Allowing a Voice

I don’t think that I, or anyone, consciously choose to experience the emotions of sadness and grief, but I have learned to allow them in and to let them do their job. This hasn’t been easy nor did I get to this point quickly. I resisted this for a very long time. Why couldn’t things just be happy and joyful? I wanted to hold onto those and did not want to let go.

The thing is, emotions are meant to move. E-motion. Move out, remove, to move, a moving are all used to define emotion. Resistance and holding on are not. Bummer.

Why allow sadness and grief a voice? Just let it move on through. Although emotions should be moving, they also arise for you to experience them. Experiencing them takes a little (and sometimes a lot) of time. This can be difficult if you don’t understand all of what an emotion has to offer. The gifts they bring.

Sadness

Sadness brings release, grounding, relaxation and even renewal. Yep, you read that correctly. Sadness arises when it is time to let go of those things that no longer serve you and truthful aren’t working anyway. By letting go, you experience a renewal and then the space with which to find what does serve you. I am not trying to say this is easy to do. It gets easier the more you do it but it can be really hard to let things go, especially things that did serve you at one time. If we all held onto our beloved first tricycle, we would never know the joy of a bicycle. And if we never let go of that bicycle, we would never know the joy of that first car. It all flows.

Grief

Grief is similar to sadness but it arises when a death occurs, either in the death of someone or the death of something very important to us (a relationship or a dream). Grief can take some time as it really isn’t about losing something that wasn’t working anyway but about losing something that had very deep meaning to you and it isn’t coming back. There is an entire Grief cycle that should be honored and a transition that must happen in order for you to live fully. (For more information simply search Stages of the Grief Cycle and numerous articles and images will appear.)

Why Emotions?

You may ask, why did I choose to write about these two emotions…because they have helped me tremendously. I tend to get stuck. I can find the good in pretty much anything and I know how to set boundaries and that can make it easy to collect a whole bunch of things because I can make them work. The thing is, it gets harder and harder to carry around so much extra baggage. Sadness helps me release what isn’t really working for me and grief helps me to allow new dreams and ideas to emerge because the old were really already dead, I was just dragging them around.

It has also been very helpful for me to practice this in my physical world. It helps to keep my home and work space clutter free. If you can release stuff (papers, books, clothes, trinkets, etc.) that aren’t working anymore, it is easier to release thoughts and ideas that aren’t working anymore. If you can move through the grief cycle and experience it all, you can become more empowered and you will be able to live more fully here and now. Honor what is lost but don’t let it take you with it. Let it go.

Interestingly, sadness and grief are often thoughts of in terms of water. Each requires fluidity. Both often include tears. Water needs to continuously flow or it becomes stagnant and becomes a breeding ground for bacteria and parasites. Take the time to release and to release completely. Let yourself be rejuvenated. Sadness and grief are just the emotions to get the job done.