If we want to be okay, we have to let sadness have a place within us.
A few days ago, I had a super low day, and ended up getting a bit of existential dread, until finally, I let myself have a good cry. I realized in that moment, that I had to let the sadness tell me what was wrong. I don’t have to let it make decisions, but I can’t ignore it either.
When we get sad, our mind is signaling that something is wrong. If we let it fester, it will start coming up with all kinds of ideas to “logic” its way into “feeling better.” But our emotions aren’t good at logic. Emotions are like alarms that go off inside of us. If we ignore the alarms, our nervous system will get overstimulated and start making decisions to shut the alarms off. The longer we wait—the more drastic the decision can be. Or we get stuck making no decision, and removing ourselves from the situation mentally. The issue is that we will start to remove ourselves each time we get triggered.
I opt to sit with sadness, not asking it what to do, but listening to why the alarms started going off. Something happened or didn’t happen when I believed it should. That’s the trouble with expectations—they’ll always find a way to let you down. It’s better to be curious about the alarms than to hold on to expectations that don’t serve us.