How To Cry Safely as a Man?

Introduction

Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Quran, Tripitaka all of these holy scriptures from hundreds and hundreds of years ago include crying in their segments. 'Cry' basically refers to the act of shedding tears due to extreme emotions. And there is no doubt crying is an important form of expression that balances the emotions and provides peace.

Emotional Safety?

Crying can be different for different people depending on gender, sexuality, power, self-image and role of responsibility. Norms and societal expectations highly influence crying. For animals including humans, crying is a normal phenomenon to release pain. It requires an environment of Emotional safety for a person to cry healthily otherwise the person can be harmed due to the comments/reaction of people around him/her or even by his/her own thoughts.

Emotional safety refers to the feeling of safety for emotional expression a person gets in an environment where individuals feel secure enough to express their emotions without fear of ridicule, shame, or judgment. A safe space (relationships, workplaces, or therapy) that validates emotions, encourages vulnerability, and fosters genuine connection. It involves active listening, non-judgmental support, and an understanding that emotions, including tears, are a normal and necessary part of human experience.
-Dr. Shiromi Chaturvedi

Benefits of Crying

Crying comprises of various benefits both mentally and physically. In a social context, A society with healthy crying will have improved interpersonal relationships, less violence, and less crime. If males are allowed to cry or express their emotions, more females will feel safe to be vulnerable. Each individual will feel listened to, understood and can share without carrying the fear to be judged, not seen and not heard.
Some of it's benefits are:
Short-term benefits: Immediate stress relief, Emotional release, sense of catharsis, self-soothing, Pain relief
Long-term benefits: Improved mental health, Reduced risk of anxiety and depression, Stronger emotional intelligence, Deeper interpersonal relationships, Increased resilience.

Why is crying hard for men?

Men not being able to cry has been caused due to many factors of our society such as pressurizing men to embody wrong traits of traditional masculinity, emphasizing toughness and emotional restraint. Their conditioning from childhood, with boys being told to "man up" or "stop acting like a girl," reinforces shame around their vulnerability.

We still hear people saying “Men don’t cry” . A male child from his innocent childhood need to carry this societal expectation that a male child should not cry..a crying male child is teased saying “ Are you a girl to cry like this?, only girls cry, Strong Boys don’t cry” ..these statements start to work as an input of belief that boys should be emotionally strong, which lead to repression of emotion. Emotions don’t just disappear if not expressed..it changes its form..like energy changing its form. Unshared, unreleased painful emotions can turn to anger if the person can externalize the emotion or turn to sadness or anxiety if the person internalizes the emotion which becomes more powerful that harms the person. Anger is often a form of sadness. If men are not taught to experience emotions, anger starts to become go-to expression emotion.
-Hashana Shrestha

Embracing Emotions as a Man

The message about being comfortable with your emotions is that masculinity isn't about feeling a certain way, crying is not a sign of weakness and being vulnerable is courageous work.
Some of the tips are:

• Start by acknowledging that emotions are normal and healthy.
• Challenge societal messages that equate masculinity with emotional suppression.
• Find supportive people who encourage emotional expression.
• Recognize that emotional vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness.
• Practice small steps, such as talking about emotions before moving toward crying.

Practices For Better Emotional Health

Grounding techniques help people to stay in connection with self. They give a way to stay connected with sensation and body rather than rushing to thoughts. This awareness helps you to be with your emotion, recognize it, accept it and process it.

Gestalt Psychology also has a beautiful process of understanding emotions, exploring the function of emotional pattern, standing still in that emotion, bringing it into awareness and making a choice. Its therapy process stands on ‘I thou’ relation, work on field relation, bringing into dialogue and believing in phenomenology. These processes really work beautifully in understanding the experience of emotions, accepting and expressing.

• Deep Breathing Exercises: Regulates the nervous system, making emotional expression less overwhelming.
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation: Helps release emotional tension.
• Mindful Journaling : Encourages self-reflection and emotional acknowledgment.
• Guided Visualization : This creates a mental space where emotions can be explored safely.
• Body Scan Meditation: This practice involves mentally scanning your body from head to toe, noticing any areas of tension or discomfort. It promotes awareness of physical sensations and helps connect emotional states to bodily experiences.
• Nature Walks: Spending time in nature can be grounding and calming. Observing the sights, sounds, and smells of the environment can help men connect with their feelings in a more relaxed setting.
• Affirmations: Use positive affirmations to challenge negative thoughts and reinforce self-acceptance. Phrases like "It's okay to feel" or "My emotions are valid" can help normalize emotional experiences.

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Identifies and challenges negative beliefs around emotions.
• Mindfulness-Based Therapy: Encourages present-moment awareness to reduce emotional suppression.
• Narrative Therapy: Helps men reframe their stories around masculinity and emotional expression.
• Gestalt therapy: Helps to focus on the present to understand what is actually happening in their lives at this moment, and how it makes them feel in the moment.
• Emotional Freedom technique (EFT): Helps process past emotional wounds affecting current expression.

Role as a Partner/Friend/Family

Family and friends play an important part in supporting men’s emotional expression. But they are just a part of the whole image. Other important parts can be:- culture, rearing up style, family dynamic, language used by boys, expectations from boys, how peers react etc. Friends and Families should have understanding of human emotion and accepting that a man being human has lots of simple, complex emotions and understanding that it is always ok if a man wants to express his emotion by crying.

Partners also play an important role in creating a safe space/supporting environment for a man to express their emotions without holding fear or any assumption or judgement. As a child, we believe that our parents and adult partner play an important role depending on how they treat us regarding our self-image and identity. It won’t be easy for a partner nor for the man in supporting the journey of delearning and learning of experiencing emotions in a new way. Novelty can be most of the time not willing to go there, threatening so falling back and again in the same old pattern of holding emotions.

Active listening, understanding the partner from the point where he stands, responding not reacting, clarifying about own understanding rather than making assumptions, not taking everything personally what the partner says, trying to separate person and problem because person is not the problem.

• Avoid ridiculing or invalidating their emotions.
• Encourage open conversations about feelings.
• Reassure them that vulnerability strengthens relationships, not weakens them.
• Be patient and allow them to express themselves at their own pace.

Conclusion

Your life is a beautiful gift (even if sometimes it doesn't feel like that). Living a free life without any suppression is deserved by everyone. Men in particular suffer from emotional suppression and it's harmful to them and ultimately to the order of our society. If you are a man, look after yourself, taking care of yourself is what I believe should be our priority. Help others in need and break this cycle of suppression , let's share our emotions and let's shed a few tears if needed!!

Reference:

Hashana Shrestha
Clinical Psychologist
hasshana@gmail.com
Hashana Shrestha is a Licensed clinical psychologist (NHPC no. 20). She is Certified Gestalt therapist. And she is also the founder of Samatha Psychosocial Care Pvt. Ltd. Her areas of work are: Counseling/psychotherapy, psychological assessments, training. She is working with men mental health since 2015.

Dr. Shiromi Chaturvedi
Counseling Psychologist
shiromichaturvedi.com thesocialtherapist.in shiromichaturvedi@gmail.com
Dr. Shiromi Chaturvedi is a counselling psychologist and the founder of a trauma-informed and queer-affirmative mental health organization, The Social Therapist. Her practice focuses on working with individuals across diverse backgrounds, including men struggling with emotional regulation, attachment difficulties, and relationship satisfaction. Her work involves helping men navigate societal pressures, process unresolved trauma, and develop healthier emotional expression.