The Healing Power of Tears: Why Crying Matters in Financial Therapy

In our financial therapy work, there’s a moment we’ve come to recognize as sacred.

It often happens early on, maybe in the first or second session, when we begin unpacking someone’s money story. We’re not talking spreadsheets or budgets yet. We’re talking about memories. The kind that live in the body. A childhood allowance that came with strings attached. A parent’s explosive reaction to a bounced check. The silence between partners after a credit card bill arrives.

And then, the tears come.

Sometimes they come quietly. A few slip down a cheek with an apology. Other times, they arrive in waves, racking sobs, even when the person insists, “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

But we do.

Why We Cry: The Science of Tears

Let’s start with the biology.

Crying is a natural physiological response to emotional overload. Neuroscientist Dr. William Frey discovered that emotional tears are chemically different from reflex tears (the kind that come from chopping onions). Emotional tears contain stress hormones like ACTH and leucine enkephalin—a natural painkiller—which the body excretes during crying. In other words, your tears aren’t just symbolic; they’re functional. They literally help your body process emotional stress and bring your nervous system back toward regulation.

This matters deeply in the context of trauma and integration.

Financial trauma isn’t just about what happened; it’s about what didn’t get resolved. It’s about the emotions that got trapped, frozen, or shut down when we didn’t feel safe enough to process them. When we cry in a safe and supportive environment, such as a therapeutic space, we’re allowing those frozen emotions to thaw. We’re completing an emotional cycle that may have been interrupted years or even decades ago.

Crying as Integration, Not Breakdown

In trauma-informed therapy circles, we talk a lot about the idea of integration, the process of bringing fragmented parts of our experience back into wholeness. And often, crying is a powerful sign that this is happening.

From a neurobiological standpoint, crying in therapy may indicate that the brain is moving from a fight/flight/freeze response (driven by the amygdala) to a more reflective, integrative state (involving the prefrontal cortex and vagus nerve). This shift enables us not only to feel what was once intolerable but also to name it, make sense of it, and begin to heal.

So when a client starts to cry during a financial therapy session, we don’t see it as a setback.

We see it as progress.

It often means the nervous system is recognizing something profound: I am safe now. And that’s exactly what the therapeutic process is designed to support.

Grief, Sadness, and Financial Loss

Now let’s talk about the specific emotions that often show up in financial therapy, especially grief.

Grief may arise from job loss, financial betrayal, missed opportunities, or years of self-blame for not knowing what you didn’t know. It can also surface when we recognize, perhaps for the first time, how money shaped our family dynamics, sense of worth, or ability to receive love.

This kind of grief is often delayed, unrecognized, or minimized in our culture. We rarely hear anyone say, “Of course you’re crying, it makes sense that you would.” Instead, we’re met with messages like:

• Don’t cry over spilled milk.

• Toughen up—money’s just money.

• Crying won’t fix anything.

But these phrases miss the mark. Crying doesn’t fix the external problem, but it can shift the internal burden. It can mark the moment when we stop carrying shame and start carrying compassion.

Financial Therapy Is Emotional Work

People are often surprised by the emotions that come up when we start talking about money in therapy. But money isn’t just about math. It’s about meaning. It’s about memory. And sometimes, it’s about mourning—what we didn’t get, what we wish we had, what we long to change.

The truth is: financial well-being isn’t separate from emotional well-being. The more we can feel, the more we can heal. And when we allow our tears to flow in a safe and supportive space, we unlock new possibilities for self-trust, relational repair, and forward movement.

If You Find Yourself Crying About Money…

Here’s what we want you to know:

You’re not broken.
You’re not overreacting.
You’re not weak.

You’re human.

And your tears might just be one of the bravest things you offer yourself on the journey toward financial clarity and emotional freedom.

Want to explore your financial story in a space that welcomes your whole emotional reality?
At Healthy Love and Money, we’re here to help couples and individuals navigate the emotional side of money with care, curiosity, and compassion.

Let’s start the conversation.

Wishing You Healthy Love and Money,
Ed Coambs - Founder