Sadness

I feel sadness is an underrated emotion. We are taught that the moment we feel sadness we must do something about it to convert it to happiness. Why do we always expect to be happy? Why don’t we stay with sadness till it passes naturally from our being? I feel that sadness gets converted to depression, anxiety, fear and stress, when we try to aggressively convert it to happiness.

I am not saying that sadness must not be managed. Of course it should. Happiness is the preferred state of being. But like the pain of any physical wound, sadness too has its natural passing time. Usually, sadness passes in a few moments or hours. It may come back later, but it passes. I feel that it is important to stay with sadness and allow it to pass naturally from our being. Then as its weaning convert it to happier state.

Sadness must be respected because something is making us sad. Sadness, like love, lets us know that we are alive. It can be as moving an emotion as love and can be used for positive purposes.

But there is no need to prolong sadness either. Many of us stay with sadness much longer than we are supposed to. Poets and artists of historic times romanticized sadness. Many of our contemporary musicians base their songs on (romantic) sadness. If feel that these cultural aspects often encourage us to stay with sadness, for longer periods. This also converts sadness to depression, anxiety etc. It as this point that many use substances to reduce the pain. This phenomenon also occurs when we try to run away from the fact that is making us sad rather than embrace and accept it just as it is. The source is then buried and we become the pivot of our own sadness for many years to come.

Why do we fear embracing that which is making us sad? It is one thing to not know what is making us sad. But to know it and run away from it is a concept I don’t understand. I ask the question again – what is the agenda – is it to heal or persist in sadness?

If something is not going my way, won’t it be wise for me to just accept that it is not going my way. Having accepted this, I may try to change the outcome, constructively or just let it be. But at least I won’t grapple with actions that are prompted by ego, pride and other unresolved emotions, which provoke me to fester in the whirlpool of hatred and self-destruction.

This brings me to the question – why are we all so scared of things falling apart? I refer specifically to emotional matters. Through our lives we construct emotionally, based on our families, romantic choices, friends etc. We develop a set of values, principles and relationships that are important to us. We try to preserve as many of these as possible and hope to live our entire lives on their bases. So, these become very important to us.

Of course these systems are important. But what if some of them or all of them fall apart? Isn’t it okay?

This happened to me. Everything I knew fell apart. Most importantly I had to change the way I thought. Some powerful force in the universe destroyed everything I knew. This may seem scary to some. But I wasn’t scared and I didn't try to hold things together either. I knew that all that which was breaking had to go. I knew that eventually, I would be better off without it. As everything was falling apart, I was also aware that I would have the freedom to co-create new things. I was overwhelmed about the amount of things that I knew I had to learn before I could co-create afresh. I wondered if I had the strength to do this and survive the destruction. But I was never scared.

Of course there was sadness which was natural and expected. You feel sad when things leave your life, even those that were not positive. But the sadness passes, the wisdom reigns and strength emerges. Together these give us the ability to fearless create healthy and new apsects in our lives.

But some things have to disintegrate in order for this to happen. Space has to be created for the new.

It’s okay for things to break. It’s okay to let go. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to want to move on.

We have much more strength than we give ourselves credit for.