The Importance of Feeling Sadness

Emotional pain can in a lot instances feel incredibly more intense than any type of physical pain. I know this holds true in my own life as their has been no physical challenge that has come close to feeling the emotional discomfort in my body. What I want to bring light to in this post is embracing sadness and surrounding it with love. I know this sounds a lot nicer than actually putting it into practice, but it gets easier the more you allow yourself to feel…

Speaking from a very transparent and vulnerable space, I am guilty, like many of us, of stuffing away my tears; using compensations to distract myself from what I’m really feeling. This comes in so many different forms for me… it could be a busy schedule, over exercising, care taking others so I don’t have to focus on myself, obsessively cleaning, and sometimes using substances to escape my feelings like caffeine and sugar.

An experience I had this past Fall served as a very pivotal point for me and a de-shedding of old layers. There was nothing traumatic that happened to me, however, what I experienced was very strange. I felt as though my emotional body was purging so many stuffed emotions that I cried, a very deep intense cry, with very few breaks in between, for 72 hours. I would go on a run and cry as I pushed myself up a hill. I would be at work and have to excuse myself to the bathroom so I could release. I’d be at the grocery store, in my car, in my room, out surfing, it didn’t matter. I couldn't control it and was honestly so confused as to why I couldn't get a hold of myself and pull it together.

Looking back, it all makes perfect sense to me, and what I learned was so invaluable that I honor that experience with incredible importance. Those tears, I now know, were not out of no where. They were just stuffed so deeply inside for so long that I was in need of an emotional detox. What I came to trust within myself, is that sadness & grief is not as scary as I once thought. Instead of fearing it so intensely and trying any and which way to numb it, FEEL it…the release and sense of freedom felt afterwards is euphoric.

I literally felt cleaner on the inside, lighter, and free. I hope this serves as inspiration for you to feel it all. If it’s sadness let it be, if its joy let it be, if its anger let it be. Let us no longer fear the feelings, as feeling is really the ingredient for the “rapture of being alive.” ~Joeseph Campbell

💛