063. What Happens When You Stop Holding Emotions In (This Changed Everything for Me) | The Johnny Lawrence Podcast063. What Happens When You Stop Holding Emotions In (This Changed Everything for Me) | The Johnny Lawrence Podcast
The Self Development Podcast
Johnny Lawrence talks about his lifelong struggle with crying, how emotional suppression affects the body, and why tears can be a powerful form of self-care. He mixes personal stories with simple science to encourage a different, kinder relationship with emotion.
21:21•6 May 2026
Why Holding Back Tears Is Holding You Back
Episode Overview
- Crying is a biological stress release: emotional tears contain stress hormones such as cortisol and help activate the calming parasympathetic nervous system.
- Long-term suppression of emotions can show up as physical symptoms, overreactions, anxiety and emotional numbness rather than genuine strength.
- Childhood conditioning and messages like "man up" teach many people to see tears as unsafe or weak, but these are learned beliefs that can be unlearned.
- If you block sadness, you also dull your capacity for joy, love and deep connection; numbing one emotion tends to flatten them all.
- Allowing yourself to cry consciously – instead of swallowing it down or distracting yourself – can be a powerful act of honesty and self-respect.
“Avoiding your emotions doesn't make you stronger. Understanding them does.”
What drives someone to seek a life where emotions are actually felt instead of buried? This solo episode of The Johnny Lawrence Podcast zooms in on crying, why so many people avoid it, and what that avoidance can do to your mind and body. Host Johnny Lawrence shares his own complicated history with tears, shaped by a violent childhood where he was beaten until he cried and then punished for crying.
That experience led him to "perfect" not crying at all, a pattern that followed him into adulthood and left him emotionally shut down. Bringing in research as well as raw honesty, Johnny breaks down the three types of tears – basal, reflex and emotional – and focuses on how emotional tears actually carry stress hormones like cortisol. As he puts it, "Tears are just liquid emotion," and crying can literally help your nervous system shift into a calmer state.
He compares suppressed feelings to a pressure cooker: every unspoken anger, sadness or fear adds to the build-up until it either explodes in rage or leaks out as anxiety, rashes, headaches, overreactions and emotional numbness. Johnny links this emotional shutdown with distractions such as phones, work, alcohol and even the gym – anything that helps avoid sitting with what’s really going on.
You’ll hear a vivid story of the moment he finally let himself cry in his garage to the song "Hurt" by Johnny Cash, describing it as an unapologetic, snot-filled release that felt almost like a drug. From there, he reframes crying as an act of self-care and courage rather than weakness, and challenges you to stop swallowing back your tears and instead ask: what are they trying to tell me?
If you’ve ever prided yourself on "being fine" while secretly feeling drained, this conversation might make you rethink what strength really looks like.
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