Making space for sadness
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Hello friends,
Spring is almost already here, and with it supposedly comes a renewal. Finishing up college felt like last month instead of last year. It reminds me that today can be the first day for all of us, as this Breaking Smart newsletter has explored. In a period of uncertainty, it helps to be grounded in time.
Writing has been hard somehow, probably because I'm really sticking with the process of embracing not knowing what it is that I wanted to write. Everyday I taste a bit more the bittersweet of the creative process - struggle, struggle, release, flow, struggle, struggle again. It's a long game, just like the game of getting to know oneself.
Recently, I had a conversation about our relationships with sadness with a friend, a seasoned gentleman in his seventy. I asked him “Imagine sadness as a friend coming to stay with you for a few days. How would you like to welcome her to your house? What room will she be in?”
My friend took his time and replied “She will be in a room, small, dark, with few windows”. He paused and continued “Maybe I’ll make the room bigger”. Interesting image. I wondered: “Wouldn’t that make sadness even more lonely? Maybe it’s better to ask her to sit down and drink some tea?” It was a non-sequitur comment that turned out to be a new inquiry into sadness and how we live with it.
Many of us often put sadness in a separate room, not so different from locking someone crazy in a prison.
That is an useful thing to do to keep ourselves sane. Sadness is not always very tamed as the movie Inside Out made it to be. Sometimes she throttles us all of a sudden, like the grief of a loved one passing away or the heartbreak of an almost-beautiful romance. Other times she drowns us in her ethereal darkness, like a sea of sorrow in seeing the troubled state of our world. Often she stays quiet at the corner of our inner living room, staring at our pragmatic day-to-day self, her longing eye begging “You really want to leave me alone?” Whatever forms she takes, sadness beckons to be welcomed, seen, even embraced.
How do we do that then? How do we change our stance towards sadness?
Common advice says we need to make room for sadness, to allow ourselves the space-time to get to know this new friend. Practically, anything we can do that allows us to step into a different inner space from which we can turn towards something we have been pushing away. Meditation has helped me a lot, so did dance, music and writing. Psychology knowledge helps too, although I found the language of the field rather too sterile. Poetry explains the same thing with more verve, like this one On Kindness .
We don’t just expand the room though, for sadness may get even more lonely in that dark and confined space. We also decorate it with colors, curves, rhythms, anything that gives our dear guest a different impression rather than the usual “Oh, you are here again, go to that basement”. Some people drink tea while meditating on sorrow. Others make ritual with dead leaves. Some write letters on with special pen and paper. As long as the ritual is performed with an acknowledgement that this grief work is a real and important work, it will help. Inventing your own ritual is great, and there are good guides out there too.
12 dead leaves, picked up last fall for my own ritual to close up a chapter of my life.
I’d like to believe that if we put in the effort, the inner work of making a beautiful space for sadness will bear fruits. We will gradually trust her more as a good old friend rather than a mere polite stranger. Then we can welcome her to our whole inner house. Sadness may say No to our invitation now, but she does appreciate our generosity. She too learns to trust us.
Then we can reach a stage where her existence permeates our whole being. It’s when a thought of a lost loved one suddenly came into mind, and we realize that the person has never left, only transformed from one form of being into another. The pain and heartbreak are still there, but our stance towards them has changed. We feel grateful for their presence, that we have been given a chance to craft meaning out of sadness.
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” — Mary Oliver.
p/s: are you interested in a conversation like this? If so, reach out for a chat & see my Guiding Practice offer.
Stay empty, stay curious
Exactly 3 months ago I got a very interesting news that explains why I was in Hanoi. It was challenging at that time, which I wrote a story about. Three months after, I've got a few more reflection which I put together in a talk.
In this talk, you'll see
- Curiosity is not only "Oh what's that?". It's also "OH, that's interesting. I wonder what that means to me?" (which is of course much easier said than done)
- My current definition of Curiosity: the pursuit of Joy in the unknown.
- A realization: why making home is more important than coming home.
I hope it's helpful to those who are encountering unexpected twists & turns in life. Or at least it entertains you ^_^ The slide is here.
Sharing is sprouting.
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