Making Room for Sadness
Most of us are uncomfortable letting ourselves be with our sadness.
It’s not our fault; we live in a world that mercilessly tells us to find the bright side. In a culture of toxic positivity and productivity, sadness isn’t valued. Sadness is equated with discomfort, with weakness, with choosing not to focus on things like joy and gratitude. In some cases, feeling sad can even make us feel morally inferior (“A better person would find a way to see the good in this and come out stronger.”).
Sadness can feel like a scary unknown and like a cavern that might swallow us whole if we step too close to the edge. We often push it away, minimize it, or cover it up with other emotions like irritation or anger.
The problem is that cutting ourselves off from our sadness also cuts us off from other feelings and other parts of ourselves. Ultimately if you want the fullness of emotions like joy, gratitude, and wonder, you also have to allow in the fullness of emotions like sadness, anger, and disappointment. It all runs through the same channels.
Here’s a question that might be worth sitting with: What am I afraid will happen if I let myself feel the sadness of my loss?
Am I afraid that it will overwhelm me? That if I start crying, that I’ll never stop?
Am I afraid that feeling or showing my sadness means that I’m too needy or that I’ll be rejected by others for asking for too much?
Am I afraid that if I still feel sad that there’s something wrong with me?
Am I afraid that feeling sad means I can’t also feel grateful?
This isn’t about judging yourself; this is simply about noticing. See if you can sit with the question and be a compassionate witness to whatever comes up in response. Noticing what’s underneath your resistance to sadness is a first step in allowing yourself to feel it.
Once you notice what feels scary about sitting with sadness, you might also ask: What would I need to have or to know that would make it feel safer for me to lean in? What might it look like to care for myself through my sadness?
Maybe it’s reminding yourself that no one cries forever. Maybe it’s having a friend on call in case you need support, getting yourself out into nature, or creating a private and protected space for yourself where you can finally lean into all that you’ve been pushing away.
People often come to me terrified to let themselves feel sad. They’re usually surprised to discover that not only is leaning into their sadness not as scary as they imagined, but sometimes it can even feel good. There’s often a sense of relief in allowing ourselves to feel the very thing that we’ve been trying so hard to push away.
What would it look like to make room for your sadness? How can you invite it in?
Helping my clients create the space and conditions that they need to lean into their sadness is one way I support them in grief. If you’d like more strategies and tools for being with the uncomfortable feelings of loss, I invite you to visit here to learn more about working with me.
As always, take gentle care of yourself.
