The 2 Ways of Expressing Sadness

“There are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among people, and those who prefer to be sad alone.”

— NICOLE KRAUSS

We have all resonated with sadness and, indeed, there are not many, if any, days that aren’t affected by even a tinge of sadness. It is the person who denies sadness who has the saddest case of all, for joy is truly qualified in being able to touch sadness and still be able to feel the touch of God.

Experiencing sadness and being able to hold that moment without judging it is a matter of emotional resilience; a courage known to the spiritual realm where we rally not against it, but let it exist as it is truthfully ours at the time.

As the quote, above, suggests we are one of two types of people, and perhaps we can relate with both depending on our mood state and situation.

Sharing Sadness with Others

There are times when our sadness is all too real and being with people helps us to escape. It’s okay to escape every now and then. And sometimes we can deal more effectively with our sadnesses when in the company of compassionate others.

There is a time and place where sadness is best experienced with other people and not alone, but sometimes being alone is the best possible remedy for what God might do in the sorrow.

Sadness Alone and Possibly Also with God

When words are no longer any good to us in our sadness we gain solace from being pitiful in our aloneness—when sobbing holds sway. Times like this, sobbing is all we have left, yet it’s a tremendous faculty of emotional means.

Sobbing is a human competency; it is really best practiced by both women and men. There is nothing wrong with it and, indeed, sobbing connects us with our inner selves and with God, when, through prayer, we have access to the Presence of God via our consciousness for the Divine.

Extracting the Joy in Sadness

It is a spiritual truth that there is joy in sadness if we can subsist in it without any sadistic pleasure. When we know we can survive through a purging sadness, where the emotion doesn’t break us clean in half; so where we can just sit with it, we can begin with God to process the sadness in order to extract the joy from it; wherever it might be or however it might be sourced. God can show us much we could not previously anticipate knowing.

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We express our sadness either alone or in company; by dealing with it or denying it.

There is a time and place and circumstance that are right: this moment. Not judging the moment is key. Letting the sadness be, as something to touch or something to leave alone, is the key.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.