There is a lovely Irish proverb that expresses the benefits of catharsis when it comes to sorrow and grief - 'An rud a ghoilleas ar an gcroí caithfidh an t-súil é a shileas' - 'What pains the heart must be washed away with tears.'
The power of feeling pain and exercising it is important in Irish culture. By exercising, I mean physically or demonstrably working it out to rid the energy – or indeed ‘exorcise it’ - let it go. No stiff upper lip here. Feel it, feel it deep and fully, then move on from it, stronger.
The caoineadh na marbh (lament for the dead) once traditionally carried out at Irish wakes not only expresses grief, it harnesses pain and sorrow and transcends it into performance. It shows it, reveals it, takes it out into the open, and, in the process, pulls from the witnesses of it their own pain and sorrow.
The caoine, anglicised to keen, was performed by a group of well-versed mourners, generally local women, paid to cry and wail, paid to perform this ritual of letting the grief out. Of sparking the tear to the eye in others.
The bottling up of grief and emotion is unhealthy. So the keen kickstarted everyone, even the most stoic attendee, made it acceptable to let it out. This proverbial gem not only speaks of the acceptable response to pain – through crying or shedding a tear – it also utilises the physical act as a metaphysical tool, to purge the body and psyche of pain. Crying is not an embarrassment, not a failing, or a weakness, it is an essential action, sometimes. Here, the pain is washed away by the process of feeling.
Whatever about a Tao of grief – ‘feeling it’ is the ‘now’ of pain. The moment where your living life meets the full reality of experiencing life; pain or grief is often called bittersweet for this very reason. ‘Feeling it’ is acknowledgement of the significance of it. Dealing with it right now – not bottling it up – is tackling something in a very mindful way. Meeting the experience full on.
Some people can have issues with crying, conditioned to think of it as a weakness and often we either defer to numbness to avoid being over-emotional, or we feel guilty, angered, or embarrassed about resorting to tears. This proverb reminds us that it is ok to cry, that there is a purpose to it, that it drains from the eye the pain of the heart.
The physical tears are the process of healing – they purge the body of sorrow. It is a process worth engaging with. Crying is a cathartic release.
The other great thing about this proverb is that it reminds us that sorrow is not a life sentence. We can use it up, drain it away, take it off ourselves. You will not feel this way forever. But note ‘must’ – there is a necessity to act, to do, to process on through.
What pains the heart must be dealt with in a very real way. That’s not to weep in self-pity, that’s not to indulge the misery, it is firmly a conscious acknowledgment of current emotional distress and a first step to getting beyond. Draining the eye is letting go, draining the eye is laying your burdens down, draining the eye is freeing up the soul to soon soar.
In the indigenous Irish language, we find many mindsets not so clear in the English word versions. One such is how to say you are sad – in Gaeilge it is ‘tá brón orm’, which far from saying I am sad and thus wedding you and your pain, it says ‘the sorrow is upon me’. The 'I am sad' mindset is one that the sorrow is right through you, all of you. In 'the sorry is upon me,' then it can be taken off you, it is currently there but not perpetually identified with. You can remove it, you can get beyond it. You can let it go.
Letting go is not always just dropping it, sometimes there needs to be a ritual or process, a few teardrops may be the perfect way to drop the anguish, drop by drop until it is gone. A good cry can do us the world of good. Own it. And when it’s over, look beyond it – the eye has drained the grief, no harm in rewarding it with a trip to a gallery, a sunset, a friendly face.
The sister of this proverb is a lovely reminder of a next step – An rud a líonas an tsúil líoann sé an croí / What fills the eye fills the heart.
Take in the beauty of the world. Engage again with joy and wonder, this too can be bittersweet, yes, but better than all bitter.
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