By M.P.
When I was six years old, I remember slipping on a step and skinning my knee. As the tears threatened to fall down my face, I heard my father’s stern voice, “Don’t cry.”
To this day, I recall the physical sensation of gulping the tears back down.
My father was entertaining some friends at the time and the unsaid message was clear, “We do not express sadness in front of other people.”
What I didn’t realize until many decades later was that I had also internalized the implicit message that sadness is bad and that we should avoid feeling it at all costs.
This message isn’t unique to my father, of course. Every day, we hear parents telling their children, “Don’t be sad,” or “Don’t cry” when it would be better to say, “It’s normal to feel sad” or “It’s okay to cry.”
Fueled by this message from both my father and the wider society, I spent my youth constantly chasing pleasure and suppressing or distracting my way out of any inkling of sadness. I thought I had found the answer to life. All pleasure, no pain.
Then I learned that instead of trying to change my thoughts, I should simply observe them. Instead of trying to suppress, distract, or push out my sadness as quickly as possible, I was going to sit with it and allow my body to feel it.
Becoming Friends With Sadness
To my surprise, my sadness did move through my body and leave on its own. The feelings would rise and peak but eventually pass. Like a toddler tiring from a tantrum, it quieted down without any active intervention from me. More importantly, it felt like if I allowed its full expression, none of the sadness lingered. All of it was gone. Completely.
The experience was so transformational that I came to realize that sadness must have a purpose.
Sadness fosters connection and empathy
One of the first things I noticed when I was sitting with sadness was how much it deepened all the other relationships in my life.
Talking about my sadness allowed people to show up for me. Expressing my vulnerability signaled that I trusted them and forged a stronger bond. More importantly, knowing that I was sad, people went out of their way to check in, spend time with me, and demonstrate support in any way they could far more than they ever did when I was happy.
Sadness gives us information on things that harm us
Scientists postulate that in the same way that physical pain alerts us that something is causing us harm, sadness is sometimes a psychological sign that something is bad for us.
This makes sense when you think about it. An abusive partner, a toxic friend, and a job that doesn’t align with our values are all things that make us sad. Once the damaging external stimuli go away, sadness will also eventually dissipate. There is also no instance where something that is psychologically damaging occurs and sadness does not follow. The two go hand-in-hand.
Sadness improves prioritization and problem-solving skills
A common consequence of sadness is that attention to the outside world is reduced. We withdraw socially and reduce our investment in non-essential activities. Psychiatrists suggest that we do this as a form of energy conservation. It allows us to redirect the energy inward to create more self-awareness and increase problem-solving.
Psychologists have even been able to demonstrate that sad people are better at using more data-driven strategies while happy people apply more theory-driven strategies. So, in certain situations, sadness may enable you to make more objective and fact-based decisions.
Sadness fuels motivation
When I was actively avoiding sadness, I realized that my motivation for certain aspects of growth was limited. For example, although I had always wanted to be better at mindfulness, when I was generally happy — I was fairly complacent at doing it.
However, when I was deeply sad, I had an intense motivation to understand mindfulness which promised to allow me to observe my feelings. In one month of sadness, I cultivated a greater capacity for mindfulness than years of effort when I was happy.
Psychiatrists believe that sadness motivates people to change to both escape the negative state, as well as to avoid being in that negative state in the first place. It makes sense that the sadder you are, the more motivated you are to change something. While the happier you are, the more likely you are to want to stay in that state.
Now that you know, the next time you are sad, you can take advantage of the adaptive benefits of sadness. Here’s how:
How to Leverage the Secret Superpowers of Sadness
The main reason that many of us are unable to tap into the superpowers of sadness is simply that we don’t allow ourselves to. The key word here is surrender. Here are some actionable ways to surrender to sadness:
1. Allow connection
We often suppress sadness because we are afraid of appearing weak or being a burden to our friends. But sadness often devolves into depression when we suppress the opportunity for connection.
When you feel the familiar urge to hide your sadness, remind yourself that decades of research show that expressing sadness elicits empathy and bonding more often than not. So, go ahead, reach out, and allow yourself to be supported.
2. Pay attention to what sadness is trying to tell you
Because sadness rarely results in a broken bone or continuous bleeding, we tend to ignore the information it is giving us — to our own detriment. After all, psychological pain can be just as damaging as physical pain.
To elicit the information that sadness can provide, take a pen and paper and do an audit of the recent times in your life when you have felt sad. Then identify if there are common events or people. If there is a pattern to your sadness, it may be time to cut ties with that activity or person.
3. Lean into self-awareness
Scientists have also observed that sadness often motivates people to self-reflect and evaluate their feelings and thoughts about the event. This is believed to be a way to heal and recover from loss. Often this also leads to the person investing time into understanding what is meaningful to them and refocusing their energies.
You can tap into this increased self-focus when you are sad to better understand how these events occurred, the role you may have played in it, and the things you can do to mitigate the situation in the future. More importantly, you can use sadness to understand your own patterns and preferences. Journaling can be a highly effective way to explore and document the insights from this phase.
4. Tap into growth
When you are sad, you will be far more motivated to develop tools to cope with your sadness or to change your existing situation. This is a powerful catalyst that you can take advantage of.
Some of the ways to leverage sadness include participating in novel activities, learning new techniques, or setting new goals (e.g., building a stronger community). Remind yourself that you can start today to be more emotionally resilient for the future and use that to fuel growth.
5. Redirect it to a creative expression
Something I’ve known for a long time is that I often create far more beautiful songs on the piano when I am sad. I’m not alone, scientists have long studied a link between sadness and creativity. There are also many examples of artists who have channeled their sorrow into creative masterpieces.
The next time you are sad, find a medium that works for you — write, sing, play music, paint. It doesn’t really matter what you do — just create and let the pain transform something mundane into something profound.
Takeaway — Sadness Makes Your Life Richer
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Comments:
1] Every middah, both positive and negative, has a positive use. Find it! This is a good example. Who would think of the benefit of sadness!! "אין דבר בעולם לבטלה".
2] A pet peeve [why would someone want something that bothers him as a pet??]: When parents deny their children's feelings. If you child has a feeling - s/he needs validation, not criticism.
3] There is a difference between depression and sadness. Hopefully for a future post.
4] One of the messages of the article is that admitting you are sad gets you empathy. That is fine but one should not live looking to receive empathy [which I think the author enjoys too much]. It makes one weak and needy. Our job is to PROVIDE empathy to others when necessary and not to live in the "I am a victim, feel badly for me" mode.
5] Sadness is not a contradiction to happiness. One can be both at the same time. On Tisha B'av we say the mizmor with the pasuk "עבדו את ה' בשמחה".
