“When you’re busy numbing out your feelings, your feelings are in the other room doing push-ups,” Caroline Fenkel
We all have had sad things happen to us. The effect of sad things on us, is unique to us. We can not decipher the level of sadness another feels about an experience they have had. Some sadness’s are old. Some sadness’s are new. Sometimes it is fleeting. Sometimes it comes and sits a spell. Sometimes it feels like it has been with us forever. Sometimes sadness is projected as another feeling. All you know is there is a ‘blueness’ to you and things look pretty gray. Sometimes you whole body slumps in its sorrow. Sometimes it is that your reactions slow down. Sometimes it is a soreness in your heart. Sometimes you spirit simply feels heavy. Sometimes it is in the eyes and anyone can notice whether you try to smile or not. We can belabor it and look for labels to call it, but, for this purpose, sadness is just sadness.
Ok, the way of the world, right now, is depressing. We are sad because of old growth trees being cut down, the polar ice shrinking, the reality that we are living in the times of global warming, we are sad about having to go through a pandemic and its restrictions, because we are not hopeful about the ways of the world and governments, we are sad because the world is no longer the way it was. We are sad because we cannot go to the grocery store and buy the food we love because prices are tripling. We are sad when we see gas go up another dollar. We have been limiting our time watching news. We have walked away from social media. We have become feeling sad about losing any control at all. This sadness can project as anger, too.
We are sad about personal situations. We cannot hold the funerals for those we love. We cannot visit our families freely. We have lost trust. That is sad. A pet dies. Relationships are under pressure they have never been before and there are divorces, walk-aways, and separations that should have happened long ago. We are sad because divisive beliefs are separating us. We are sad because we are tired. We are jobless. We are too fat, too tired, too hopeless. We are simply seeing everything through a sad frame of glasses.
We are sad because we do not feel whole; we feel something is missing (and it is). We are sad and that makes us restless, bored, unhappy, angry, victimized and that makes us sadder. We are sad because we are disappointed in pretty much everything. We are sad because we are noticing our aging more. We are sad because we do not have joy. We are sad because we feel empty, lost, lonely, lost, defeated. We simply feel sad and feel bad about it.
As long as sadness is a temporary thing, then we are having a natural reaction to the world, to family problems, to personal things. Feeling sad is not a bad thing. Chronic sadness is and needs us to go to a counsellor and talk things out and get hold of it. Sometimes chronic sadness needs the Doctor.
To kick away sadness, find something that you feel passionate about. My passion is creating things. I always have two or three projects on the go at a time. I am retired. I have much too much time to even begin to let sadness take up residence in my body, mind, heart and soul.
I am sure you have heard all the wishy washy techniques of meditating, of pay-as-you-go offers on the internet, of books (oh, thousands of books to buy) that sound good from the title but you get into the reading and it all does not hold water ( For me, it was The Secret and any book that says you can get what you want if you meditate on gaining whatever it is through thought). Yes, there are fluffy writings and blogs. But really, there is what seems to me like a switch deep inside that you flick on or off by yourself. You can read, you can talk to friends, you can talk to counselors, you can medicate with prescriptions, but, bottom line, it is YOU and only you that has the control to flick the switch. “How do we flick the switch,” you ask?
Personal regulation skills! Do not repress your feelings because they get all mixed up together and alter the authenticity of your story you tell yourself about you. Interrupt your negative thoughts. Self-talk (of course, mentally, not right out loud or you will really cause some chaos. When a negative thought comes, Stop, Pause, Examine your thoughts and WHY you feel how you feel, and Take Some Time by doing something that will distract your chattering inner voice that is trying to control you. That is your Ego talking. Every time it starts up, make it sound like Mickey Mouse’s voice. It will eventually give up on the negative chatter when it realizes its gig is up. That inner voice belongs to those in your past that caused sorrow, that criticized you, that tried to tell you that you do not deserve joy. There is a time and space for sadness. It is an authentic feeling, but it should not define you. It should be a passing, waning thing that comes after loss of some kind. Stop judging yourself. When it comes, flick the switch (you can even do this through simple imagery that no one sees or even knows about). Flick the Switch. Find a way to express your authentic feelings. See, this is why I art journal along with all my creative projects. In the eyes of a girl I have painted, in the look of her dress, in the posture. Maybe it is even the background, but there, in the midst of it all is my soul being put down on paper. Practice makes perfect, they say. And every time you stay in control of the switch (even at nighttime when most of you have the most ‘thinking’ time), realize, if it is all negative, that that is Stinking Thinking. Flick the switch by getting up. Don’t lay there and let your Evil Inner Witch cause you to suffer. Get up and do something that helps you flick the switch. You do not need to pull an ‘all-nighter’ just do something (art journal? A puzzle a blog? anything) for a few minutes and go lay down and try again.
Do not let your eyes tell your truths. Feel the feelings of sadness when appropriate but do not let it smother your ability to feel joy, to feel ‘enough’, to feel passion, to feel like you are joyfully living your passion. I wish us all this. I wish myself this. I wish you this.
©Carol Desjarlais 11.8.21
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