Most of us spend a lot of time avoiding sadness with the general idea that if we move fast enough it won’t catch us. It’s understandable––being sad feels lousy after all. Why would we want to feel that way?
Culture reinforces this idea. Sadness gets labeled a negative emotion and is seen as a symptom to be controlled or eliminated. If you tell someone you’re feeling sad the question “what’s wrong?” will likely be the first thing out of their mouth.
So to borrow that question, what’s wrong with this approach to sadness? Like most things, it becomes problematic in excess. It’s healthy to save your sadness for those moments when you have the time to listen to it. It is not healthy to bottle it up and pretend it isn’t there.
We can get ourselves into trouble this way. When we habitually avoid our uncomfortable experiences, we end up reinforcing them––I am feeling sad so I eat a giant pizza. I have avoided the sadness. My avoidance tactic worked and so it gets reinforced while the sadness stays there unaddressed.
Why not avoid sadness? Because sadness is smart. If we listen to it, it can provide keen insight and wisdom into ways that our lives aren’t supporting us. There can be a wisdom in sadness.
Now, let me pause for a moment and differentiate sadness from depression. The sadness I am talking about here is not clinical depression––although there can be wisdom in that too (a blog post for another day). The sadness I am talking about here is the gap between where we are and where we thought we’d be, the sadness of ageing, or of looking at the ways in which we don’t quite fit into the lives we’ve crafted for ourselves. This kind of sadness often has important messages for us. If we habitually avoid it, we can miss these messages completely.
Sometimes there isn’t even anything in particular our sadness wants to tell us. Sometimes we just need to feel it for a few minutes.
A Mindfulness Exercise for Exploring Sadness
Begin by feeling your feet on the ground.
Look around the room and notice something that brings a warm thought or feeling to you. Maybe it is your pet, or a picture, or the way the light comes in through the window.
Then let your attention drift up to where you are feeling the sadness.
If there are physical sensations, feel into those sensations. See if you can remove the labels. What does it actually feel like? Hot? Cold? Heavy? Tight?
If you find yourself thinking, remind yourself to come back to the physical sensations.
Notice if they change as you feel into them. Track how they change.
Don’t try and change anything. Just feel the sensations.
After five minutes or so, open your eyes and feel your feet on the ground.
Take a few moments to feel yourself breath.
Look around the room and locate the thing that brings you a warm thought. Feel into that warmth. After you can feel it, get up and go about your day.
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