Charopoion penthos.

Greek. "Joy-creating sorrow"

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."
Romans 8:26

"For sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water."
Job 3:24

I am exploring this.

" Weeping, not sacrifice and not obedience, is as essential to the life of the soul as water is to the life of the body. in other words, the Christian should yearn for soul-softening and life-giving tears with as much desperation as the Israelites cried out for water. One should want above all to weep, not refrain from weeping.

...

The third form of holy tears are those that signify repentance. These are "bitter" teras, like "blood from the wounds in our soul," as St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote. This type of spiritual weeping has flourished mostly in male monastic settings but has powerfully influenced ideas of repentance across the social layers of the church. As in the prayer of St. Gregory the Theologian considered earlier, tears both precipitate and indicate a true softening of the hardened heart; as Father John Chryssavgis observes, tears are the sine qua non of repentance. This is a radical attachment of importance to tears; rather than being a by-product of remorse or an emotional ornament of sorrow, they literally open the doors of reconciliation to God. In other words, it is not enough to feel or to be broken, deeply ashamed, truly cast out: weeping must occur. Some ancient theologians go so far as to assert that without tears one cannot truly repent; St. Symeon the Theologian writes, "remove tears and with them you remove purification; and without purification no one is saved." This religious logic asserts that without tears that cleanse the soul in penitence, one cannot truly be forgiven by God and thus reconciled to him; hence tears are the axis of salvation itself. "

Excerpt from Holy Tears by Kimberly Patton and John Hawley


The last few assumptions are quite strong, and I wouldn't go so far as to agree completely, but I understand exactly where it's coming from. It's borderline experiential fuzzies, but it comes from the heart, and the heart is the mirror of the soul.
Call me crazy, but my soul needs this sometimes. "Needs" is too weak a word, even "craves". Oftentimes I cannot go on with life without a time of spiritual and emotional release...and it takes this form. I literally will not be able to do anything significant until this happens. Those gut-wrenching, shaking sorrowful sobs to silent, up-pouring joyful tears can both equally come from the Spirit. Never discount weeping as a feminine trait or a weakness. The Lord uses it to draw us to Him and into His presence.

Ah, this is so vulnerable. I'm done now.