When Tears Fall: Returning to The Wisdom of The Body
What are your tears trying to tell you?
There are moments when the weight of the world feels unbearable. When we see people hurting one another, intentionally or not, and our hearts just can’t hold it all. The instinct, for many of us, is to pull back, to shrink in, to detach, and to close down.
After years of doing this, I’ve come to understand that the impulse itself carries wisdom. Each part of us, even the ones that feel guarded, angry, or numb, holds a story about how it learned to stay safe.
The Protectors Within
Through the lens of Internal Family Systems, or IFS, a therapeutic framework developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz in the 1980s, we begin to see the human psyche as a living ecosystem. It teaches that each of us holds many “parts” within, inner aspects of our personality that carry different emotions, memories, and ways of protecting us.
Inside each of us live many parts: the caretaker, the achiever, the perfectionist, the protector, the pleaser, and the part that shuts down when the world feels unsafe. These parts were shaped by experience, created to help us survive, to manage pain, avoid rejection, or stay connected in moments when it wasn’t safe to be fully ourselves. Over time, they can become overdeveloped, still working to protect us long after the danger has passed.
When I feel myself harden, withdraw, or go quiet in the face of hurt, I try to pause and listen. Usually, there’s a part of me that’s scared and held by fear, a part that once learned that ignoring the pain, pushing through it, or maintaining composure meant I’d be more safe or accepted. Or that if I allowed myself to be seen, it wouldn’t matter anyway. It wouldn’t change outcomes or protect the relationships I cared about most.
Awareness creates space for compassion. It invites us to turn toward ourselves with softness instead of self-criticism.
The Wisdom of the Body
While the mind tries to make sense of this very complex world, the body simply tells the truth. It speaks through sensation: the tightness in the chest, the lump in the throat, the tears that rise without warning. These are messages from deep within, signals from the parts of us that have been carrying too much.
Crying is one of the body’s most natural ways of releasing what has become stuck. It is both biochemical and beautiful. Tears lower cortisol, calm the nervous system, and clear emotional residue. The wisdom of the body is simple; it knows how to move toward healing if we allow it.
Each time we let the tears fall, we are telling our inner parts that we are allowing ourselves the space to be seen, even by ourselves, and giving ourselves permission to let go of the weight of what we have been carrying.
Returning to Ourselves
When we allow ourselves to soften and to feel, even just a little, something shifts. The grip loosens. The breath deepens. What was rigid begins to open.
There are many simple ways to support this return to regulation.
Breathe deeply and intentionally. Slow, rhythmic breathing signals safety to the body.
Hum or sing softly. The vibration of your own voice stimulates the vagus nerve, which helps regulate the parasympathetic nervous system and brings the body back into calm.
Place a hand on your chest. The warmth and weight remind the body of safety and connection.
Rock or sway gently. This rhythmic movement mirrors how we were soothed as infants and helps reestablish grounding.
Create ritual. Bathe, anoint your skin, stretch, or step outside into sunlight. The senses are the doorway back into presence.
As Leonard Cohen reminds us, “There’s a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in.” Our tenderness, our tears, and even our imperfections become openings through which love, wisdom and relief return.
Returning to Love and Trust
When we witness harm or heartbreak in the world, it is easy to lose faith in people, in systems, and in the goodness of life itself. But when I come back to my body and listen to the quieter rhythms within, I remember that love is about resilience.
To return to love is to return to wholeness, to remember that no part of us needs to be hidden and no feeling is too much. The body, in its infinite wisdom, knows how to lead us home if we are willing to listen.
Tears are not weakness.
They cleanse what has been carried, soften what has been guarded, and remind us that even when the world feels heavy, there is still goodness, beauty, and grace moving through us.
So when your heart feels tender, let the tears come.
Let the body speak.
Hold your parts with care and return, again and again, to the love that lives beneath it all.
The body always knows the way back.
Trust it.
And go ahead and let yourself have a good cry.
With love & compassion,
Michelle Fetsch
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