Even though you get all snotty, your eyes get swollen, and your nose turns red, sometimes there’s nothing like a good cry to make you feel better. Some of you wear your heart on your sleeve and you cry at the drop of a hat. Others of you hold it back in so well that no one has ever seen you cry before, not even yourself.

And then there are folks like me who let it build up and then the dam explodes.

I won’t lie. Yesterday, I had a good cry. I’ve had several good days and the positive has outweighed the negative lately. But yesterday a multitude of things happened and the dam broke. And I couldn’t hold it back anymore and I had a good long hard ugly cry.

I can’t make myself cry on purpose just for the fun of it. I can’t force the tears to come or for my eyes to start watering up.However if I’m feeling sad already, sometimes I will use other mediums to make the tears come up.

I knew that I needed to get it all out yesterday, so I decided to listen to some rather sad (to me) music to help induce the pain.

Music is a good way to help the process speed along. The lyrics themselves don’t even need to be sad. Just the melody alone can help bring out all the tears. For me yesterday it was:

“Au Revoir” by One Republic

Want to hear some incredible sad yet beautiful music from an unexpected place?

I have to thank the Goat Simulator trailer for having me find this but it’s really the trailer music from the Dead Island video game.

Movies are also a fantastic way for me to start sobbing. I actually enjoy going to see tear jerkers. I do have issues when it feels forced however. Some of the best ones though are when you aren’t expecting to cry.

(Someone replaced the original music with music from Lost. DAMN YOU)

TV shows do the same thing for me as well. Sometimes those are little more intense because if you’ve been watching the show for a very long time, you get invested into the characters. When something happens to them, even if the actor is just leaving the show, you still feel very emotional. I was watching Community the other day and I started crying when Troy left and how they portrayed it. Because he is my favorite character, it made it even worse.

This scene from Lost gets me every freakin time (in fact, I cried again rewatching it right before I embedded into this post).

It’s really hard for me to cry while reading a book. I’ve only ever once sobbed while reading and that was during the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I mean that whole book is just one big tearjerker.

But I didn’t want to stay depressed the rest of the day. It’s very easy and tempting to just wallow in sadness all day. And I hate when I do that. So I went to the gym to go work out all the rest of the emotions that I had. Then I got (yet) another free birthday item and I felt better.

Sometimes crying is good for you. And sometimes you need to know when to stop.