How to Cure Sadness by Doing Nothing
August 10, 2019
Sometimes sadness cures itself.
Have you seen the movie ‘Inside Out’?
When we were little, we used to have one single emotion or feeling. We were angry when we were not allowed to play outside while raining. We were completely sad when our longtime babysitter quitted her job and went back to her hometown.
We just did not know yet that in fact, one thing could actually bring, not only one but, many emotions.
Remember at the end of the movie, Riley started collecting core memories with mixed colours; not just red, blue, yellow or green. Her memories were created from the combination of emotions: angry & sad, disgust & joy, etc.
As we grow older and more mature, our reasoning is improved and we could judge one thing from multiple points of view. Each point of view will bring different emotion.
When you’re 22 and your mom yelled and prohibited you to go outside the house without umbrella when it’s raining, you’d probably not just feel angry because it annoyed you. (“Like seriously, you’re yelling just because of this?”) There is another side of you that feels grateful — that your mother still cares of you, lucky — so that you then won’t get sick or funny — to see your mother still nags at you as if you are still a child.
Technically, we should see life as a colourful painting or in the other words, it is okay to not feel good all the time.
In this crazy world, both personal and professional life can actually cause us stressed. Sometimes we get stressed and reach that stage when we think we are the only one that is left standing at the corner while everybody has thrown themselves in the centre, got the spotlight and enjoyed the party. We are stressed and then feel guilty after that because we have let ourself down. We wrongly interpret as if feeling down, stressed and sad is a very bad evil thing in life, which then, only cause you feel even more stressed and worse. For some people, getting ourself back together is not as easy as flipping your hand. Finding and reading those motivational quotes on Pinterest might help but it might also not in some cases. People struggle to lift their mood back and it is difficult to feel good when we are actually down. The failure of removing those clouds away and make ourself feel better worsens the situation. You are in the loop of being stressed.
What I am trying to say is that instead of blaming ourself and trying too hard to find a way back up which just make us even more stressed, let us enjoy the situation and let the feeling go by its own. This might sound crazy but life is not all about being happy all the time. You are feeling what you are feeling because of a reason. A lesson needs to be learned. It is part of life. It is part of growth. Never blame yourself for being down.
When we are low, respect ourself and acknowledge that instead of denying it. When you don’t feel like talking to anybody today, then don’t do it and just spend time with yourself. I believe being silence helps to somehow clear our mind and hence, we will then be able to see the issue from another points of view. When this occurs, you could see that it’s actually not a bad thing at all. There are another sides of the story which actually make you feel differently.
I also believe that everything will come to us at the right time. You will know when you know it. You will know when your body has experienced enough sadness and start finding inspirations and ways to get up. You just know it’s enough and then, you miraculously get that spirit to get yourself together again. But how? When? I do not know. All I know is that sometimes we just need to go through all of those unpleasant circumstances first. You just have to let it be.
Because in some cases, there is no instant cure …
Broken hearts.
Fear to start new. Trauma.
Loneliness.
Or sometimes, we’re just lost.
This sadness, this heartbroken, this anger, this worry, this fear — they just need to be felt. Let ourself feel it. Don’t deny it. Don’t force it to go. Once we embrace it, we will slowly and eventually feel better and more comfortable.
Acceptance is the key.
Start changing the way we see sadness as a colour that makes life more meaningful.
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