I’m not an overly emotional person. I don’t cry often, and when I feel stressed I usually tackle it head on, or use sweat therapy to burn it off.

But of late the stress has been layering on.  It has gotten rather heavy carrying this weight around, and those days at the gym aren’t combatting it.

So last night, I cried.

My son and I were snuggled on the couch watching a “not exceptionally good” movie about a gal with cancer. Terminal cancer.

There was nothing amazing about this movie, but my 7 year old son and I both succumbed to the tears.  Snot, snuggles and crying through the movie.

At one point he looked at me and said “What are we doing mom” and I said, we are just crying buddy.

And he replied “It kind of feels good”.

Yes, little guy, it does. It does feel good to cry this out. To have some silly movie remove the plug and let the release of emotion come out of both of us.  We cried, and cried. And then we were done.

I tucked him into bed an hour later, his body spent, and he fell asleep within moments.  Whatever stress he was carrying also seemed to has dissipated.  The power of a good sob releasing his emotions.

For myself, I curled into the warm covers and my body relaxed for the first time in weeks.  I felt physically drained, but understood I would wake up with enough of my stress released that I could tackle the problems ahead of me.

And I felt proud that I cried alongside my son. That he saw vulnerability, and submitted to his feelings and emotions.  That he witnessed how beneficial it was to “get it out” and that perhaps this is something that he will carry with him as he becomes older.

Talking about it, crying about it, releasing it… all of that can help us make the problem small enough that we can actually grasp hold of what we can do to help fix it.

Yes, I sobbed last night over a cheesy movie but today I will tackle mountains.