Love Your Sad

“when I laid my head on my pillow that night, my eyes filled with tears, “I weep therefore I love”, I told myself with rapturous melancholy”
-Simone De Beauvoir

It is part of the human condition to feel great sadness for great reasons and also for no reason at all; it serves an important evolutionary purpose (we evolve to learn how to protect ourselves, to overcome great burden, communicate our emotions to others and gain support- most importantly we learn how to be at one with our sadness and employ it for greater happiness). We change. It is a beautiful process; these kinks in our journey decorating life. People often get the urge and are encouraged to speed up their journey back onto the path of happiness -pill popping anti-depressants and feeding the greed of corporate pharmaceutical companies who push for quick diagnoses for people with quite normal sadness [in my opinion quite necessary sadness].

Blunt these emotions? Deprive us of the most natural processes of grieving? Discourage reflecting on those events in our lives which leave us changed forever? I mean real reflection, deep, deep reflection- that kind of reflection that comes only when you know that things will never be the same again. I feel very close to these times in my life.

Besides, some of the most beautiful art has been the result of quite negative emotions- it is self therapeutic and a great gift to society that that person experienced those particular emotions and allowed themselves so much to feel them and be aware of them that they are able to share them with the universe. REVEAL YOURSELF. This is freedom.

Suffering exists. It has to exist. All this obsession with happiness and pleasure is often at the root of suffering in the first place. Ignorance is not seeing the world as it is (essentially full of necessary suffering and crisscrossing paths of bliss and hardship) and leaves our minds undeveloped and unable to progress. This is imprisonment.

I’ve flushed my anti-depressants down the toilet and learnt to play, control, and love, cherish and learn from the times I’ve felt down. I’ve had to force myself to let my loved ones love me when I need them to, harness the energy of sadness when I am alone and down and figure out, in a way study myself, and constantly learn who I am and how I work (or don’t work sometimes.)

Feel glad for your feelings as they are unique and precious and yours. Don't be afraid of finding things hard. Things brighten just as they fade, but if you need to cry, cry. I am here for you, always. Besides, you look so beautiful when you cry.