by Elisabeth Mcgrath

Created on: December 02, 2007   Last Updated: January 18, 2010

Crying at work in a professional, commercial, retail or industrial setting should ideally be confined to the bathroom. If the tears are related to work issues or co-workers, it would be appropriate to immediately seek out the staff counselor, your immediate superior or your best work-friend. Obviously debriefing is required to enable you to proceed with your job in the short-term and to act on the matter that grieves you for a solution.

Workplaces Where Crying May be Appropriate

Premises where funerals are arranged and conducted are milestones in the mourning process. The bereaved can become overwhelmed by practical formalities and break down as a new element of their loss becomes apparent. Naturally, you offer sympathy but if your eyes start to moisten do not turn away. Remember, your empathy can only serve to offer a greater depth of comfort.

Working in a healthcare facility like a hospital or nursing home can often drain you emotionally. You can have an emotional attachment to the patients in your care and can share their fears on hearing a negative prognosis. The sadness and helplessness felt by their loved ones can also touch your heart.

Imagine how the patients and their families feel if they see their doctors and nurses share their sorrow? If, through their own tears and grief, they see tears coursing down the cheeks of healthcare professionals? The immediate affect is cathartic. The long-term outcome is that it benefits the grieving and healing process. People remember that they were not alone in their moment of loss. They remember that the nurse or doctor who was caring for their loved one cried with them.

The Street is Your Workplace

Police officers, ambulance officers and fire officers share duties of care following accidents or disasters. The frustration and anxiety of victims, their loved ones and onlookers communicates itself to them. Where rescue and lifesaving efforts fail, sharing communal grief is therapeutic and humane. Successful endeavors find appropriate celebration in tears of joy.

Testimony

On the 10th day of March 1982 in Westmead Hospital, Australia my daughter was born and died. My husband and my mother were present. Two nurses and a doctor dared to join their tears with ours. The hospital Chaplain, summoned at 1.30am and half asleep, was drawn into our grief and actually sobbed. Among the memories of that painful night, the tears that flowed down the faces of these professionals and into my heart, endure.

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