Nobody likes to be sad. In a perfect world, wouldn’t you want to always be happy? Maybe, but this would completely negate the true benefit of sadness that we are capable of receiving. It’s time for us to stop bashing the negative emotions that we experience in our everyday lives.
Your feelings are an integral part of your being and your life. And, admittedly, they’re hard to talk about with other people, even though it is one of the few things we all have in common. This is especially true for negative feelings. When we want to cry, rant, and admit our sadness to others, it is much more difficult than telling somebody how happy you are. This is a big problem.
Being sad is not a bad thing. It is part of how we live and how we move on. Every single person you know feels sad sometimes, regardless of how happy they seem or the quality of life they live.
Even though everyone has been in this position before, you will still hear somebody say something along the lines of “You shouldn’t be sad, you have it so much better than other people.” Not only does this negate our natural feelings, it also puts an unrealistic pressure on people to justify their emotions–something nobody should feel pressured to do.
Bottling up your emotions won’t work either. It’s like a garbage can. You can keep putting trash in there, but it’s going to start overflowing and smell so bad that you’ll wonder why you didn’t take it out a long time ago. Don’t let your emotional trashcan get that full.
So if you’re going to start embracing your emotions, how do you do it healthily? The best answer for this is to follow your body’s reaction to the feelings you have as they come up. Maybe the middle of a lecture isn’t the best time to break down in sobs, and that’s okay. Just don’t procrastinate your own emotions; they’re not your impending English paper, they’re part of life.
Allowing yourself to feel your sadness will help you feel better sooner. If you need to take a couple days to wallow around or have a huge cry, then do it!
Crying, journaling, drawing, writing, and talking through your feelings are all great ways to deal with sadness. Anything that makes you understand these negative feelings and choose to accept them will help you. Because sadness isn’t forever.
Sure, there is definitely some scientific research that details exactly how sadness positively affects our minds and our capabilities. There are even other ways sadness can benefit you like helping your memory, improving judgment, and making you more compassionate.
The thing is, none of that really matters in the long run, honestly. The real benefit of sadness is growth. For you and your health, being sad will help you down the long path of living and being able to be happy.
Disclaimer: This article does not deal with sadness that accompanies mental illness. Depression impairs a person’s ability to produce and regulate certain neurochemicals in the brain related to mood. Those affected with depression usually need professional therapy and/or medication to overcome their sadness. Embracing feelings is an important factor of managing depression, but it is still a mental illness and needs to be treated differently than normal, temporary sadness.