Barbara's Online Articles
The Blessing of Tears
By Barbara A. Glanz
“Tears are the holy water from our deep place of loving."
I have been thinking a lot about tears lately. These words struck me deeply when I first read them, and they have stayed with me ever since. I think too many of us in our world today are afraid to care, afraid to allow our hearts to open to that deep place of loving, afraid to commit ourselves to more than a superficial relationship with most people in our lives.
How many people do YOU love from that deep place?
Although we can experience the precious blessing of tears of joy when something touches us deeply, most of the time our tears come from a place of deepest pain. And our society today tells us to avoid pain at all costs. Therefore, we allow ourselves to become emotionally numb, robots going through the motions of life. We use our busyness as an excuse to bury our feelings. Even thousands of years ago, Socrates warned, "Beware the barrenness of a busy life." My belief is that until we truly allow ourselves to FEEL, we can never experience the fullness of life.
These last five years have been a time of great pain and sadness in my life, and at times, all I prayed for was that the hurt and loneliness would just go away. And yet as I look back, I realize the gift those tears represented: I HAD THE COURAGE TO LOVE FROM THE DEEPEST PLACE OF MY BEING.
Kahlil Gibran wrote years ago in The Prophet that the deeper sorrow carves into our being, we have that much more capacity to experience joy. Our tears, then, become an expression of who we are and how much we've risked opening our hearts to others.
How deeply do you allow yourself to love?
Holy water is water that has been blessed. As tears come because of our deepest caring, those tears, too, are blessed. WE ARE ALIVE. WE CAN FEEL. WE CARE.
Don't hold back your tears, but rather give yourself permission to take the risk of freely opening your heart. Yes, you will experience pain and heartache, loneliness and disillusionment and sorrow, but you will also experience a depth of love and caring and joy that will ultimately transcend the pain.
I truly believe that to love and have been loved at that deepest place is the greatest blessing we can either give or receive in this life on Earth.
Tears of joy and
Tears of pain.......
Tears = Holy Water
BARBARA GLANZ BIO
For free articles you can use in your company newsletters and an archive of dozens of immediately applicable "Ideas of the Month," go to www.barbaraglanz.com. Barbara Glanz, CSP, works with organizations that want to improve morale, retention, and service and with people who want to rediscover the joy in their work and in their lives. She is the author of CARE Packages for Your Customers: An Idea a Week for Customer Service (McGraw-Hill 2007), The Simple Truths of Appreciation: How Each of Us Can Choose to Make a Difference (Simple Truths 2007), What Can I Do? Ideas to Help Those Who Have Experienced Loss (Augsburg Fortress 2007), The Simple Truths of Service -- Inspired by Johnny the Bagger by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz. (Simple Truths 2005) , Balancing Acts -- More than 250 Guiltfree, Creative Ideas to Blend your Work and your Life (Dearborn 2003), Handle with CARE -- Motivating and Retaining Employees (McGraw-Hill 2002), CARE Packages for the Workplace -- Dozens of Little Things You Can Do to Regenerate Spirit at Work (McGraw-Hill 1996), The Creative Communicator (McGraw-Hill 1998), CARE Packages for the Home (Andrews McMeel 1998), and Building Customer Loyalty (McGraw-Hill 1994). As an internationally known speaker, trainer, and business consultant who has a Master's degree in Adult Education, Barbara lives and breathes her personal motto: "Spreading Contagious EnthusiasmTM." She has presented on all seven continents and in all 50 states since 1995. For more information, she can be reached directly at 941-312-9169; Fax 941-349-8209; email: bglanz@barbaraglanz.com; website: www.barbaraglanz.com.
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