Avoiding Sadness - Grasshopper

The Grasshopper had this to day when I was whipping up some breakfast: “Avoiding sadness prolongs sadness.”

I’ve known that on the surface for decades, but really hadn’t let the message sink in until recently.

I was a card carrying member of “Chasing the Blues Away” club. I was like the muscle bound bouncer at a night club: “nobody gets past me who’s unwelcome.”

The reality is that sadness will wait in line forever until you decide to let it in.  

Chasing it away just means it’ll be back again another day.

Letting sadness, or any undesirable emotion, in is the beginning of it easing its hold on you. If sadness had a voice it would say, “Deal with me.”

That doesn’t mean it wants an argument; it wants acceptance.

Accepting sadness is a process of feeling the sensations it brings. Notice where in your body it registers. What and where are the sensations in your body? Is a tightness, a tingling, a gurgling, or something else? And where do you feel that sensation, in your head, your throat, your chest, your stomach, your bowels?

Once you notice the sensation and location, sit with it. Don’t shoo it away. It may even cause a bout of tears, but know they are washing away the thoughts in your head that are triggering the sensations in your body.

The mistake most people make is talking to themselves about their sadness. That just keeps it in the forefront of your mind, waiting in line, wanting to endlessly opine. Constantly talking to yourself or others about your sadness is an insurance policy that it won’t stop arguing.

Sitting with the sensations sadness brings allows them to dissipate through a process of transmutation. That doesn’t mean the feeling won’t come back, it will. But the length of its stay will be abbreviated because now you know a way to let it have its say and let it go on its merry way.

Here’s a lesson I have indelibly learned: Avoiding sadness is avoiding life which will cause you a lifetime of strife.

All the best,
John