Proxy Podcast with Yowei Shaw: "So Many Tears But What Do They Say?"

Release Date: September 26, 2024

Introduction: Navigating the Emotional Aftermath of Layoffs

In this poignant episode of Proxy, host Yowei Shaw delves deep into the intricate emotions surrounding her personal experience with being laid off from NPR. Serving as a prologue to the upcoming first season, Shaw reflects on her three-part series about the mental health toll of layoffs, emphasizing the profound role that tears played in her journey toward healing.

Yowei Shaw [00:00]: "For the record, I'm not crying anymore about the layoff. I'm in a good place, but when I look back, crying was a big part of my layoff experience."

Shaw shares relatable moments of suppressing tears in various social settings—birthday parties, conferences, and even NPR headquarters—highlighting the universal struggle of concealing vulnerability in public.

Exploring Tears with Heather Crystal

To unravel the complexities of crying, Shaw invites Heather Crystal, a poet and professor at Emory University, to the conversation. Heather, the author of The Crying Book, provides both personal anecdotes and scholarly insights into the phenomenon of tears.

Heather Crystal [03:41]: "I'm equipped. I've got tissues here, and then I've got my glass of water here."

Heather and Shaw discover their shared experiences, including crying during job interviews despite securing the positions, and the common trigger of encountering unexpected kindness from those outside their immediate circles.

Heather Crystal [04:22]: "I know that's the moment where I just absolutely lose my shit."

The Science and Communication of Tears

Heather Crystal elucidates the different types of tears—basal, irritant, and emotional—explaining their unique compositions and purposes.

Heather Crystal [05:58]: "Emotional tears are thicker than those irritant tears. They have a higher protein content, and so that makes them thicker."

Emotional tears serve as a powerful communicative tool, signaling a request for help and eliciting empathy from others. Shaw connects this to evolutionary psychology, suggesting that crying in adults mirrors the helplessness seen in infants, thereby maintaining its role as a call for support.

Challenges in Receiving Support

The conversation shifts to the societal and interpersonal challenges in responding to someone’s tears. An international study on crying reveals that the ideal audience for crying is typically a single other person, allowing for meaningful attention and support. In contrast, crying in groups can lead to confusion and inadequate responses.

Heather Crystal [08:00]: "There's an ideal number, one other person present. That's the mathematics of satisfactory crying experience."

Shaw shares a personal anecdote about giving a PowerPoint presentation while crying, illustrating how group settings can hinder effective support and leave both the crier and the audience feeling uncomfortable and unsure of how to respond.

Heartwarming Acts of Support

Heather recounts two significant instances where compassionate individuals responded appropriately to her tears:

1. Support During Grief: After receiving a distressing phone call about her friend's suicide, Heather felt overwhelmed yet managed to continue her responsibilities. A friend noticed her distress and provided a quiet space for her to process her emotions.

   Heather Crystal [09:42]: "She just passed it up to me and then went and sat back down. And it was so kind."

2. Onstage Support: During a poetry reading, overwhelmed by a fellow poet's harrowing recitation, Heather was visibly distressed on stage. Jericho Brown, a poet and Heather's colleague, discreetly handed her a tissue, allowing her a moment to compose herself without drawing further attention.

   Heather Crystal [11:49]: "Jericho Brown... grabbed a tissue from his bag and he just passed it up to me."

These stories underscore the importance of empathy and unobtrusive support in moments of vulnerability.

Strategies for Managing Tears

As Shaw and Heather discuss practical approaches to controlling or managing tears, several techniques emerge:

1. Distraction Methods:

   • Color Focus: Choosing a specific color and identifying all instances of it in the environment.
   • Grounding Techniques: Pressing feet firmly into the ground or clenching and unclenching fists.

2. Physiological Interventions:

   • Deep Breathing: Engaging in slow, controlled breaths to calm the nervous system.
   • Drinking Water: Interrupting the emotional process by hydrating.

3. Behavioral Adjustments:

   • Facial Muscle Control: Squeezing facial muscles or avoiding blinking to prevent tear formation.
   • Physical Gestures: Fidgeting or holding an object (e.g., Shaw rubbing a jade piece).

4. Cognitive Techniques:

   • Mantras: Repeating a calming phrase to maintain composure.
   • Happy Place Visualization: Imagining a serene and joyful environment to shift focus.

Heather Crystal [14:27]: "Drinking water is actually a really good one. Because you're using some of the same physical elements of your body, it can kind of be an interruption of the process."

Additionally, Heather humorously suggests unconventional methods, such as the Joan Didion-inspired technique of placing a paper bag over one's head to disrupt the emotional surge.

Interactive Live Experiment: Testing Cry Control Techniques

Towards the episode's conclusion, Shaw narrates an adaptation of a live show conducted at their Patreon office in New York City. The segment featured an interactive experiment where volunteers attempted to produce tears using scientifically proven methods.

1. Volunteer Participation:

   • Emily Irvin: An emotional participant already inclined to cry.
   • Stoic Tom: A stoic individual with difficulty crying.

2. Experiment Execution:
   The volunteers watched a Thai life insurance commercial, renowned for its tear-evoking content, aiming to elicit emotional responses.

   Yowei Shaw [19:25]: "In the video, you see a man walking down the street... The days go by. The man keeps helping out the same characters. And then one day, he spots the mom asking for money on the sidewalk. But there's no daughter next to her. He's worried."

3. Outcome:

   • Emily began to show signs of crying, partially responding to the emotional stimulus.
   • Stoic Tom struggled to produce tears, even attempting the paper bag method without success.

   The experiment highlighted individual differences in emotional responsiveness and the effectiveness of various techniques.

Conclusion: Embracing Emotional Signals

In wrapping up the episode, Shaw and Heather emphasize the significance of recognizing and appropriately responding to tears—both our own and others'. They advocate for carrying empathy and understanding in daily interactions, ensuring that emotional signals like tears are met with genuine care rather than awkward uncertainty.

Heather Crystal [13:02]: "Sometimes you don't want to answer the question because you know that the question is going to make you cry even more. So I think it's actually a really good thing to carry around tissues with you."

Yowei Shaw [13:33]: "Sometimes that's all you need, knowing that your problem has been seen and that somebody cares."

Additional Resources and Credits

• Heather Crystal's New Book: In the A Memoir With Appearances by Virginia Woolf (Available for pre-order)
• Follow Heather: Instagram and Twitter @eatherchristal
• Production Credits: Edited by John Delor, produced by Yowei Shaw and Kim Nadervane Petersa, mixed by Kyle Pulley, with theme music by Breakmaster Cylinder.
• Support Proxy: Join their Patreon for ad-free episodes and exclusive content.

Thank you for tuning into Proxy with Yowei Shaw. For more emotional investigative journalism™️, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join the conversation on Instagram @proxypodcast.