Be sad, better By Zanita Fletcher
I consider myself a fairly honest
person. But when someone asks
that innocent question, “How are
you?” I’m often tempted to twist
the truth.
Don’t get me wrong, most of the time, I am pretty good. But there
have been moments I have been upset and seasons where I’ve
been struggling, and when this question has been asked, my
instinct has been to keep whatever I’m going through to myself.
Hence, I have responded, “Good thanks. How about you?”
Our culture is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness. The self-
help industry has exploded in recent years, reaching record levels
and is only projected to continue to grow. There are books,
articles, podcasts, webinars and apps that give us tips on how to
be happier. “How to be happy;” “What is the key to happiness?;”
“Habits of happy people;” “How to be happy alone?;” and “How to
stay happy when stressed” are among the most popular Google
searches.
Helen Russell, journalist and author of How to Be Sad: Everything
I’ve Learned About Getting Happier By Being Sad Better, spent
much of her career writing about happiness. But she discovered
there was reluctance to being sad and that we could experience
more happiness if we learnt to embrace our sadness. She said
while many of us know intellectually that being sad is expected,
we’re not always brilliant at allowing for it. Instead, we have
various crutches to avoid the pain and say sorry when we cry, as
if we believe our tears are burdening others.
Often people ask big questions about happiness when they are
going through great disappointment or loss, such as after losing a
loved one, receiving a diagnosis or coming out of a bad breakup—
situations in which sadness is the appropriate response. Perhaps
instead of motivating our way out of these moments as quickly as
possible, there’s a time to just be sad for a while, a benefit to
being sad and maybe with the right strategies we can be sad,
better.
Defining sadness
When I say sadness, I mean the temporary emotion we feel due to
disappointment, dissatisfaction or loss that often passes with time
or support. We will all experience this. Sadness is different from
depression, which is a cluster of symptoms that persist over time.
[1]
Sadness also differs from grief, which is a complex emotional
response due to significant loss. Grief encompasses a range of
feelings such as shock, anger, denial and guilt, and tends to be a
more intense and prolonged emotional experience. [2]
We all know those people who run away from feeling sad. They
don’t cry, they turn away from sad scenes in movies and they
freeze up when conversations get deep. We also can understand
why. Sadness feels uncomfortable and intrusive. In many parts of
our lives, there is this idea that if something is wrong, we must fix
it. So, when sadness arises, we try to fix it with a “keep calm and
carry on” approach. Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner says this
approach to negative emotions isn’t working and can have real
ramifications. His research shows when it comes to feelings like
sadness, the reflex to put on a happy face can actually make us
feel worse.
The University of New South Wales found that there are a number
of positive things that come out of sadness. “Though much has
been made of the many benefits of happiness, it’s important to
consider that sadness can be beneficial, too. Sad people are less
prone to judgement errors, are more resistant to eye-witness
distortions, are sometimes more motivated, and are more
sensitive to social norms. They can act with more generosity,
too,” said Joseph P. Forgas, professor of psychology. [3] Charles
Darwin denied the usefulness of tears but studies show that
crying can be an effective way to recover from strong emotions
and help remove stress hormones such as cortisol.
Dealing with it
So, how can we own our sadness and be sad better? The first step
is to stop fighting it. Many things we do in response to sadness
are attempts to anaesthetise ourselves and avoid the pain. We do
this by keeping ourselves busy, drinking alcohol, not eating
enough, overeating, exercising too much, and so on. These coping
strategies can sometimes look good on the surface but are really
our way of running from difficult emotions.
The next thing we can do is process what we are feeling. See if
you can sit with your feelings of sadness, even if just for a couple
of minutes.
Opening up to other people when we’re feeling blue helps, too.
Having at least one person we can be honest with can be really
helpful. The moments where we are vulnerable about what we are
feeling are often the moments we feel most deeply connected
with people in our life. Speaking about things also helps to
alleviate emotions and heal.
Other things can help, according to science. Music and
poetry have been shown to reduce stress and can be good
companions in our sadness. Books and films can also broaden our
perspective and help us feel less alone.
Learning from other cultures
Western countries are outliers in their desire to minimise and
avoid sadness, but other cultures have learnt to accept and
embrace it. In Japan, individuals embrace sadness as a natural
part of the human experience. Their culture encourages
emotional expression through traditional arts like haiku poetry
and theatre, which often explore themes of loss. In Russia, there
is value placed on being sad as it makes you a better person. In
Africa, when someone experiences sadness, the community
gathers to express emotions openly and seeking help is seen as a
sign of strength rather than weakness. New Zealand’s Māori
culture involves singing and chanting to express a range of
emotions. These practices are often used during funerals and
other significant life events to process and honour emotions.
Hard, but important
While sadness may not be pleasant, there is purpose to be found
in it, and we can learn to sit with it and move through it in a
healthy way. We don’t want to sit in that space forever, but
during difficult times it can feel unfathomable to look on the
bright side, bounce back or keep calm and carry on—as cultural
lingo suggests.
Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute, said, “In
any human life there are going to be periods of unhappiness. That
is part of the human experience. Learning how to be sad is a
natural first step in how to be happier.” This rings true in the
Scriptures when we read, “In this world you will have trouble”
(John 16:33) and “There is a time for everything…a time to weep
and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
(Ecclesiastes 3:1,4).
Sadness might not be a wonderful feeling, but it is important.
While pursuing a life of happiness is admirable, we must be
realistic and acknowledge that sometimes the unexpected
happens, and being sad for a while is okay. Sometimes there
needs to be a bandwidth to say, “Maybe I’m not supposed to be
happy right now.”
Ironically, if we allow ourselves to be sad, we might be able to be
happier in the long run. Because the research shows, you can’t
have happy without sad.
Zanita Fletcher is a life coach and assistant editor for the
Australia/New Zealand edition of Signs of the Times. She writes
from the Gold Coast, Queensland.