Professor Sadness

Blooming Season Family, how are you feeling? How was your week? 

Mine kind of sucked to be honest. 

I feel like I’ve been dragging myself through my to do list. 

I wept on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Multiple times. 

My body ran out of tears by Thursday. 

If you were to ask me what was wrong, I’d say that I felt overwhelmed with sadness and that’s the only way I can explain it. 

I just felt sad. 

When I’m in the moment, experiencing sadness, I tend to forget that all of my emotions exist to communicate messages to me. 

So, the stronger the feeling = the stronger the message/the gift. 

That sounds very cute and everything but in the thick of the feeling I am not even thinking about that, I’m just blowing my boogers and grabbing more tissues. 

BUT now that I’m not weeping, I can look back and try to understand why I was feeling so much heaviness. 

One of the things can came to mind, after the weeping, was my favorite book called, “Letters To A Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke. 

The writer has a very interesting way to describe our relationship with sadness and I’m going to share some of this writer’s beautiful mind with you guys: 

“Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outwork of our divining, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent” 

“I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.” 

“For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more, —is already in our blood.” 

What a writer, right?!

He was able to perfectly paint the quiet transaction between our hearts and sadness. 

Sadness deepens our soul. 

Sadness forces us to sit very still.

Sadness seems to stop the globe from spinning for just a moment while our heart expands to make room for something new. 

Once again, this sounds cute but my goodness, earlier this week as I wept, I did not think of these things and I did not find the beauty. 

It was only after the tears dried that I was able to look back and see what sadness left for me. 

If you were to ask me, “what did sadness leave you?” 

I would say, “Sadness left me awareness, sadness left me poetry, sadness left me melodies, sadness left me mercy, sadness left me empathy for my fellow humans that are hurting, sadness left me with a silence so quiet that it uncovered old unattended wounds that never healed.” 

Sadness came and commanded my complete attention. 

I had to stop everything, fall to my knees and let sadness wash over me. 

It’s waves crashed onto me, knocked me out and rushed into the pores of my skin. 

Sadness left me with less layers. 

It unraveled me. 

Do I invite sadness into my life? No.

Can I avoid it when it comes? Well, I can try and numb myself with distractions. (Which I do many times) 

But this time, I surrendered and I’m better for it. 

That’s all I want to share this week my friends. 

If you’re feeling sadness, do not fear the thunderous professor because what is human nature without a little bit of rain? 

I am sending you all so much love and hope and strength for whatever season you’re in. 

We’ve got this. 

One day at a time. 

Breathe in deep. 

One day at a time.