Am I going to start crying?

Last night I was sitting alone on my back deck on a beautiful summer night and was a little beat down from a long week.  I listened to some soft music (Natalie Merchant) and just sat there.  I began thinking about my mom who died in front of me in a hospital room almost six years ago.  I began feeling melancholy and somber.

INNER DIALOGUE- “Am I going to start crying?” Tears rarely come for me and I am hyper-critical of this in myself.  I texted my older brother and younger sister who were with me in that hospital room that day and said, “I miss mom”.  Because of my pattern of self-judgment of my emotional bandwidth I started to get excited about this possibility of tears and thought of some things I learned from my personal coach:

COACH- “when you feel something, stop talking.”  My coach helped me notice a pattern that I begin talking when I start to feel my feels.” 

INNER DIALOGUE – Stay silent…CHECK.

COACH –  “Notice what your body does.”-  He noticed on one of our sessions that I unconsciously put my hand near my neck in a moment when I started getting emotional- almost as I was unconsciously committed to stopping whatever started bubbling. 

INNER DIALOGUE- “Don’t put your hand on your neck” CHECK

COACH – “Trust your body” INNER DIALOGUE- It’s on a post-it note on my bathroom mirror as a reminder.  “Trust your body” … CHECK

I was ready, yet nothing was happening- after a bit of time I even started to contort my facial muscles is a way as if I were crying to “help the process along”- Nothing.

INNER DIALOGUE- “You are a fucking robot, Todd.  This situation doesn’t get more perfect to emote (you are alone, you are listening to Natalie Merchant, you are physically and emotionally exhausted from a long week, you are thinking about your beautiful mother and the moment she took her last breath) yet nothing.  It feels like a fucking desert from my neck down.  FUCK!!!!!!

Then I focused on my breath and realized that I was not supposed to cry in this moment… simply because it wasn’t happening, and I do believe it will come if/when I need to do it.  I was filled up with acceptance in a way that is rare for me.  (I am harder on myself than I am on anybody else on this planet.)

Awareness, acceptance.  Inhale, exhale. Awareness, acceptance…