Feel Like Crying…
Among the emotions to play with is Sadness.
Specifically, we can play with the overt expression of sadness – crying.
When I worked at Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare in Boston, MA, my boss and I came up with a crying competition. We would come in to work every morning armed with a new “cry.”
We did the “man” cry. We did the “baby” cry, the “little kid who cries so hard they don’t make any sound” cry, the “silent tear” cry so common in movies.
By the end of the year, I think we had accumulated about 15 unique cries.
We thought it was hilarious, and there it ended. I didn’t think of it again till recently, when posting about playing with smack-talk and/or competitiveness in order to explore affective states and performance.
At my friend Steven Stanfield’s birthday party this past weekend, we resurrected this old game. We must have had over 20 cries by the end of the weekend.
But why, you may ask? What’s the point?
Well, part of the point is to explore your capacity for make-believe.
Part of it is to feel deep within your body the effect that different types of facial expression, breathing, and emoting have on you.
Part of it may be to experience the somatic-psychic connection…that is, how bodily behavior can trigger psychological states or memories. Trying your different cries, do memories pop up unexpectedly? They likely will, since there’s no separation between your body and mind.
So, there it is…the suggestion. Play with crying. You’ll notice when you do that different types of crying (with their accompanying breathing patterns) elicit different feelings in the body.
