Crying At Work, Not a Big Deal.

Why is emotional release important at work? What does crying say about your job situation?

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Emotional release is important. But, what kind of workplace do we work in when 8 out of 10 workers are apparently crying at work. Why is our workplace riddled with conflicts that leave our workers with anger, stress, fear, shame, and host of other emotions that make them cry at work? Crying at work is not the end of the world. In fact, if you cry at work, it likely means that you are still in touch with your emotions. You are likely crying in the bathroom. You are likely just processing your emotions while seeking shelter in a private office or a conference room. For your emotional well-being, please express yourself.

Harvey Spector from the TV show Suits, famously said, “Success is like being pregnant, everyone says congratulations but nobody knows how many times you were fucked.”

And when you are fucked, like pregnancy, unleashes all of those tears that are never to meant to come out. Even when we think we have careful control of our emotions, sometimes, we lose it.

We all lose it at one time or another.

In our workplaces, we have high stakes because of our livelihoods. Our livelihoods impact not just us but also the livelihoods of the loved ones that we support. When there’s uncertainty in global business conditions and uncertainty in the changing landscape of technology, competition is fierce. We are deeply invested in our careers. Often, our work is all-consuming.

This is why when you are fucked, you are affected deeply, emotionally. It’s okay to cry. It is necessary to cry. Once you stop crying, pick yourself up, wipe away your tears, straighten your suit, and march back to your desk to “fix it”.

At the end of the day, what happens after the tears drop is the most important.

Everything else is secondary.

What is the trigger?

Did you lose a big account? Is your frustrating colleague stealing your clients? Is your boss unleashing that narcissistic tirade for the 10th time this month humiliating you in front of your colleagues? Is the trigger a personal one or is the trigger a business one?

If it’s a business trigger, stop blaming yourself and don’t take it personally. Everyone has setbacks. You can not control the business environment. Even if your workplace suddenly turns toxic because of an extraneous set of circumstances: mergers, layoffs, new hires, new firings, new accounts, etc, you don’t have control over the outcomes. You can only deal with the end-results. What can you do to position yourself for such a change?

If it’s a personal trigger, ask yourself how you would deal with the conflict outside of the workplace. Chances are imagining this personal conflict in a different setting will allow you to see the situation more clearly. If in life, you would absolutely run away from this person because of the toxic behavior, then you need to weigh the cost and benefit of relating to this person at work. When you are dealing with someone who is irrational, there’s always the possibility of limiting contact.

Is this incident a reflection of your workplace, you, or your colleagues?

Sometimes, our work inundates us. When it’s all-consuming, we react to changes with big emotions. The trick is to figure out if this incident is the norm or a one-off. When this incident is the norm, you either deal with the big emotions regularly or you choose to exit the situation. When this incident is a one-off, the right thing to do is always to just pick yourself up and move on.

How much crying is too much?

If you are crying every week at work, then something is majorly wrong. Crying at work is okay if it’s for extraneous circumstances. If you are crying at work every week, then you probably need to figure out the source of the problem.

Excessive crying for no reason can be a sign of depression. If you are finding that you can’t control your emotions in vanilla circumstances, then you need to see a therapist immediately.

If you are encountering bullying incidents daily at work, you are not sure how you will hold your emotions together each day, then it’s probably time to look for a new job. You don’t have to transition immediately. But you certainly need to have some options lined up to help you feel better.

Does crying help you?

Everyone processes emotions differently. Crying is a good way for everyone to process extreme stress. It is a biological mechanism for your body to regulate stress hormones. Science says that crying is related to attachment behavior. The hormones released in tears help us improve our mood and reduce our pain.

When you don’t cry at work, allow the stress to pile up, you are more prone to PTSD, depression and a host of other mental health issues.

With that said, we often ask ourselves, “Does crying really help you in your immediate situation?” The truth is that crying won’t help you solve your immediate problems. But, crying can help you get back to the emotional baseline that you need to look at the situation objectively.

It is often helpful to institute a mindful practice of crying in the privacy of your home. When you cry regularly to release your stress and emotions, you are less likely to need to do that in the workplace.

What can you do to change the situation?

Once you cried, you are at your emotional baseline. You’ve wiped the tears and ready to start anew. Now, you can assess what you can do to change the situation. The answer almost always starts and ends with you.

Even when you are bullied by coworkers, you are the one who will bear the consequences. You can choose to suffer the effects in silence, or you can speak up and walk away. That is all up to you.

In any workplace conflict, weighing the cost and the benefit is a good way to help you figure out the actions you need to take to improve the situation for yourself.

The cost may be more than you think. It may be your future job prospects, your mental health well-being, your financial well-being, or your reputation. Once you put the benefits and the cost into perspective for yourself, you may be surprised at your final decision.

What do you do when someone sees you cry?

People relate to each other through vulnerability. When you see another coworker crying, what is your reaction? Do you react to that coworker with kindness? Do you think that there’s something wrong with the mental health of your coworker?

When we are kind, we often react to console the coworker who is crying. We help our coworker by closing the door to the conference so that the person can have privacy. We try to see if that coworker needs someone to listen to their problems.

The truth is that when we cry in the workplace, we are ashamed. We are unsure of how the other will look at us when they see us crying. We are afraid of being judged.

Just like the coworker who is displaying compassion by giving you privacy, you are displaying your vulnerability by crying. That can be a good thing. Would you work with a robot who never displays emotions or would you rather work with a human being who at times are “affected” by their job?

I don’t know about you. But, when someone cries in front of me and is showing authentic emotions, I see their vulnerability and I immediately can relate to them better. Through the trials and tribulations at work, we all get to know each other better.

Teamwork is hard. Difficult teamwork is harder.

By resolving conflicts over and over again with authenticity, we come to trust our peers and trust our own selves.