Happy Sadness

Since we started last post talking about a happy mind I figured I'd share my other big revelation from taking Landmark coursework. To set the scene it's the Advanced Course weekend and that Friday night they give you this big buildup that we'll end the night doing an exercise they guarantee tens of thousands of people have done and NO ONE has ever not disappeared whatever they are suffering about. They ask us to write down the one thing we have the most suffering about and that is what we will focus on in the exercise. Now you already know this was a super shitty year for me so I had lots to choose from but I decided I would focus on this relationship I couldn't get over that I was sad sad sad about. 

I will respect the process and not give it away, other than to say once you and your partner dissolve your suffering you are free to leave for the night. Cut to me, and my partner had already an hour before resolved her suffering and so they put me with different partner. Another hour or so passes and I'm still not only deep in the suffering but have a throbbing headache because I was crying so hard and had worked up so much (sorry for this visual) snot that I had gone through almost an entire box of kleenex and still could not resolve it. I'm now the sole sufferer left and they have no idea what to do with me. Did I mention in the thousands and thousands over decades and decades they had been doing this no one to my instructors' knowledge had ever not resolved their suffering?

Well I know I'm gifted and all, but this was not what I wanted to be a champion at... 😫

So after some whispers in the corner they share that I would need to go home and they would have to help me again in the morning since it was late and they weren't sure what to do with me.

On the drive home I'm now suffering about how great and overwhelming my suffering is! 

Well as often happens with my unresolved issues, I awake at 3am with the answer:

Suffering is when we try to stop our sadness from being fully felt. 

I got this image of a box on a shelf and that we suffer when we try not to be sad about something ever again instead of putting it on a shelf and then taking it down and being sad whenever we needed to be sad. Suffering is resisting our sadness. Suffering is trying to numb our pain instead of feeling it. 

It wasn't that I was never going to sad about something ever again, but that I didn't need to carry it with me. I could actually put it down and not drag it around like an anchor.

What a revelation and relief! Life has sadness and sometimes it feels good to be with it and get a good cry in and feel the loss. And then we can put it back where it belongs and not lead with it and not sprinkle it on our current happy life. I now don't avoid being sad, I feel what I'm feeling and sometimes I cry out, and even wallow in, how much I miss Chris and Ted or wish my Nonne was here to make tortellini with.

To love deeply leaves scars but they are better than never having had the experience. I can actually be happy when I get to be sad because I know it means someone and something was that important to me. Love is sometimes going to be sad and that's OK. Be happy we have the capacity to know and feel it at all.

When I went back the next morning I was greeted with concern and kindness and then relief that I had figured out how to release my own suffering. I hope to save you the suffering you might be doing about your own suffering now that you see how happy we can be to be sad sometimes. Keep your sadness as long as it takes, and as close as you need to. But I offer up that it doesn't need you to keep it with you. 

No one you love would want you to suffer in their absence (whether because of death or circumstance), it would not be their wish to be the source of your pain. You know they would want you to live a happy life in their honor not in your darkness. Not to mention, if your suffering isn't about love but about trauma that was done to you, be clear... nothing that was done to you is worth stealing your present and future joy. Feel your sadness, and then take a deep long breath, add a loud sigh if called for, and then release it until you're ready to be with it again. And if it is still deep inside and clinging to you, please get help to put it in its proper place and free yourself of that burden.  

Time has healed most of my wounds but sometimes when I need a good cry I'm happy that I loved a few deeply enough to be worthy of my tears. 

I hope you take the time to feel your sad tears as well and they bring you some relief. And when you're ready, that they dry and you can get back to a Happy Happy life. 

Scheduling Your Suffering & Sadness

Yesterday I got sucked in... I heard about the bombing at the Boston Marathon and turned on the news and couldn't turn away for a full four hours. My friend Karyn was running the marathon and just last week we were talking about how excited and nervous she was, so to think she might have been in the area when the bomb went off was terrifying. She and her family are safe but I couldn't help think about all the people who were injured and the families and friends waiting to find out if they were ok.

Last night I had to take a shower at 7pm just to wash the ickiness of the worry and sadness off of me. Luckily today it is sunny and I haven't had the tv on yet and have limited my online exposure to the aftermaths. The people affected will live with the nightmare for weeks, months, probably their lifetimes, but for the rest of us we must get back to our lives. Giving blood, donations, checking in with loved ones are all good things to do but we can't get stuck in fear and sadness and let evil, tragedy, and negativity invade the rest of our lives.


Thinking about this reminded me of when my Nonne was dying. She was totally aware she had only a little time left to live and it was within months of my sister's wedding. She was sick the weekend of my sister's shower and when we thought of rescheduling or someone staying with her she said: always go to the happy event. Her philosophy was that we should never give up happiness to wallow in sadness. We took lots of pictures of the beautiful, fun, happy shower and she loved seeing them.

Later that same year I was taking a Landmark Education course and there is an exercise they do were you write down something you are suffering about and they guarantee by the time you complete the exercise your suffering will be gone. I won't give away the details but let's just say at the end of the night I was the only one left still suffering about something and the instructors had no idea what to do with me-- apparently no one had ever not stopped their suffering. What can I say, I'm gifted!

Anyway, on my drive home I am now suffering about how my suffering is so extraordinary that it can't be resolved. I climb into bed exhausted and of course as it almost always does my mind woke me up at 3 a.m. with the answer. Life isn't about not having sadness and suffering in it, it's about understanding why we're in pain and putting it in its proper place. The image came to me of boxes on a shelf that you can't ever get rid of but that you take out and "play" with when you want or need to think about something or someone then you put them back when you're tired of being sad.

The bottom line is if we thought about all the tragedy in the world we would never get out of bed. Yet, if we ignore the suffering and sadness that life has handed us we'll numb ourselves to the joys too. We need to feel things, we need to be sad, occasionally it is good to suffer a little. So schedule yourself some time for a good cry, a sad movie, a date with Ben & Jerry, or give in when the world is in mourning. And when you're done then it's time to put it where it belongs and get to the party. Go to the happy! Because that's what we're here for and that's what our Nonnes, and anyone who loves us, hell... humanity needs and wants for us.

UPDATE: Here's Karyn's post about her experience at marathon: http://t.co/fNcsdnSw4P