I have been asking myself these questions recently. The movie Inside Out has really opened my eyes as to what roll our sad emotions play in our development and progression. I have started to realize some more specific aspects of my own sadnesses.
Not all sadness is the same. Sometimes sadness is like a gentle drizzle of rain, unnoticed by everyone except those who are getting drizzled on. Sometimes sadness is like a faraway storm. You can see lines of rain that are falling somewhere else, but all you feel is general darkness cast by the far away clouds. Sometimes sadness is dreadful storm which stops everything but passes quickly. Sometimes sadness is like a sun shower where you can see and feel the light, but despite the sun's presences you are still getting wet.
These many types of sadness have dampened my life. I am starting to see now that feeling sad is an essential part of processing through our lives. As we learn in Inside Out, sadness is the lens in which we see our past emotions and fit them into our future emotions. I think that sadness is our purest emotion and it can deepen and clarify our other emotions. For example, sometimes I have to let myself feel sad about happy times in order to recognize what it means to be happy in the future. Sometimes I need to allow myself to feel the sadness in my angry emotions to really understand why I was angry. Sometimes I just need to feel sad to understand loss or change.
I know I can do myself a favor and grow from my sadnesses instead of trying to make it into a different emotion. I can try and talk about sadness without making excuses for what I feel.
Incase anyone is too sad now, here is Sadness herself:
