Yesterday we faced Fear. Today, we move on to an emotion that many of us go to great lengths to hide from the world: Sadness.
Sadness comes in all shapes and sizes - everything from mild loneliness to soul-crushing depression. When we’re in the depths of despair, we tend to look at the world differently. Things can feel dull, meaningless, even hopeless. And interestingly, people seem to react to sadness in many different ways: Some bury it deep down, others try to push through it, and still others wallow in it for days, weeks, or even months on end. Because sadness is so complex, there is not necessarily a “right” answer for how to deal with it, but there are certainly plenty of wrong answers. Ultimately, sadness is all about letting go of someone or something we care about, so as with every other emotion, it’s important to start by recognizing why we’re feeling down in the first place.
So what makes me blue, whether it’s feeling lonely, sad, or utterly depressed? And when and where do I most often feel down? Let’s go back to my journal.
As with anger and fear, “sleep” and “work” are the top two words I associate with sadness. In this case, “sleep” has overtaken “work” as my most significant driver of unhappiness, but the fact that these two words are primarily responsible for all three of my negative emotions is staggering. In a way, it’s also encouraging, because it tells me that better managing my sleep and my approach to work should have a massive positive impact on my life.
One of the things my mom has always known about me (moms are amazing), and that I learned about myself over time, is that I don’t see the world clearly when I’m tired. I normally see the best in everyone and everything, to the point where people have warned me not to be naive. But positivity takes energy, and after a few nights without a full night of sleep, my outlook shifts from positive to negative in a hurry. I stop seeing silver linings and get fixated on the clouds. Here are a couple posts that capture this feeling perfectly:
Interestingly, most of my sad posts that relate to work have less to do with bad things happening at work and more to do with leaving loved ones behind:
This gets back to why we feel sad to begin with - it’s our way of letting go. In the first post, which I made after Thanksgiving vacation, I’m letting go of all the joy and excitement I felt while spending a week with my family. In the second, I’m letting go of the amazing period I spent at home on paternity leave after my child was born. In the third, I’m letting go of the closeness I enjoy with my wife and daughter before leaving to travel to an important conference. And in the last, I’m letting go of the peace and tranquility that comes from a weekend in the mountains. In every case, I’m actually looking forward to returning to work, but I know this also means saying goodbye (even if only briefly) to people and places I love, and that makes me sad.
Letting go can be particularly traumatic when we’re already going through a difficult time. Remember the relationship we found between fear and anger in yesterday’s post on Fear? Well sadness is often right on their heels, creating an awful cocktail of negative emotions. Below, I’ve highlighted the fear-anger pair I identified yesterday, coupled with a sad post I made the very next day about not wanting my wife to go on a trip:
While I always love having my wife around, it’s generally not so hard to say goodbye for a few days. But in this case, when I was already on an emotional roller coaster, it was a lot more difficult to let go. Looking through my Empath journal, I found at least half a dozen cases over the last two years where I hit the trifecta of all three negative emotions in succession (though not always in the same order), further underscoring how closely these feelings are linked.
The other two clusters of words I most commonly associate with sadness - family/friends/weekend/holidays and sick/cold/worn/tired - are also rooted in my struggling to let go of someone or something I care about. In the first case, I’m saying goodbye to loved ones, often after extended periods of relaxing with each other on vacation. In the second, I’m saying goodbye to the feeling of being healthy and all the enjoyable activities that come with it, which aren’t possible when I’m sick. This latter cluster didn’t show up in my life until after Kinley was born and started going to daycare, which caused me to go from perfect health to constantly feeling under the weather. Fortunately, my immune system finally seems to have caught up. Look out, germs!
So now that we have a better sense for what makes me sad, are there any patterns in when and where I feel down? Let’s take a look at the data:
- I over index on sad posts in the evening, in part because I’m often worn out by the end of the day, which affects my view of the world.
- I over index on sad posts on Tuesdays, typically when the week gets off to a rough start. Fridays and Sundays can be sad days, but I also over index on happy posts on those days (as we’ll see later), so it depends on the week.
- Significantly more sad posts occur away from home or work vs. angry or fearful posts. Specifically, 8% occur outside Colorado and another 13% occur outside Denver, typically in the mountains. Many of these posts express sadness over saying goodbye to family and friends after vacation.
- Zooming in further, almost 25% of my sad posts in Denver occur on my walk to work, often expressing sadness over leaving my wife and daughter at home. You can trace my path to work from the location of the posts : )
So what have I learned about what makes me sad? What additional lessons can I take away from the common patterns I’ve identified across all three negative emotions - sadness, fear, and anger? And what can I do with this information to live a happier and more fulfilling life? Here are a few ideas:
- I can double down on getting good sleep and finding balance at work.
It’s remarkable that “sleep” and “work” are the two words I most associate with all three primary negative emotions. This suggests it’s well worth my time to make improvements in these areas, perhaps by purchasing a Fitbit to track my sleep patterns or by setting firmer boundaries at work that prevent me from taking work-related stress home with me. - I can practice mindfulness when I’m tired to prevent negative spirals.
It’s clear that I’m not the same person after I haven’t slept well or been burnt out by a tough day at work. Armed with this self-awareness, I can take time out when I’m tired to meditate, identifying and challenging my negative thoughts before they have a chance to spiral out of control. In the same way that I exercise every morning to mitigate stress, I can establish a routine of meditating each night when I’m most prone to getting the blues. - I can accept that sadness is a healthy process necessary for letting go.
Every human emotion has a purpose: Anger protects our boundaries, fear keeps us safe, and sadness allows us to let go in the face of life’s inevitable changes. While letting go is painful, it’s absolutely necessary for living a balanced life. This is why it’s so important not to repress feelings of grief - sadness is a natural response to loss, but only by processing sad feelings can we let go of what we’ve lost and get back to enjoying life.
We’ve made it through all three negative emotions - anger, fear, and sadness. Tomorrow we get to the fun stuff! We’ll start low-energy with calm, build up to happiness, and finish strong with excitement. Just as I’ve identified links between negative feelings, I’ll draw connections between positive emotions, and identify a few more complex patterns at the end. To be continued!
