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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Herb Rothschild Jr.: A delicate project ... What do you make of the street people downtown? ... Ashland stalker gets time served and probation after guilty plea for sex abuse, assault ... Herb Rothschild Jr.: A delicate project ... What do you make of the street people downtown? ... Ashland stalker gets time served and probation after guilty plea for sex abuse, assault ... INNER PEACE Tears can be a way to Inner Peace Comment By Janet Marie Sola DailyTidings.com By Janet Marie Sola Posted Oct. 23, 2015 at 11:55 AM By Janet Marie Sola Posted Oct. 23, 2015 at 11:55 AM » Social News Inner peace can be elusive even at the best of times. But when the bottom falls out of our lives, when we most need that inner calm, it can seem as far away and unattainable as a distant snow-covered mountain top. The unexpected, untimely and tragic death of a dear friend sent all who knew him into a state of shock. For me, it was followed by unbelievable pain and confusion. I wanted to outrun my sadness, outsmart it, do battle with it, defeat it. My mind was in survival mode, searching for its lost serenity. I followed all the advice: meditate, get into nature , take care of yourself, stay busy. Months later, the pain was there. All the advice seemed like platitudes. It felt like an inner white tiger, sometimes taking a bite, always gnawing. I will always feel this way I thought. And then, after a phone conversation with a friend about the death of our mutual friend, I poured myself a glass of wine, had a sip, recalled some small, funny thing he had said, and it came. The tears started to flow. Not polite restrained tears, but great racking head-on-the-table sobs that went on and on. As I cried, I realized I was crying not just for my personal loss, but for all the losses in the world, the victims of poverty and war and injustice, for all the birds and animals trapped in the forest fires (for outside it was still smoky). I had never felt so hopeless, as if the whole world were a network of misery with no end to it, as if I would cry forever. I don’t know how long I cried — 10 minutes, an hour. But finally, I had no more tears left. I was exhausted. Then something amazing happened. I felt peaceful. It was not that I had any special insight, simply that my body, my being, felt calmer. And I felt that way the next day and the next and the next. Finally I understood. All my will to overcome my sadness could not do the simple thing that my body did for itself: to let itself cry. In our society, with its emphasis on always being upbeat, crying has been made to seem like a defeat. If we see someone crying, our instinct is to put an arm around them and say “don’t cry.” Men especially, feel that it is a forbidden expression. And yet, in study after study, a high majority of people say they felt better after crying. In an effort to find out just why, recently scientists collected peoples’ tears. (Here, I imagine researchers with little glass vials, running around trying to catch people’s tears as they fall). It turns out that there are several kinds of tears. There are reflex tears, from smoke say, or onions. And emotional tears. The two are different in composition, as Dr. William Frey, a Minneapolis biochemist, discovered. Emotional tears contain certain kinds of hormones released during times of stress and endorphins that modulate pain. According to Frey, "Crying is a natural way to reduce emotional stress that, left unchecked, has negative physical effects on the body, including increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease and other stress-related disorders.” Science is just now validating what poets and philosophers have known for a long time. "To weep is to make less the depth of grief," says Shakespeare in "Henry VI." A more modern philosopher, Dodinsky (of dodinsky.com fame) perhaps captures it most simply and beautifully: "Let your tears flow and where they go, let your sorrows follow." Tears are a little miracle, something we have evolved (although some believe elephants too, can cry), perhaps to counteract our big brains’ capacity for retaining a lot of emotional pain. Tears are a gift of nature: the wisdom of the body to find its own inner calm. Ashland resident Janet Marie Sola, a former journalist, now writes fiction. Her writing has been published in Painted Bride, Forge, San Francisco Chronicle and more. Her novel, "The Overnight Palace," published in 2014, is a story of art, romance and transformation set in India. She can be reached at her website, www.janetmariesola.com . Send 600- to 700-word articles on all aspects of inner peace to Sally McKirgan [email protected]. By Janet Marie Sola DailyTidings.com By Janet Marie Sola Posted Oct. 23, 2015 at 11:55 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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