Emotions:

Emotions seem to be such slippery things sometimes. Especially while we are grieving, they are often much larger and occupy much more space within us than they may seem to do at first glance. Often, the deeper we explore the more we find. Emotions seem to be connected to each other as well. Often one triggers another and they can become entangled and then become even harder to understand or analyze and especially harder to heal in our grieving if we need to.

Tonight, let’s talk about Sadness… and Happiness…

The sadness in our grief (from We are Not our Grief notes):

“We are sad because we miss our loved ones and all the interactions and time we spent together. We are sad because we miss the things we did and said and were to each other, the things we will never get to do together or the things we will never get to do together again. We feel the sadness and loneliness of being without them filling their space in our daily lives.”

Sadness is a word we use constantly in talking about grief. It’s probably the most commonly mentioned emotion we associate with grief and grieving. Happiness is what I most often hear people say that they want to feel or to feel again.

Definitions:

Sadness: The condition or quality of being sad! 

Sad: Feeling or showing sorrow; unhappy.

These definitions of sad and sadness didn’t really tell me much. They don’t really come close to what I mean in my grief when I say I’m sad. They just feel like a very small way of defining something that was so large within my grieving heart and mind.

Sorrow:

• A feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others. 
• The outward expression of grief; lamentation. 
• Feel or display deep distress.

These definitions of sorrow come a lot closer to what I think of as sadness in my grief. 

Should we really say “we are sorrowful”?

Happy:

• Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. 

This too seems to me to be kind of a small definition of something we feel so strongly and miss so much in our grieving.

So here are lots of questions to address, first about sadness or “sorrowfulness” and then about happiness:

Let’s each find some of these questions that we resonate with, about both sadness and happiness, and talk about them here and then think about them later at home.

• So what do we mean (how would we define) and how or what do we feel when we say we are sad?
• Are we sure that what we are feeling is sadness or is it more than sadness?
• Is it more complex than one simple emotion by itself?
• What parts of us does sadness impact and what does it contain when we feel it? 
• Where does it live within us? 
• Is it something we can control? 
• Can we learn to not be sad or to be less sad? 
• Can we fix or heal sadness?

• What can we do in our healing journey to make our sadness “better” or less intense or less present in our hearts? 
• What have we already done?
• What can we do to heal the sadness? 
• What should we do to heal the sadness?
• Should we even try to heal the sadness? 
• Do we have to be sad forever?
• Is sadness such an integral part of grief that we are sad just because we are grieving and everything about our grief is sad and so makes us sad in a loop? 
• Is sadness an emotion we can find ways to alter or control or change over time? 
• Is it a betrayal of our love and our loved ones to not feel sad after awhile?
• Is it a betrayal of our love and our loved ones to not feel sad all the time?

• What are we sad about in our grief?  
• Are we sad for ourselves or are we sad for our loved ones?
• Are we sad about missing them?
• Are we sad about what happened to them?
• Are we sad about what happened to us? 
• Are we sad about all of these?
• Can we identify the places we find sadness within us in our grieving? 
• How does the sadness make us feel? 
• Is there guilt in sadness or in the lack of sadness?
• If it’s an emotion, is there a difference between what we think about sadness and what we feel when we say we are sad?

• Does sadness behave like the waves of grief, does it come and go, does it get stronger or less strong and over time, does it diminish? 
• Does it end? 
• Should it end? 
• What does it say about our grief and grieving if it does fade or diminish?
• What does it say about our grief and grieving if it doesn’t fade or diminish? 
• Again, is it a betrayal of our love and our loved ones as time goes by to not feel sadness as strongly or to eventually not feel sad at all or to feel it only rarely?
• Does sadness go on longer than the other emotions we feel within our grief?
• Does sadness go on beyond or longer than our grief itself?
• If so, will we be sad forever?
• What if it’s not that simple?

• What is the opposite of sadness??? 
• Is there a middle ground?
• What would we feel if we weren’t sad? 
• Is there something else that we might feel instead of sadness that isn’t it’s opposite?
• How can we replace sadness with whatever we want to feel instead of sadness?

• Is it happiness???
• Do we feel happiness at all now?
• What does happiness feel like now if we do feel it?
• Did happiness feel different before we became bereaved?
• What parts of us does happiness live in when/if we feel it?
• What do we mean when we say we are happy?
• Is there a difference between being happy and feeling happiness?
• Can we find things to be happy about now?
• Can we/will we ever be happy again?
• Can we be happy or feel happiness while we are grieving?
• Havewe felt moments of happiness even while we are grieving?
• Is there guilt in happiness or in feeling happy?
• What does that feel like?

• How often would we like to be happy now?
• How often did we feel happiness before we became bereaved?
• How often were we happy before we became bereaved?
• What things made us happy?
• What would or does make us feel happy now?
• Does anything make us happy at all now?
• What are we looking for that we think will make us happy or let us feel happiness?
• What would happiness feel like if we found it now/again?
• Can happiness replace sadness within our grief?

• Can we accept that the happiness we found/had with out loved ones won’t happen with them again?
• Do we want to accept it?
• Can happiness happen with someone else?
• What will we do about it either way?
• Can we find happiness alone?
• What does “find happiness” mean?
• Can we build new happy places in our lives?
• What would it take to make that happen?
• Can we find happiness or enough happiness with friends or family or in doing things we like to do or in doing new things in the next part of our lives?
• Where does joy fit in?
• How would that feel now?
• Is there guilt in joy if we feel it?
• Is joy more or less easily found than happiness?
• Can we feel joyful but not happy?

Others?