Last week I was musing here about the sadness experienced in this house, as in many across the country, at our Elder Nearest-and-Dearest leaving home for university.
Sadness is an important emotion, and it is there for a reason.
We can’t go over it or under it, we have got to go through it (to steal a line from Michael Rosen’s ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’).
However, I know from my own lived experience that my tendency is to try and avoid going through it because emotions like sadness, by definition, are difficult, unpleasant and painful.
The astonishing Disney Pixar film Inside Out captured the importance of experiencing fully both positive and negative emotions.
An excellent article on lessons from the film, published in Greater Good magazine by the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) at the University of California, Berkeley, identifies this:
With great sensitivity, Inside Out shows how tough emotions like sadness, fear, and anger, can be extremely uncomfortable for people to experience—which is why many of us go to great lengths to avoid them…..But in the film, as in real life, all of these emotions serve an important purpose by providing insight into our inner and outer environments in ways that can help us connect with others, avoid danger, or recover from loss.
What are two common responses to emotions like sadness?
We can avoid sadness.
Reframing is a powerful technique used in coaching. And a very important one too – take a situation and look at it differently and your perspective changes. You know how much I like perspective shifts.
Sometimes I know that this is my response – as a friend observed recently, my natural tendencies are ‘onwards and upwards’. This can mean looking immediately and only for all the positives in the situation or keeping yourself so busy that there is no space to explore those pesky feelings that keep surfacing.
From that Four Lessons article again:
But critically, prioritizing positivity does not require avoiding or denying negative feelings or the situations that cause them—the kind of single-minded pursuit of happiness that can be counter-productive.”
Or we can deny and suppress sadness.
This is another well used approach in my tool box that again, can have it’s uses but also it’s hazards. By nature, I am a ‘deal with it and move on’ kind of person.
Stuff, bury, ignore, paper over – whatever approach works best to keeping those feelings buried or under wraps so as to maintain the outward facade.
Whilst sometimes this is necessary in the short term, it is exhausting, often counterproductive and ultimately does not work.
So what does it mean to go through sadness rather than trying to go over it or under it?
We choose instead to observe without judgement how we actually are feeling – to give ourselves permission to sit with those feelings for a while knowing they are neither right nor wrong.
And then having observed how we are feeling, to be mindful about choosing a healthy response.
This links back to much of what I was musing about during lockdown – the importance of taking time to reflect on how we are feeling, as this can then help point to what we need.
Perhaps at that point it is helpful to see what we know to be true and good in the situation.
Or to then choose a healthy pursuit that takes us out of ourselves – a walk, a talk and a good laugh with a friend, a creative absorbing and soothing pursuit. This is where activities like baking and gardening have been found to be so beneficial during lockdown, as many will attest.
Taking time to sit with and go through difficult emotions like sadness can allow us to powerfully connect with others around us, gain insight into ourselves that prompts growth, receive and learn empathy and understanding.
To go through sadness well ultimately helps us move towards acceptance.