The Utility of Sadness

We do some *ahem* interesting things with sadness.

Every day, people ask us how we are. I think the real question is about how we feel, but we will usually answer “good” or “bad” or “not so good”. All judgments or assessments about how we feel. That is an important thing to note because it diminishes our ability to process/metabolize the feeling, to access it, to grieve it. Just think about asserting those inferences to another person when they experience something – it clearly diminishes the quality of their connection to it. Most of us would argue that “sad” is a “bad” feeling. If we can get past that, we may use another euphemism: “depressed”. Our relationship to this thing is often not great.

When I left my office one morning, I was sad myself. I’d spent several hours with people who were in horrible circumstances and had already been suffering. Mightily and understandably, I might add. When I got to a stop light, I noticed a kid, probably 7ish, walking through the crosswalk with his mom. One of my licensures is in developmental disabilities and other related problems, so I noted his cerebral palsy right away. They were holding hands, and though his body was having a hard time- his soul certainly wasn’t. He appeared really happy.

Behind my wheel though, I was deeply sad. For my clients this AM, and for him (though he appeared fine). Most of the time when we get sad, we find some way to resist it. We push it away with our minds, set our attention elsewhere, numb it with all kinds of different behaviors, even shame ourselves for having such feelings in the first place.