Hello hello my name is Sabrina Amina I am the host of the feelings pod it's a
podcast where we discuss feelings and ways to use mindfulness to navigate
those feelings. Today's episode is on sadness, heartache, whatever word you use
to describe the feeling. When you're down in the dumps maybe you want to cry
maybe you want to crawl under the covers and hide maybe you want to scream
maybe you just need a hug or a warm bath or a warm meal. Sadness comes up
sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes for very obvious reasons and something I've
learned about my sadness is it helps not to pathologize my sadness and what
I mean by that is basically if I'm sad it doesn't mean that there's anything
wrong with me and one of the most important things that we can understand
from tuning into our emotions is that all of these emotions are information for
us. The most difficult emotions are hard to sit with they're hard to be with and
the reason I'm so passionate about mindfulness and sharing this practice
is because it allows you to be with so many of the difficult parts of being
human. It makes it somewhat more bearable not necessarily easier but it feels
like a really handy tool for just getting through it somehow. And actually I
wouldn't even say it's getting through it it's being with mindfulness is
really a practice of being with whatever is and if that feeling is sadness
well get curious about the sadness. For a period of time I it may come as no
surprise to you that someone who likes talking about their feelings really
enjoys therapy so for a period of time when I was seeing my therapist I was
always giving myself a hard time and saying I hate always being the sad girl
I hate always coming in here and being sad so I was I was really harshly
judging my sadness and my depression and I wanted to be different I wanted to be
happy I wanted to not be sad anymore and you can't really wish away emotions you
can try your best to squash them and repress them but at this point we all
pretty much know that one way or another those feelings are gonna find a way of
coming out sideways and your sadness can fester turn into grief and rage and I
don't know where your sadness goes but that's my sadness you know if I don't
make space for it if I don't honor it if I don't name it if I don't sit with it
if I don't ask it hey sadness what are you trying to communicate to me
sometimes it has an answer and sometimes it doesn't sometimes sadness will just
come up in a moment of exhaustion just the body is tired the body has nothing
more to give and sometimes when there's a very obvious reason for the sadness it's
probably really normal to be sad in certain circumstances so why is it that
we don't allow ourselves that time to just be sad I have a couple of thoughts
on this growing up I never felt like sadness was really acceptable right like
no one wants to be around the sad person but on the other hand you know if you
have parents who are attentive and caring and you know emotionally in tune
with your emotions and feelings maybe sadness was a way of getting attention
maybe being expressive about your sadness was a way to find care in some way
I'm not sure sadness is still something that I struggle with in terms of allowing
myself to sit with it I want to run away from it I don't want to be with my
sadness but I almost always feel a little bit better when I when I look at it
and it's not a conscious decision it's not like oh I'm sad and I'm going to
ignore my sadness sometimes it just creeps up and so coming back to the
mindfulness practice having time every day to just sit quietly and tune into
the body tune into the emotions tune into the thoughts tuning into the breath
in that practice in that silence in that moment of pause that gives us an
opportunity to notice hmm yeah there's sadness here
what is this sadness trying to communicate is there a need here that's
not being met how can I offer myself more of what I need maybe the sadness
just needs to be witnessed maybe it just needs to be held
acknowledged I think sometimes there's also shame that comes around difficult
emotions you have a certain pride and you don't want to feel sad about certain
things maybe you were insulted maybe someone said something to you that was
really hurtful and it's hard to admit when someone caused you harm in a way
that really affected you for example sometimes I get angry with myself for
allowing someone to hurt my feelings I'm like why am I so upset about this I get
really worked up about it and I I try to make sense of it but you can't really
rationalize feelings you can't really talk yourself out of feelings you really
just have to let yourself feel them and I I say this as someone who's getting
better at the practice of feeling feelings labeling them naming them
recognizing them getting more familiar with how they feel in my body because
when you start to recognize a feeling like sadness and understand where it
manifests itself in in your body sometimes your body will give you the
hint before your mind be like oh here's that heavy feeling at the bottom of my
throat I guess I'm feeling sad right now you know and in our busyness in our
daily lives in the work that we do sometimes there's just not a lot of
room for being with feelings sometimes you just have to get through sometimes
you just have to shut it off and just for the sake of getting things done but
eventually we do have to come back to our practice and be with what is and
learn to get more familiar with the way that we feel I will say one last thing
before we get into our practice today and and that is I find I'm a K-12
educator I used to teach kindergarten and first grade and then I moved to
teaching high school students and one of the the biggest differences I noticed is
just how much less importance is given to students emotional lives as they get
older we're so much more tender and nurturing for children at a younger age
and I imagine that tenderness starts to taper off probably as early as third and
fourth grade so yeah even having language to name some of our emotions is
that education ends so early it seems and so it's kind of on us to to develop
our own language around our emotions and our feelings and our just thought just
the way that we experience this life it's wild and wondrous life
okay so here's a short practice for being with sadness today and if you're not
sitting with sadness you can sit with anything that's coming up for you right
now just find a comfortable seat start tuning into the breath notice the inhale
and the exhale and as you follow the breath bring your attention to the body
notice the top of your head bring that awareness to your forehead your eyes let
all the muscles in your face relax bring your attention down to your shoulders
and your neck noticing the throat and the heart space noticing the upper arms
elbows forearms in your hands your ten fingers take a moment rub the hands
together until you feel a little bit of warmth and then gently place your hands
over the heart and breathe into the space take a deep breath in and let it go
as you sit with your hands over the heart bring to mind any emotions that are
most prominent for you in this moment label the emotion and start to notice
if you feel it in any particular place in the body there may not be a physical
manifestation of the emotion it might just be something in the mind and if
that's the case just observe it notice where it goes notice the texture of it
notice the shape of it notice the intensity take a deep breath in and let
it go when you're ready you can open the eyes come back to your space and give
yourself a little bit of love and credit for taking care of yourself today
you're doing great have a beautiful day