Hi Liam
It definitely pays to wonder what our crying is all about at times. Once the revelations start to kick in, we can say 'Oh, that makes complete sense. I fully understand now'. Even a partial understanding is enough at times.
I suppose the ultimate question comes down to 'Exactly what am I crying out?'. Stress, frustration, disappointment, sadness etc or on the flip side is it joy, positive excitement, love, pride etc? For myself, I find it tends to happen with a sense of overwhelm. The emotions become so great that they start to leak out my eyes. That's one way of looking at it.
A couple of other things I try to consider come down to 1)is there a gradual build up of emotion I'm not entirely conscious of that's happening or 2)is the emotion triggered in a matter of seconds bringing on a sense of sudden overwhelm? Another factor can involve whether the emotion relates to one thing in particular or it involves a combination of things. I'd say the most important factor can come down to whether I can make sense of things myself or whether I need others to wonder with me when it comes to what the outpouring (tears) are about.
At the end of the day, the body has an incredible way of naturally venting what needs to be vented. Whether it leads us to cry things out, talk things out, scream things out, sigh things out, pee/poop/vomit/sweat things out etc etc, it typically won't hold onto anything it functions better without. Even when it comes to crying out an overwhelming sense of pride or joy, it manages better without the overwhelm.
If I'm trying to figure things out myself, when it comes to what the outpouring's really all about, I tend to meditate on it. If I imagine there's a part of me that has the right or best answer, I have to first ask the right or best question. The question can be 'What are all these tears really about?'. Sometimes the answer that suddenly comes to mind can be quite surprising, such as with 'You're experiencing so many mixed emotions'. While one emotion may be manageable, a lot of mixed emotions can definitely become overwhelming at times.
