help ourselves, our family, our partners, our friends.

Being able to bring all of you is what makes life truly rich. Being able to show your family, your friends, all of you is something that is worth having. One of the legacies I hope to leave for my children, my two sons is that it's OK to cry, and it took me a long time to get comfortable with that, with letting them see me cry, even letting my partner see me cry.

I went through a period where I would cry in the movie, and then I would quickly wipe the tears away. I let them out, but I still had the shame around it. Now my wife will watch me watch a movie, and tears were streaming down my face and I don't wipe them away anymore because the tears don't just represent sadness. And this is one of the things I had to realise by exploring it.

You can cry because you're happy, you can cry because you're proud, you can cry because you're engaged, you can cry because you relate. Tears are a wonderful thing. They are a great release. They allow you to connect. So in answer to my little question that I posed should men cry, as I said before, is an emphatic yes, they should cry because they're sad. They should cry because they're happy. They should cry because they're proud. They should cry because they're connected. They should cry because they're empathetic and and I have empathy. Gees, I have struggled with that one there. That's an interesting one. I won't edit that out. That's fun. We should embrace all of it, all of it, because then you become more whole. We become more complete, we're better able to navigate those challenging times, we're better able to accept back into ourselves those parts that we once felt were difficult and they become easier.

So that was today's. It's just a thought I had about my journey about the crying, witnessing other men cry. I still get uncomfortable with it sometimes, and that's okay. It's all part of the journey. It gives me another opportunity to explore myself.

So if you're a man and you're listening to this, cry, cry for the good times, cry for the bad times, cry because you can, cry to show not that you're weak but that you are strong, that you're able to show all of your emotions and not be fearful of judgement or criticism. Show that you are stronger than that. Show it through your tears and I will be proud of you. For you too will have stepped into my world, one where tears are enjoyable now and before I get too sentimental, I do want to leave you with this wish, that you do learn to embrace them.

The tears of joy, the tears of happiness, tears of pride, the tears of success along with the tears of sadness and grief and fear and loss, Embrace all of them, become more of you so that you can be more for others. And that is how it starts. So I leave you as usual with my thought of "Here's to a good life."

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.