I hide my face when I cry.

Or at least I turn my face away from anyone around.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a best friend, my partner, family - I’ve been turning away and hiding my tears for almost my whole life.

In one way, I’m glad I’m even crying. Crying in general, letting the salt water leak from my face was hard for me for about 28 years. You should have seen the internal crisis I had when watching The Lion King in movie theaters for the first time - I had to leave when Simba’s dad wouldn’t wake up (spoiler)… It’s was all the cliche’s you can think of: I didn’t really see my father cry, I believed it was weak, I didn’t know it’s medicinal benefits, the feelings felt bigger than I could grasp, it wasn’t what men did…

But here I am now, 36 years old and still hiding my face, hiding my tears. Which inherently says, “you shouldn’t see this” or “this is wrong.”

Maybe it’s just habitual - this hiding - a story that tells me I have to be some stone faced perfect person who always feels okay (whatever okay is). But, like any habit, it simply takes awareness and practice to start a new one… to recognize and engage with this wanting to hide, and in that recognition I can instead choose to look into the eyes of whoever I am with, and to cry with my head high.

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Because Liberation is all about recognizing, not running, not hiding. It's about accepting that pain, the emotion, and not letting it define me. I cry, you cry, we all cry, and liberation tells us, "That’s part of this whole thing." Or as the poet Gibran would say, “I cried enough tears till I dug me a permanent smile.”

Liberation isn't about being perfect; it’s about intimacy with the moment, with whatever that moment has to offer, and not shying away from it. Engaging with the messiness of this life, even when it means letting you see me wiping the tears from my beautiful face.

xo

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