Yoooo! Peace be still. I haven’t heard so many references to the word purge since the days of anorexia and bulimia awareness. What exactly are we purging? I guess that depends on who we pose the question to. There are so many planetary aspects happening between Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; that last week there was a visible planet parade in the sky. Venus and Mars have been doing the tango for the last couple of months. Its also eclipse season, so Sun and Moon are competing for maximum exposure…in the other one’s space and time. Then to further complicate things, Mercury is about to go retrograde! What the…?
Our energies are on mach speed. Many of us are acting out in ways that render surprising manifestations of sadness, anger, envy, and other lower vibrational energies. So how do we shift down and rise above the illusion? Perhaps we can start with acknowledgement of our particular reality, gird our loins about the truth, and stand on our square.
Experts have taught us that suppressing emotions can lead to depression and unresolved depression may lead to anxiety. Hurt people surely hurt other people. Over the past couple of years many of us have lost something, someone, or both. Some of us have lost enough money to make a C17 do a belly flop from thirty-thousand feet.
In her 2000 album, Mama’s Gun, soul sista Erykah Badu sings, “…If its all in the air, then its all on your mind”. Meanwhile empaths wanna know, “Can we get it out the air, please?”
The following study could have been performed anywhere with similar results: “46.1% of Dutch participants in a Cambridge survey felt that not being able to cry affected them negatively; however despite these findings, only 2.9% sought any professional help,(Hesdorfer, Vingerhoets, and Trimble, 2017)”. Researchers went further to say over 8% of men and a little over 6% of women loss the ability to even cry at all. Ultimately, the study concludes more research is needed to say it actually leads to psychopathy. Most had PTSD or some type of detachment style of dealing with emotions (energy in motion). This is what we need to Purge.
Alexithymia, the inability to be empathetic or connect with one’s emotions, was for me, a new word. Naturally, I thought the psych community had come up with another label for society, but alexithymia may have been a part of their lexicon all along, and I just didn’t know it. It’s not a condition so much as it has been described. It prompted me to perform a self imposed EQ test.
Nope! That doesn’t apply to a sap like me. Then I hesitated, only to realize that crying doesn’t occur for me until I am out of fight or flight mode. If I’m in crisis mode, it’s no time to cry. Its time to complete the mission! Then it’s ok to cry (chuckle, chuckle). Too many men skip this step.
Although many women are just as guilty, fellas tend to repress emotions as a result of cultural conditioning. We pack it up and call it “baggage”. Now we’re slinging pilot bags, duffle bags, and backpacks all over the place. As a healthier choice, most of us will go outside in the rain, put on a slow jam, let it flow and we’re good to go. Others will leak a little here, and when triggered, a little there. If not addressed, you could find yourself in the following scenario me and my girlfriend would joke about.
You’ve planned a nice evening. A tasty meal filled with love is done. You’ve given it a taste and the final “Bravissimo!” You take your luxury bath/shower, and put on something glamorous. Hang with me… You go in the room and make a disappointing and curious discovery. This dude is crying! (Call the grammar police. I’m about to go there)…with a puzzled look and furrowed brow ask in falsetto, “what’chu cryin fuh now man?”
In all seriousness, it may be a good time to reach out for help or he could just be a deep diver and thats his way of purging. We women love the strong, sensitive type just as much. Just like rain cleanses the earth, tears cleanse the souls of man.
Often times, its not until we become adults that we begin to recognize our childhood wounds, if ever. Just because we’re no longer children doesn’t mean we can simply put aside the pain we may have endured. We don’t realize how the pain affects us and our relationships. At some point circumstances may force us to sit at the house, put on our metaphoric scuba gear, and take a deep dive. Just be sure, when you come up for air, you bring back the biggest, strongest and most beautiful iridescent pearl your heart can muster under tremendous Mariana Trench like pressure.
Sheila T. Zimmerman
Resources
Badu, Erykah (2000). “Time’s A Wastin”. Mama’s Gun. Motown Records
Garlic, Mark. Planets orbiting the sun. Getty Photo Images Science Photo Library.https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/wiCxuWfzL2n3dqEYmytHMb-970-80.jpg
Hesdorffer, D., Vingerhoets, A., & Trimble, M. (2018). Social and psychological consequences of not crying: Possible associations with psychopathology and therapeutic relevance. CNS Spectrums, 23(6), 414-422. doi:10.1017/S1092852917000141
Mariana Trench. (20, March 2018).Ease My Trip.
A Small Corner of the Universe 
