It's OK to be sad, isn't it?

Just when I thought I was ready to let go of the past and let Joy and happiness into my life, I was struck by another thought. I went for a walk and felt.. Sad, as per usual. I started to wonder - 'Is it really not OK to be sad, or could I find Joy in the freedom to be sad - the freedom to be me.'

I feel like I've been running a race, trying to get to and through the grieving process as quickly as possible. And now, I've realised it's because I feel I've been guilt tripped into believing there's something wrong with feeling sad.

Family and friends have always told me to 'not think about it/think positively/do something fun' to get over grief. I know they probably say these things because that's what they've been told, but this kind of advice doesn't work for me at all. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we shouldn't feel all our emotions.

I also believe there are things that some people are never going to 'get over', like abandonment, losing a loved one, illness.. We're probably always going to be reminded of those things, on birthdays and anniversaries, or every day if we're in pain, and OF COURSE, we're going to feel sad over all the losses we've experienced. What's wrong with that? I actually think feeling sad is a good thing - it means we've once cared about something or someone.

I don't want to have to pretend to be something I'm not - to feel something I don't! But I think I need to hear it from someone else, too, for it to 'come true' Then it won't really matter when someone thinks differently, I'll know the truth that works for me.

I think it's perfectly okay to feel sad once in a while as long as you don't start dwelling on it for too long.

Isn't sadness very close to happiness, like pain is to pleasure? I think I heard somewhere that explains why we can go so easily from one to the other. I believe it's perfectly okay to be sad, if it's just temporary, like JustJenny said.

Thanks for your input! Lazarus, that's what my therapist said as well

Do we really have any choice in how we feel?

Lefty the Salesman, that's such an interesting question!

I think we do.. When I first started therapy, even my therapist said we choose how we feel because we choose what we think - BUT..

The way I've always seen this is - we're born, then whatever happens happens, and we feel a certain way about it.

But then the people around us might get angry at us for feeling a certain way, or they may ignore us, or tell us to get over it, stop being wimps.. whatever - and we learn not to feel, and keep ourselves from feeling by thinking our feelings away. And I think that's potentially dangerous

Let's say we're in an abusive relationship later on - we feel the abuse is wrong, we're hurting - but we explain away the abuse by making excuses for the abuser, or even worse, thinking we're crazy! When all we need to do is listen to and believe our own feelings..

I guess that's my point - I want to get back to just feeling. Why should we explain our feelings away?

Haha, I knew I had heard that somewhere!

What you pointed out is true. As example, when people say bad things about Michael Jackson (that I love as an artist/human being), I rarely defend him because I know if I do, I'll get called a pedophile, a gay, all sort of mean things. I think we act this way to avoid confrontation, yet, that's the hardest in the healing process, to not avoid confrontation. But after re-reading, I believe I missed the point of your post. lol

If you want to just feel, go ahead and just feel! ^^' lol People may judge you but it's that not important to explain your feelings away, what's most important is that you live your life the way you want to live it, feeling how you want to feel. Let yourself decide how you should feel, not others. You'll make ennemies no doubt but you'll be more in peace with yourself, certainly.

Hope that helps. I'm not a therapist but I did my best. :P

Personally, I think a lot of problems arise when people don't allow themselves to feel whatever emotion they are compelled, by thoughts or circumstances, to feel. I think often as children we are told "Cheer up." or "Smile" or "So-and-so has it worse than you, so you should feel lucky." That right there, the "you should feel..." It gets ingrained into our heads and then as situations arise, we might feel a certain way about it, but the ever-present authoritative voices of our youths are whispering in our minds, "but you shouldn't feel this way." So we pretend we don't.

Then we start to have real problems. I think you should feel however it is you feel. Feel it fully at that moment. If you lose someone you love. Feel it. If you stubbed your toe and you are hurt and irritated, feel it. If you receive a kind, surprise note from someone in the mail, then relish that bit of happiness. If you watch a red leaf fall from a maple in the fall and you feel sad because winter is coming, that's okay. And alternately, when the bees start buzzing around the maple buds in early spring and you feel anticipation; that too is good.

I think if we all allowed our feelings to flow and change as naturally as the seasons and our lives do, we would all be a lot better off.

If someone else wants you to "be happy," then too bad for them. It's probably because they want to feed off your emotions. If you're sad, then they don't get the meal they want. They need to take charge of their own emotions and stop putting expectations on yours. Yours are none of their business, unless you choose to share.

Everybody seems to want everybody else to feel good, positive, happy. That's a nice notion, but completely unrealistic. And when we are all forcing smiles, but feel like our heart is crumbling to pieces inside, but we have to pretend to be happy so someone else feels better. Then not one person is actually being honest. They are all wearing masks. It happens all the time, and it is not healthy, IMO.

So if you feel sad today, feel sad. But when you see something that makes you, even for a moment ,feel a little happy, try to let that emotion in. Don't fight it. Feel happy about it. That's when you start throwing off the masks and living your life for you, not anybody else.

I think we should all feel sad, happy, angry in moderation. Our emotions are what make us human, after all. It is when one of those emotions overtakes us for an extended period of time that we need to step back and wonder why we feel the way we do (yes, even in cases of excessive happiness).

It's healthy to feel sad in moderation. Social standard that automatically equate sadness with weakness are unhealthy. For example, in grade school, I was bullied because I showed too much emotion and reacted too sensitively. Why should it be that way?

Sadness is a normal human emotion, yet only "acceptable" in times of grief or universal sorrow. But even if it's private or kept to one's self due to the judgmental world we exist in, it is healthy for us. Like "Inside Out", however, keeping our emotions in moderation is most ideal. It's when one of those emotions overtakes us or when numbness sets in that we must address it.

When I was growing up my mom would often treat my unhappiness as a problem to be solved. She didn't (or couldn't) just give me a hug or something. I wasn't really aware of it at the time, but I now realize that I felt rejected as a person for expressing how I felt. When you are sad or something you want the freedom to be sad, express it, and be accepted. Because I felt rejected personally, I feel like it's not ok to be myself emotionally. So I struggle to feel some emotions and express them, and feel ashamed when I do. The big problem with that is that I never learned how to feel them or express them in a healthy way. It's kind of hard to do that when you are 41. I need to feel sad, or whatever, but I can't feel it naturally in a healthy way, and I don't know how to show it appropriately. I figure the only way to learn is do my best, and not get down on myself if I get it wrong.

Nothing wrong with "feeling" sad, everybody does at some point for different reasons. There are plenty of things that make me feel really sad, for example.

However, you have to be careful not to "become" sad, and let sadness take over your life. Sadness is one of the ingredients of life's "spices". You put too much salt on your food, it becomes inedible. You let too much sadness into your life, it becomes unbearable.

That's my take on it.

Feelings aren't right or wrong, they simply...are.