Sadness is not wrong, bad, or negative. It is uncomfortable, and that discomfort is meant to motivate us, but let’s stop blaming sadness for trying to help us! Yes, you read that right; sadness is always trying to help us. However, if we have been taught to ignore it, bury the feeling, or leave it unresolved, the messages can pile up, and we can actually end up feeling powerless instead of empowered.
As you may know from a previous blog, emotions are like the nervous system for our mind, thoughts, and behaviors. When we feel too cold or too hot, we don’t blame our body for feeling that way. We get up and change something else: our environment, clothes, or the thermostat. Sadness wants to help us know we can do something that will make us feel better, safer, or more comfortable.
Like an alarm going off that is ignored, it will get more and more uncomfortable until you feel like you can’t stand it anymore. Like any other skill, it takes time and practice to get better, and listening and knowing how to resolve it, but the good news is that with practice, you can start to feel like it happens easily and naturally.
The messages sadness sends and the things it is motivating you to resolve are actually countless! It’s like any relationship; you start to notice trends and themes about what you care about as you slow down and really listen. Then, you get better at predicting your emotions are telling you they care about. To give you an idea of where to start, below are 11 messages sadness might be sending and ideas about what action it needs from you in order to stop spam messaging you. As I said, the things sadness may say are limitless, so these examples may not be any of the messages sadness sends to you, don’t think I am suggesting any of these will resolve your specific kind of sadness, or that they are your best action step forward. They are just examples.
1. There is something you need to do less or more. If you are constantly overextending yourself for others, sadness may be the emotion to alert you to take action to set boundaries, pull back, and take better care of yourself. If you are not investing at all in others, it may be telling you to do more for others, get out of your own head, or boost your confidence by helping others.
2. You are low on comfort and positive feedback from your environment and/or yourself. All humans need comfort and positive feedback. If others are not providing this, you are not allowing yourself to accept it, or you are not giving enough to yourself, it’s the job of sadness to inform you. Sadness may be saying you need to advocate for yourself to be seen or do something to show appreciation for yourself!
3. You need rest and a break from anger. Sadness gives you a way to take a break from frustration or anger. You may cry or sleep to release the tension that sadness knows is too much stress for your body to be holding.
4. Something meaningful that you value is not able to be grasped, is lost, or could be lost one day. Sadness makes space for us to grieve, which helps us process and make sense of our new life without the person or thing. Sadness wants you to know what you value and be intentional about creating, investing in, or having more of in the future.
5. You are using unhelpful thinking styles. The sadness alerts you that your thinking style is hurting you. It doesn’t help you to put yourself down, label, mind-read, or catastrophizing. Sadness wants you to make a correction to practice thoughts that are healthier for you.
6. You feel like you performed under your potential. By noticing that, you realize and are motivated to take steps to reach what your potential really is. You can put in more time or work to change it or accept yourself and your limited resources and time in life.
7. A hurt or mistreatment has happened to you. You were tricked or betrayed and you need to slow down, find red flags and find better protect yourself in the future, gain healing, or regather your strength.
8. You realize that things are better than they have been at other times and are grieving or processing the realization of what you missed out on before. Sadness wants you to be aware of what you want to continue to create for your future and what was not best for you.
9. Your expectations were not met. Sadness teaches us to create more accurate and realistic expectations and reminds us to gain resilience to setbacks by planning and reminding us to take our next best action based on what actually did happen, not what we wished happened.
10. Your blood sugar is low, hormones are off, or you have not had enough sleep. It wants you to get what your physical body needs to feel happy.
11. You are getting your value from the wrong places. You achieved something and feel sad because you put so much time and energy into something you actually, authentically, don’t care much about. Or, you didn’t achieve something, but feel the pressure of others to achieve it and are wasting precious time trying to impress them.
Emotions are not random, vague, or harmful. When we are grateful for them and open to their communication instead of resisting it, we tend to act with more clarity and feel much less turmoil. Much of the emotional stress we experience is due to fighting our feelings instead of working with them. How we act after having an emotion and how we resolve them makes all the difference. If we are proactive and positive towards them, no matter how uncomfortable, they will lead us to our best life!
If you’d like expert support figuring out what sadness and other emotions are teaching you about yourself and your best life, I invite you to schedule a strategy session today!