What happens when a child learns that tears invite pain—and how a man unlearns it

What if your first lesson about emotion was that tears invite pain? That’s the blueprint Russ carried from infancy through a childhood on Ohio streets where “Russ doesn’t cry” became a badge and a prison. We follow that thread from early punishment for need, to a teenage funeral where sixteen years of feeling finally broke loose, to the quiet skills that make emotion safe again without pretending to be stone.

We get honest about the difference between managing feelings and suppressing them. The culture often praises stoicism, but the body keeps the score: fatigue, freeze, inflammation, and panic when the pressure valve never opens. I share how that old rule shaped my marriages and parenting, why “be invisible” felt like survival, and how a coach’s simple question—“Why are you trying to stop?”—reframed crying as courage instead of failure. Along the way, we dig into nervous system basics: how long exhales, grounding, and vocal vibration cue the ventral vagal system, bringing the prefrontal cortex back online so perspective, empathy, and choice can return.

You’ll leave with a clear, repeatable practice: feet on the floor, chair supporting your weight, a 5-2-10 breath pattern, gentle chest tapping, and a low hum that resonates through bone and calms the body. It’s not about being dramatic; it’s about letting the energy complete its cycle so it doesn’t calcify into symptoms. If you’ve ever believed strength means silence, this conversation offers a different path—one where feeling is a skill, presence is power, and tears can be the start of healing rather than the sign of weakness. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review telling us what shifted for you.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Hey guys, I'm Russ.
Thanks for joining us.
Um, today I want to tell you astory from my childhood.
Um, and relate it back to howthat can help you.
When I was a little kid, wasprobably about oh, seven years

(00:35):
old or so, maybe younger, maybefive.
My little brother was verysmall, Tom.
And we lived in Ohio with my dadoff of Jody Lynn was the street
that we lived on.
Now, actually, we lived onMerritt View, which was off of
Jody Lynn.
Suburb of uh Cincinnati.
Colrain Township is the areathat we lived in.

(00:58):
And um little neighborhood, wehad quite a few kids my age in
the neighborhood.
Um, for because of my acting outas a small child, because of the
abuse that I was going through.
I had an interestingrelationship with kids in the
neighborhood.
I had kids that I considered myfriends, um, but I was always

(01:19):
kind of the brunt of jokes.
I was always kind of picked onby some of the older kids or
some of the bigger kids becauseof my acting out as a kid who
was going through the traumathat I was going through at
home.
But anyway, one day we weresitting out in front of my
friend Greg's house, and I wassitting on the curb, Indian

(01:43):
style, and we were talkingabout, I don't even know how the
topic came up, but we ended uptalking about crying and how I
net Russ never cries.
Russ doesn't cry.
Even when he gets spanked, hedoesn't cry.
Russ doesn't cry.
Now we're gonna back up a littlebit.
When I was three days old, I'vetold this story many times on my
channel and on Facebook andother social media accounts

(02:07):
where I'm discussing trauma.
But when I was three years oldor three days old, I came home
from the hospital and I wassitting on the couch next to my
father and I started crying.
Um, I'm sure I was probablyhungry or my diaper needed to be
changed or something.
I needed care, right?
I needed care, I needed love, Ineeded assurance of safety.

(02:30):
But instead of that, he pickedme up and swatted me on the
butt.
I instantly stopped crying.
Now, what does that teach alittle baby, right?
When a baby cries because theyneed something, and instead of
getting what they need, they getmet with violence or pain.

(02:50):
What does that teach that baby?
If you guessed that it teachesthat baby that it's not safe to
show emotion or safe to ask forhelp, or that safety just
doesn't exist, then you'reright.
That's exactly what it teaches.

(03:11):
And that was reinforced all theway up until this incident.
Every time I would get intotrouble, my father would spank
me and threaten to spank meharder if I cried, things of
that nature.
Really suppressed emotion withinme, like deep, deep down.
So at this age of five or sixyears old, we're talking about

(03:33):
this, and it comes up, um, andthen it turns into a contest.
And I don't remember all of thedetails, obviously, a lot of
it's been blocked out.
Um, but essentially whathappened is they started backing
up about 20 yards from the curbwhere I was sitting and running
and kicking me in the facetrying to get me to cry.

(03:55):
Um, which I don't think I did.
I don't remember if I did ornot.
I think I just sat there andallowed them to do it.
Looking back, I don't understandthe reason for sitting there and
allowing them to do it.
I'm still trying to figure thatpart out.
But my little brother ran andgot my dad who came and broke it
up.

(04:15):
Fast forward about 10 years.
I'm about 15 or 16 years old.
And this has been an ingrainedpart of me, right?
This part of me that doesn'tallow the show of any emotion.
That's anything, any sadness,any fear, any anger, any

(04:38):
emotion, or any just beingvisible in my house was met with
violence.
So I avoided being visible andshowing any emotion.
And I don't remember crying upuntil I was 16 years old and my
grandfather had passed away.

(04:58):
When my grandfather died, we hadthe funeral for him, and I
didn't get to say goodbye tohim.
He was at the hospital and hepassed away in the hospital.
Unfortunately, I was working atthe time when he died.
So I missed the opportunity tosay goodbye.
But I uh kind of just drove on,you know, just moved on with
everything until the funeral.

(05:19):
And in the funeral, I remembergoing to the wake.
I remember walking up and seeinghis body in the casket and how
strange it looked.
I remember touching his chestand feeling his chest and how it
felt hard, not as soft as Iremembered him being.
I remember sitting in the wake,and I remember sitting there

(05:42):
during the talks or whateverpeople were doing at the time.
And then I remember them closingthe casket, and I remember them
doing all of that.
And it wasn't until we walkedup, and I picked up on my part
of the casket.
I was one of the pall bears.

(06:03):
And I was walking, we werewalking out the door, and as we
were walking, I could feel theweight of the the wooden casket
and my grandfather inside.
And the gravity, it's aninteresting word to use.
The gravity of both him and theweight of that box, and the

(06:25):
gravity of what had happened andthe loss fell on my heart all at
once.
And I remember just breakingdown, crying, walking this
casket to to the uh to thehearse.
And they opened the hearse andwe slid it onto the rollers and
it slides very slowly into thishearse.
I don't know if you've everloaded a casket into a hearse,

(06:47):
but you got to make sure thatit's straight and things of that
nature, so nothing gets damaged,and you gotta take your time.
So we we walk it in, you know,everybody walks in, two people
pull away, walk in, two peoplepull away, walk in, and the last
two people leave.
Um and they shut that door.
And I remember when they shutthe door, I could see my face in
the reflection in the privacyglass of the uh back window of

(07:12):
that hearse.
When they shut the door and Icould just see my face, and it
was just swollen, and my eyeswere swollen, and just tears
gushing out of my face and snotand everything else.
And God, it was it was 16 yearsof emotion all being released at
once, right?
I I'd never allowed myself tofeel this.
I had never allowed myself toexpress emotion outwardly.

(07:34):
So the fact that I was cryingwas a huge release for my body.
I didn't realize this at thetime, um, but it did release.
But I remember sitting there,drying my eyes off, composing
myself because I didn't want toget into the limo with my
father, and I didn't want him tosee me showing that emotion.

(07:55):
And this continued on for themajority of my life, you know,
through my first marriage,through my second marriage, with
my raising of my children.
I've been very stoic.
I see videos on YouTube all thetime about stoicism.
It's the stoicism thing isbeginning to make a comeback,

(08:19):
and I I sure hope that it thatit doesn't.
Stoicism is toxic.
Managing emotion doesn't meansuppressing them.
You can manage yourself and youcan manage your emotions, and
you can have control overyourself, over your nervous
system, over your mind, and overyour emotion without suppressing

(08:43):
your emotion.
I remember talking to a coach afew years ago when I had my
first panic attack.
Um, probably about 20, maybe2020, 2021, something of that
nature.
But I had I had a panic attack.

(09:04):
Um, and I remember talking toher on the phone saying, I just
can't stop crying.
I just can't stop crying.
And she said to me, Why are youtrying to stop?
If you need to cry, cry.
And and how what about that,right?
I mean, how many times have youbeen talking to someone and

(09:24):
you're about something emotionand you get choked up and you
can't get the words out?
So you're trying to suppress thecrying so that you can get the
words out.
Why?
Allow all the emotion out firstthat you have to allow it out.
If you don't allow that emotionout, it's gonna stay stuck in
your body, and it presentsitself as fatigue, and it

(09:44):
presents itself as depression orfreeze, it presents itself as
autoimmune disease, it presentsitself as inflammation, it
presents itself in all thesehorrible ways.
Allow it out.
We don't need to hide ouremotions anymore.
It takes a hell of a lot morecourage to be vulnerable and

(10:05):
allow those emotions to flow alot more than it does to
suppress it and ignore it.
That's the way of a coward.
If you want to be a man and youwant to be strong and you want
to be the best possible dad,husband, or to yourself, you

(10:26):
gotta feel your emotions.
You can't suppress them anymore.
Don't be that little boy sittingon the curb getting kicked in
the face repeatedly because Idon't cry.
Why don't you cry?
Allow yourself to cry, man.
It's okay.
You've got a lot of shit piledup inside there that needs to

(10:50):
get out.
And sometimes a good cry is agood way to clean that
sympathetic energy out.
But I can understand it's tough.
It's tough to face that feelingin your chest when it starts to
get built up, or that nausea oremptiness in your stomach, or

(11:15):
when your shoulders startpulling up tight to your ears
and you just feel tensed.
I know it feels like shit,sucks.
But it's okay to feel it.
Your body is doing what it'sdesigned to do and it's
releasing that sympatheticenergy, and you gotta allow it
to happen, or it's gonna turninto something much worse.

(11:39):
But I'm gonna give you guys alittle tool that you can use.
If and when you start feelingthat stuff welling up inside.
So I want you to just, ifpossible, if you're driving,
obviously you can't do this, butif at all possible, I'd like you
to lower your seat or sit in achair that keeps your legs
perpendicular with the floor.

(12:01):
Just sit back in your chair.
You can place your hands gentlyon your laps and palms open.
Just set your feet flat on thefloor.
If you're not wearing shoes,that's better.
If you are wearing shoes, justfeel the connection and the
weight of your foot in the shoeand that pressure pushing

(12:24):
against the ground, and theground pushing back against your
feet.
Feel that connection between youand the space that you're
standing or sitting in.
Grounding is important.
As you do, just feel any of thatstress or energy that you're
holding on to.

(12:45):
Just feel it flow out of you andinto the ground.
Just feel it leave your body.
We're gonna take a five-secondbreath in, and then we're gonna

(13:06):
hold it for two seconds, andthen we're gonna take a
10-second breath out.
We're gonna hold and extend thatexhale for as long as we
possibly can.
Inhale, one, two, three, four,five, one, two, one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight,nine, ten.

(13:32):
One, two, three, four, five.
Hold it, two, exhale, two,three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten.
Just continue that breathing,and then as you do that, take
that breath in and just starttapping on your chest with your

(13:54):
fist.
You can also use your fingers,anything to create some
vibration in your chest as youexhale.
And then give it a lowvibrational hum as you exhale.

(14:36):
And then just be still.
Allow yourself to feel thevibration in your heart, your
chest.
And then feel that vibrationslowly move down into your
stomach.
And feel it activate and calm,tone those nerves, those

(14:58):
polyvagal nerves in the ventralvagal system.
That's what activates ourprefrontal cortex.
That's what activates ourpresentness.
That's what activates ourconnected feeling with other

(15:20):
people.
This is where love lives.
This is where present lives.
This is where intelligentthought lives.
I hope today's episode was goodfor you guys.
I hope that you learnedsomething.
If you have questions orcomments, please put them below.

(15:43):
I try to check them as often aspossible.
Sometimes I fall behind, butplease, please ask any questions
you have.
Feel free to also check us outon Facebook.
If you just look up RussellTelup, R-U-S-S-E-L-L,
T-E-L-L-U-P on Facebook,Instagram, uh, I think on TikTok
now as well.
But there's tons of content onthere about trauma, about what

(16:06):
trauma is, about where it comesfrom, um, and some of the ways
that we can start to grab on tothe idea of getting rid of it,
the idea of healing, the idea oftaking that those parts of us
that have been destructive, orthose parts of us that, even
though their intentions havebeen good, they've been

(16:30):
destructive.
And giving those parts somethingelse to do.
You know.
All right, guys, thanks so muchfor joining us, and we'll see
you next week.
Have a good day.