Blog

Touch Practice is a practice of sitting with others–and ourselves–as we are, holding space for whatever we happen to be experiencing in the moment. When we have the support of someone else helping us to hold that space, it allows us to become conscious of things which we might avoid feeling (or not be strong or comfortable enough to handle) when we’re alone. Having a comrade along can help us do that which we can’t do alone.

People often experience great joy, or a feeling of being comforted and taken care of, during Touch Practice. And some people spend a good bit of time crying. In fact, I’ve spent many, many hours in Touch Practice holding people while they cry. Crying is a common occurrence. It’s something I’m prepared for every time I sit down with someone.

And for some people, crying is most of the work. I’ve spent many sessions holding physical and mental space for someone to cry as long as they need to, and in some cases, they spend the entire hour crying. Today I want to blog about what I’ve learned about the mechanics of supporting people who are crying–why and how we cry, and what seems to help people do that work.

Years ago, when I was just starting out in what later would become Touch Practice, I remember being surprised–and uncomfortable–when people would begin to cry while being held. It makes sense to me now: when we relax and feel supported, we can afford to feel all our feelings, and that means the happy stuff and the sad stuff. It makes sense to me that someone might giggle during Touch Practice, so it also make sense that they might cry.

That was not so clear to me in the beginning. I was more comfortable with “positive” emotional experiences than “negative” ones in the people I was holding, most likely because I held that posture towards myself. I hadn’t yet learned to try to hold all of what I feel, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It’s perhaps a fair statement that many adult men are uncomfortable when face to face with another man when he begins to cry. We tend to offer faux support, like handing the guy a box of Kleenex. That’s a nice gesture, but it doesn’t do much to emotionally support the person crying. Symbolically it says, “oh, here: maybe you want do something about that mess?” (When parents reach for a bottle when their infant starts screaming in public, it’s often not out of concern that the little guy is hungry. The real motivation is often more like “oh, God, how do we stop that screaming? I know: the bottle.”) The Kleenex box can be a bit like that “how do I get this to go away; what will make it stop” reflex.

I’m not saying there isn’t a little bit of love in both gestures, but look again at the Kleenex-box-reflex and you’ll see it’s not great as the primary mechanism for providing emotional support.The first important shift was for me to realize that crying is important work, it’s hard work, and it’s real work. While infants cry primarily to express “I need something from you,” we cry as adults to vent emotion, to grieve, to work our way through loss, and to let go of things we no longer need.

And whether crying helps us feel better afterwards, and even what sorts of chemical impact it has on the body, is positively influenced by the presence of support. And that’s the great value of creating space where people can be held when they cry. Whether we create the space psychologically, like therapists, emotionally, like good friends, or physically, with touch, we can support the spiritual work of others. For some people, that work includes some serious crying.

So much of Touch Practice keeps coming back to the simple practice of matching the breathing pattern of the person I’m holding. It’s one of the ways I try to create empathetic response using my body. In heavy crying, at the top of the breath, the body will contract and squeeze, and you can feel emotion being squeezed out almost like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube. I hold the person fairly tightly, trying to communicate with my body “no matter how hard this gets, I am going to hang on. I’m not going to let go of you; I’ll go wherever this goes.” In general, the more my partner “lets go” emotionally or physically, the more important it is for them to be held quite firmly. In order for them to feel comfortable “losing it” emotionally, the hugger symbolizes “holding it together” physically.

I try to follow each breath, and the crying that accompanies it, from the top of the breath to the bottom.  Crying will typically come in a series of waves, or contractions, that very much reminds me of the labor involved in childbirth. There is an in-breath, contraction and “pushing,” in this case pushing out of emotion rather than an unborn child.  It is a symbolically similar process, because the person is indeed trying to give birth to something unseen, unspoken, unexpressed.

The critical moment happens at the bottom of the breath, and in my experience this is the single most supportive thing we can do for someone who is crying. As partner gets empty and begins take the next new breath, I take it quite audibly with him and I exaggerate it; I breathe a bit louder than I normally would, and I try to amplify, with my physical body, the act of taking in the air.

The hardest thing about the work of crying is getting enough air. Crying is really, really hard work; physically. If you observe someone who is crying hard, you will notice that the breath comes in gasps. There is barely any time to get a breath in between the waves of crying. People become quite starved for air. For me, the most significant support, other that having my arms around someone, is ventilating him, trying to subtly encourage him to breathe, and to see what I can do to get the breath a little deeper, sometimes a little slower, and to ride out these waves of contraction with my partner.

The waves come in sets, just like ocean waves do. After a series of “grief waves,” there will often be a little pause, usually temporary, where the person I’m holding stops for a moment and relaxes a bit. In that moment, he will often search for a Kleenex box, and I try to have several close by when I’m doing Touch Practice. He may comment on his experience, or talk a bit about what he’s feeling. I try to support and engage all of those things, but what I’m really concentrating on is how he’s breathing, and what I’m trying to do non-verbally is help him get as oxygenated as possible so he’s ready for the next round, if there is a next round. The best way to do that for someone else is to do it yourself; partner will copy your breath, unconsciously. It’s a chance to rest up and get ready for more work, if there’s more ahead.

To hold someone and support someone well during serious crying work, I think you have to be willing to get wet. It’s messy work. I often invite my partner to just forget about the Kleenex and we’ll mop up the mess at the end. I’d rather be fully present, physically, and need to take a shower when it’s all over than try to get overly fastidious about the hygiene of the experience.

I’m not afraid to get physically messy, and physically connected, to someone who is doing crying work. But on an emotional level, I keep myself clean and quite separate from the other person. My job is to support their work with their emotions, not to get caught up in it, because then I’m of no use to them. I typically don’t feel the slightest bit sad when I’m sitting with someone who is crying; I have my own work to do. I try to be totally present to them with my own experience, which is separate from theirs. My work is to witness their work, to support it, to ventilate it, and to hold it, physically and spiritually. We can’t support others’ experience of grief by going into the grief with them; that’s like trying to save a drowning person by going underwater with them. That’s not compassion; that’s confusion. At least one person has to keep their head out of the water at all times.

Crying is messy emotionally and physically. It’s something I used to be mildly uncomfortable with, but now it’s just a part of doing the work of Touch Practice, an important and common part of the work. I’ve come to appreciate how valuable it is, and how a good round of productive crying, done well, and supported well, can help people accomplish their work and move themselves forward.

Have thoughts you’d like to share?

Touch Practice is a sacred practice for me, and part of that is keeping confidences sacred. While a name and e-mail address are required to post a comment, feel free to use just your first name, or a pseudonym if you wish. Your e-mail address will never be seen by or shared with anyone. It is used to prevent spam and inappropriate comments from appearing in the blog. I’d really like to hear from you!