Why isn’t anyone teaching us how to be sad? Not *become* sad, but how to *be* with sad when the tide of life naturally brings it to our shores. Why is there so much focus and aim on being happier? Not enough of us know that there is a power within us that becomes unlocked when we gain the skill and grace to sit with pain, with grief, with anxiety, with sadness. We cheat ourselves of the depth of knowledge and intelligence that comes to us through these feelings. They carry an immense wisdom in their folds that we so often miss, because we are trying so hard to get over them, strategize around them, avoid them, numb them.
We’ve convinced ourselves that these feelings are bad or wrong, but my god when the heart lays down within the full force of these feelings, a type of baptism takes place and levels of life that were previously invisible, manifest before us. To feel deeply, and be unafraid of your own emotions, gives a richness to life and the human experience unlike anything else. Opening ourselves up to these feelings gives back to us by allowing us to feel greater and deeper connection, joy, love without having to go looking.
I don’t know if I’ve ever written a truer sentence – I have seen far, far greater things of life from opening the door for sadness, than I ever have trying to chase happy.