Learning to sit with sadness
Sadness gets a bad rap. It is one of the six basic human emotions and I’m going to guess that it is probably one of the most stifled of the emotions. (In case you’re wondering, the six basic emotions are: anger, disgust, sad, fear, surprise, and happy.) It’s easy to see why most people are emotionally cluttered.
I know for me; I am uncomfortable with crying in front of people. I’d rather go shut the door somewhere to shed tears. This is probably in part to hearing “Don’t cry!” growing up. I think we’re admonished to “don’t cry” is because the person saying it is uncomfortable with sadness too.
Toxic positivity is another reason. If we’re always “looking on the bright side” there’s no time for tears, right?
Sadness is simply another emotion. It’s the STORY we attach to the emotion that causes discomfort. We say ignorant things like “big boys don’t cry” or hold the belief that crying is a sign of weakness.
Learning to sit with sadness is frickin’ uncomfortable. I know this from recent personal experience. If we get curious about anger, often times we’ll find sadness is just underneath the outrage. It’s easier to work up a froth on whatever issue in order to distract ourselves from the discomfort of sadness.
The cost of not processing sadness is real. Not only may this be reflected in hoarding tendencies, it can impact you physically as well. Emotions are energy in motion – E-motion, if you will. And like psychiatrist Henry Maudsley expressed many years ago, if you don’t express the emotions, your body will do it for you.
