🌿 Today, we’re making space for sadness.
Maybe you can’t tell, but I’m really, really sad these days.
Filled with sorrow and horror. Terrified of so many things. Unable to process one wave of grief before another comes crashing down over me, over us.
I said in the beginning:
We are allowed to be sad, to be hurt. We acknowledge pain, trauma, depression, anxiety, loss, and all the other deeply difficult things that are part of our lives. — The Quest for Joy
But I forgot that just because something is a tenet for me — never pretending everything is fine; difficult emotions like sadness, sorrow and grief are to be acknowledged and not buried — it doesn’t mean everyone else knows that’s what I believe.
I focus on joy on my writing because that’s what I need, what I believe all of us need.
Because I know we are all sad, terrified, lost.
But sometimes things need to be said; we need to be reminded that it’s okay to feel what we feel. That it’s human to be grieving what we have lost, and mourning the future that’s not there anymore.
🌿 You Are Not Alone
However, I tend to acknowledge my pain only to myself, in private.
Because I don’t want to add to anybody’s burdens. My sorrow is my own, and I don’t want to add to whatever pain you are carrying.
And I forgot that sometimes sharing a burden makes everyone’s load a little lighter.
Sometimes, we need to see someone else’s pain so we feel less alone. So we know that we are not the only ones feeling like this. This tightness in the chest, the clenched fists, the screams trapped on the back of the throat. The fear, cold and jagged, slithering through our veins.
The heavy weight of sorrow on our shoulders, the infinite tiredness, eyes burning with sleeplessness and horror.
I want you to know that I feel like this, too.
Some days it takes all my courage to get up, to even get out of bed. To stop myself from curling up in a ball and crying for a week or a century.
There are days when all I want to do is to give up. Hide.
I am always, always tired. Even when I’m not. There’s this existential tiredness underlying everything else, like a subterranean river running through the roots of my very being.
There are moments when despair strikes my soul like lightning, scorching everything in its wake.
Looking for joy, reveling in it, is how I cope, how I survive.
But I also make space for pain and sorrow, too. Usually before the joy part.
I’m sorry I forgot to share that with you, my friend. I’m here today to say:
It’s okay and necessary to feel what you feel.
It’s important to allow space for the hurt and scared parts of ourselves.
So let’s be gentle with our tender hearts and bruised souls.
Let’s make space for our sorrow, our pain, our sadness.
I call this making of space “Singing so the sadness can sleep, under the willow tree.”
It’s a line from a poem I wrote back in 2016. This speaks to me because it evokes tenderness; I have this poor little sadness, and I will take care of it. I will sing to it so it can feel safe and sleep, in a place of quiet, peace, stillness; under my favorite tree.
This Week’s Quest – Making Space for Sadness
Ideas & inspiration to acknowledge the hard
PLEASE be careful — don’t force yourself to do anything that you don’t want to.
Don’t do anything that will drag you down to a depression pit.
(And remember to look for professional help if you need it. Therapy has helped me more than anything. )Proceed with caution, and be safe, okay? 💛
1 – Acknowledge your feelings
Acknowledging what you feel is the best way to validate your feelings. Give yourself permission to feel what you are really feeling, and stop fighting yourself.
I know there are times or situations when you can’t afford to even think about your feelings and emotions.
But even saying to yourself “I’m feeling a lot of painful stuff. I can’t do anything about it right now, but I see you, feelings. I know you exist.” is way better and more helpful than trying to pretend the pain doesn’t exist, or that you’re perfectly fine when you are not.
If you can, take a little bit of time to think about how you’re feeling, admitting that you’re not okay, that you’re hurting, that you are scared — or whatever it is that’s going on with you. It’s the healthiest thing you can do. It will get you unstuck and it will help you to cope.
And it will help you find a way forward, too. We cannot solve a problem, fix a thing or make anything better if we don’t know what we are working with.
2 – Make space for what you feel
This is very personal. You are the only one who can know or decide what works for you. But just as we make space for joy, we can make space for sadness, grief, pain and sorrow.
My method of choice is writing; as you may already know, I do a lot of journaling.
But I also use other tools:
🌱 A simple list of feelings and emotions
I do this almost every day, as part of my daily journal. It’s quick and allows me to do an “emotional dump” whenever I need it. It’s more of a maintenance thing; a way to keep things from piling up too much until they blow up in my face or drag me under to the depression pit.
🌱 Writing poetry
There’s something powerful about turning pain into beautiful, haunting verses. What I write is very raw, sometimes unfinished; but it’s not meant to be polished, it’s not written for anyone but me.
I write to take these shards of glass from under my ribs, to pour the hollowness from my chest into paper. To shape my sorrow into something I can comprehend, touch, instead of the formless, unending darkness that hides inside my skull.
And I like to go back and re-read it, even years after — for me, it’s staring at the jagged, broken pieces of myself, and finding beauty, courage and strength in them.
🌱 Creating image galleries or compositions that express what I’m feeling
Looking for photos that match my emotions somehow helps me work through them. Thoughts like “Yeah, this picture conveys despair but… it’s not exactly what I need. I want something that evokes being lost, unmoored” help me clarify and unearth what’s really in my heart.
🌱 Singing songs that match my emotions
Sometimes I don’t have the words I need, so I borrow someone else’s lyrics. And actually singing along helps me to really connect with what I’m feeling and letting it out. Is not rare for me to end up crying as I sing; and even though it’s painful, it helps.
I have actual playlists on Spotify for this.
🌱 Writing fanfic
For me, few things are more helpful to process trauma than working through it via a character; giving them all my feelings and emotions, and then telling a story of how that character overcomes the challenges and gets everything I need.
🌱 Allowing myself to cry.
Sometimes, that’s the only thing that will make me feel better.
If I can’t just sit down and cry, watching stuff that makes me cry helps. Personally, I don’t like depressing things; fiction that makes me emotional because people are good or kind, overcome challenges or get a happy ending works better for me.
But you do you; whatever works for you is always the right choice. 💚
🌱 Sadness journal
This is new; but it occurred to me that just like a journal for joy is a good, healthy practice, having a dedicated place to work through the pain is a good idea.
I’m actually excited about this; messing around with text, images, colors and quotes to process darker, heavier feelings.
That’s It For Today!
This was at the same time very hard to write, and very easy to write.
I hope it’s helpful to you, even in a very small way. 💙
And if you’d like to share, tell me: have you allowed space for your sadness or other difficult feelings? How are you working through them, if at all?
Until next time. 🌿💚 —Nospheratt
