Stop Apologizing for Having Emotions... Being Authentic

“Be yourself, everyone else is taken”I read this quote years ago and uttered it to myself, and who else will listen whenever I can.Recently I had a friend stop by. She had just dropped her baby boy off for his first day of college. I exclaimed “HI!” so happy to see her and hear all about it. She took one look at me and dissolved into tears. Breaking down with emotions, wiping away the salt running down her cheeks just as fast as they were developing.Giving me the play-by-play on how the day went, full of emotions. I remember when her beautiful baby was born, fighting for his life as a preemie twin. Unfortunately, his twin sister did not win the fight.Of course, my dear friend is full of emotion. Any mother, father, or parent would be dropping their child off on such a milestone day.The thing that bothered me was as she was leaving, she turned and said “I’m sorry I cried”. I replied, “Please NEVER apologize for having any human emotion ever!”Why do we get uncomfortable when we share our emotions with others? Perphaps reframe from pouring our heart out to strangers on a bus or random medical offices when simply asked “How’s your day going”, but in order to really bond and get close to one another, the ones we hold near and dear to our hearts, can we just lay down our guards and share the heaviness for a moment. Let us share our victories and tragedies as they may be. Authenically, raw and real.I am not naive to the idea that some of our loved ones may not take this too well. My adult son states how he just does not like it when he sees his mom (me) cry… EVER! Or my tough, war veteran dad looks at me like I landed from a UFO if I utter the word “feelings”. But deep down I know that they truly see the real me. It teaches each of us about the world around us. The authentic world, lovely, conflicted, full of love and compassion.I care deeply, love deeply, and communicate thoroughly and often. I understand that we all are different and we all share different experiences even in the same or similar experiences and this intrigues me. THIS….this is what I love to see and hear about. If fascinates me. I want everyone to be their authentic self… with zero apologies