One or two aspects of this recent flood of tears are interesting and deserve mention, not because they happened to me but in case the same thing has happened or may happen to you.
The first is that, if in times past I suddenly found myself walking city streets and crying for no apparent reason, by now I would be seeing a psychiatrist and on some kind of medication.
I’d think that I was experiencing a serious kind of psychological break and I and everyone around me would be quite concerned. I’d be looking for the source in my relationship with my partner now or my father and mother years ago and I might be going through all the events in our lives and perhaps even having a fight over matters that prove later to be totally unrelated but would definitely stir whatever pots might exist.
I’d be taking time off from work or a vacation. Week after week, I’d be exploring my relationships with my significant others in fifty-minute sessions that would only frustrate me and add to my burden of things to do every week. I’d be feeling dopey from some kind of medication for the next few months. In other words, the initial event, which lasted at most three days, would, following the old model, last several months, complicate my life, and be talked about for years.
But with gradual learning, I no longer feel as incomplete in my life as I once did, no longer look for causes in the present-day actions of those around me, no longer resist a circumstance like this, and no longer believe that pills and psychiatrists are the answer when an upset can be experienced through and completed with relatively little fuss and muss.
The upshot of events like this does not drag on for months and I don’t have to fight a doped-up condition that is worse than the original condition was.
In past years, I might never have attributed an upset to a delayed reaction to a world event either, like the tsunami in Japan. And I would never also consider it to be a reaction that might trace back to a former lifetime in Atlantis. But these days I am ready to entertain unusual and non-conventional explanations, especially if my insides are telling me that that may be what is happening.
Those around me also participate in the same learning over the years and so concern about it from them does not accelerate or escalate. Others support me in simply experiencing the events through for as long as is needed. I’m not called upon to give an explanation that accords with the medical model. I’m given the listening I need, which goes a long way to relieving the stress.
All in all, a way of life has emerged that results in far less reliance on medical resources, far less alarm, and far faster and deeper processing of whatever occurs, with no residue and no addition to my story. In fact, the story subsides over time as opposed to growing.
I find that comforting and an affirmation of a different way of treating circumstances than I and perhaps others would have used some years ago.