I wanted to post something about how my recent experience of crying has changed.

I have become far more self aware recently - aware of how I feel both physically and emotional. How my body is reacting to the outside environment, how it's feeling inside - what my breathing is like etc. I'm also more aware of my feelings and emotions, how one feeling/emotion links to another. This can also be referred to as Mindfulness.

It's not quite meditation - or at least I don't treat it as such or attempt to get into any particular state of mediation but I've noticed that when I cry and try to be 'mindful' the experience is very intense.

It's been most intense when I've been completely alone, with no danger of being interrupted any time soon. I've felt the urge to cry and let myself go there and focus on how my body and mind is experiencing the sensations of crying. First I feel the emotion building from my chest (not my mind I now realise) it's a huge swelling build up of emotion that rises through my body and into my throat - I almost immediately feel my eyes tingle at the corners.

My breathing quickens, although no sound is being made at this point. I tend to sigh as if trying to allow the upwelling of emotion to escape somewhere. I feel my eyes becoming heavy as they fill with tears - at this point I would be aware I was about to cry even without focusing on my body - in the past this is the point where I might start to fight the emotion to prevent the crying from taking over.

But, 'giving myself permission' to just let the emotion take over and see where it leads I have found 'cleansing' - without trying to hold it back I find my breathing beings to wobble, at the same time tears are quickly flooding my eyes - my vision is now distorted as I look through the tears in my eyes. I can feel them getting heavy and pressing against my lower lids and eye lashes. Within seconds I can feel the tears begining to move, falling through my eyelashes and starting to roll down my cheeks. I can feel their warm wet progress down my cheeks - sometimes they will roll slowly down my face and I can feel them all the way down, other times they drip fast and 'bounce' down my face falling into thin air.

If I let me emotions take over more tears quickly come - if it's a particularly strong crying jag I find myself begining to sob slightly. Not loudly, more of a gasping sort of breathing but it has more of a rythm. I can feel fresh tears making there way down my face, some are running down previous tear tracks making the wet line down my face briefly expand as the tear moved down it. Other tears make there own way down my face, falling from my tear duct down the side of my nose, from the corners of my eyes, and straight down the middle of my cheek. My face is starting to feel very wet and tight from all the tears streaming down.

I can feel tears forming under my chin, periodically and quite frequently they will drip off. I can feel tears begining to run down my neck - a tickling sensation.

If I completely let go I experience what was once rare for me - I start sobbing - I'm making an audible sobbing sound which I can't control - I am unable to speak. My shoulders and chest start to shake in time to the sobs. I increasingly lose control of these body movements - the only thing I instinctively do is bow my head forward, curling into a sort of ball. I can feel the sobs through my entire body. Tears pour down my face, I can feel them escaping one after the other after the other - I can feel them dripping from my eyes my chin - running down my neck. Sometimes I can feel them / hear then land on my lap. During the more intense sobs I can feel my mouth change shape - quite often a loud sobbing sound will escape.

I've had occasions where I've cried like this for 20 minutes, by this point my eyes are sore, my nose is running and blocked - I can taste salty tears running from my nose to my mouth. My face feels completely wet and tight, my face feels hot and I feel exhausted but as the crying naturally begins to subside I feel more relaxed.

The sobbing decreases, the tears are falling less frequent - I sigh, but this time with relief as the crying continues to decrease. When I cry like this allowing it to take it's course I almost always stopped crying and never restarted again at least for several hours and usually not again that day, or indeed several days.

I remember once going to the mirror in the bathroom as I began to calm down, still crying and shedding fresh tears - and looked at myself as I continued to cry. I've rarely seen myself properly cry but I was able to watch tears form and fall down my face. I watched how the tears formed and flowed, the direction they took down my face. I became incredibly turned on - turned on by my own crying and tears !!

I'm not sure if allowing yourself to cry like this works for everyone but I always felt better afterwards, I felt cleansed and alive - dispite the physical effects of crying.

You can't cry like this everytime, and you need private space and it most definitely in my opinion it needs to be done alone. But, if you get the chance, let yourself cry, don't hold back and see where it takes you - let yourself feel the emotions and let me know if you feel it is beneifical to you as well.

I've found it an incredible experience!