The sadness around and inside me : some reflections

I write a lot about sadness. I know it is not often a popular subject out there in the world at large. I think people get judged for being ‘too sad’, they are often fed platitudes or told to look on the bright side or be grateful for what they do have and often the deep sadness they carry is not even seen, it is often not validated and so it just kicks away under the surface, being held in the body/soul silently.

And perhaps much of this is now it should be, our deepest griefs are in many ways private, only deeply personally known to us if not shared with others. One of the great values of having a good therapist or a spiritual friend is that you can share feelings of sadness with them and they will be validated. I also do believe some of us need to be given ‘permission’ to grieve, not that we should need that but in a culture that does not often permit it that is not always available and so it may be easier for other emotions which cover over grief to be expressed.

The beauty of art and poetry and novels is that they can be containers for grief and sadness too. There is a kind of melancholy that many of us feel and relate to that sees a particular poignancy in things, such as a sunrise, the unclouded night sky, the soft petals of a flower or even the stark open cut beauty of a ravine. Often out in nature my breath can be taken away and sometimes I can be moved to tears. I also find this when I read certain pieces of writing or blogs which share personal sorrows, melancholies and sadnesses.

I called my sister yesterday. Sadly she missed my call on Saturday and did not realise I had called. It was a week since we had last spoken and I found myself very close to tears and then crying silently during the entire conversation which lasted for about 30 minutes. I like that in our conversations there are lost of pauses and silences. I just feel the energy between us which does contain a lot of grief, we have both suffered similar losses and my sister has her own sadness too, over a failed marriage, challenging relationships with her children and I know she also struggles very deeply with her own demons of anxiety and depression. The time we most deeply connected yesterday was when I told her about the dream I had of Mum on mothers day and then I shared with her that a short time after Mum died a butterfly turned up and sat on the living room curtains for three days before dying. I have read that this often can happen after a loved one dies, the butterfly or bird or a feather will come as a messenger in spirit, my sister seemed to resonate with this.

While I was crying she also really surprised me by saying to me “I am sorry I have been such a useless sister”, I immediately just said to her “please just remember me” I also said “I feel really really sad when I don’t hear much from you” I wanted to ask her could she please be mindful of me too and call me a little bit more but somehow the words just did not come out, was it necessary to ask for this? I am trying to accept my sister where she is and she is very worried about this upcoming radiotherapy which is causing anxiety, I am a bit annoyed with the hospital as they are leaving her hanging with no date for a follow up or when the 28 day treatment will start, only a vague ‘sometime in June’.

Anyway after I got off the phone I just cried and cried and cried and Scott texted me pretty much immediately after but we had been struggling because he needs this last lot of money from me to get off deployment and I am just fed up with helping and I still have doubts, but I was in such a sad surrendered place yesterday I just agreed to send it through, I am trying to control things less, I am trying to surrender more, it felt better than getting angry about being overrun all the time and always feeling I am the one who has to give, give, give, its not like he wont pay me back but its still very frightening for me.

The truth is some things make me so so sad. They just do. I cried a lot this morning too thinking of how my parents never really got to grow old together and have some time of just relaxing, they both worked so hard up until the time my father died in 1985 then Mum stopped work completely. One of my sisters crashed and burned from an aneurysm after overdoing things and my other sister has been on medication for so called ‘mania’ for years now and now all the life just seems to be squashed out of her. She is always so so sad but not crying when I speak to her, as an empath I feel my own sadness for sure but I am also sure some of what I feel at these times is also hers and well as our shared collective familial sadness. The good news was that the minute Scott and I connected via text my entire mood improved, it was getting later then and the afternoons are closing in as it draws closer and closer to the shortest day over here in Australia. I took Jasper out in the freezing cold for a good run around the oval and went to get some nice things for dinner.

I wish our society could allow sadness more of a place, for it seems to be that both joy and sorrow are both so deeply interconnected with each other, how would we know what sadness is, if we were not able to connect with what makes us happy? How would we know what peace means if we don’t know tension, conflict and stress and some stress is as part of life, for example the birth of a baby comes with great pain for the mother but also exquisite feelings of joy.

I wrote a poem about panic yesterday along this kind of theme and then this morning I read this line in my Tian Dayton daily reader The Soul Companion.

Though I may never hope to solve the mystery of life, sensing it will give my life a feeling of fullness. I am not here to explain but to experience life. Understanding comes more from direct experience than from collecting forms of knowledge.

These words are so true, how can we explain our deepest sadnesses? Are they not simply to be experienced? How often do we look for reasons without dealing with the feelings evoked? For example after 9/11 there was a rush to enact retribution in response to the attacks. After recent attacks there have been ongoing discussions about how they could possibly have been prevented.

Isn’t it far more important though that we fully feel the impact and know what horror results from malice, ill intent and hatred and yet these things go on in a world where people are hurting and don’t have the courage or capacity to sit with their own pain and know it intimately instead of lashing out. For sure it can be hard to sit with sadness but for some of us when we do life takes on a more meaningful and numinous quality and through this experience our soul comes alive and we are deepened, especially when we fully surrender.

After grieving deeply yesterday I really had a moment where the veils between worlds opened and I felt my mother’s spirit so close to me expressing all the love she has for my sis and I, she also told me not to fear and keep opening my heart to trust Scott. Is it any coincidence he and I connected just 4 months after Mum’s death at the end of 2017? Maybe. Maybe I will be meeting my soldier soon I really don’t know. I will keep you posted but one thing I know for sure what ever happens I will be okay because when I open my soul to my feelings where ever I am I find I am never totally alone and I am always home.