Sadness, a powerful agent of change, how to manage it?

Once I was asked a question in a coaching dynamic, it was the following:

“Imagine that you are a group of people you don't know and you have to catch a bus, but one person has to stay because there is no room. Without knowing anyone, who would you leave out and why?

My answer was: “someone who was negative”. And they told me: “that answer says about you, the negativity has to do with you”. I got upset and said: "What's up! But if I am the opposite of negative!

I kept thinking for days about this dynamic, I didn't know very well what it meant that the negativity had to do with me, but what I did know and I realized is that it had bothered me a lot that they told me that. And that made me understand that indeed something would have to do with me.

I reflected on it and understood what was happening to me: “I had not allowed myself to experience negativity in my life“. And not only that, but I had not allowed myself to live normally the "bad calls" (from my point of view) "negative emotions".

Without having received emotional management training, what I received from our society was that you couldn't cry, that you couldn't be weak, etc. It seemed that these kinds of feelings were negative and therefore I should not accept them in my life. So I trained myself to always be strong, to avoid bad times, hide them in a drawer in my brain and always look ahead.

I did not allow myself to live the sadness, one of those that some people call “negative emotions”. I hid it, like in the movie "Inside & Out", I didn't want it to appear.

When I trained in emotional management I learned that Emotions are information that lead us to action. And that all emotions are necessary, that there are no negative or positive emotions, but what is negative or positive is the information we get from emotions. 

So I realized that in my life I had not allowed myself to hear the voice of sadness, I had not allowed myself to hear what it wanted to tell me.  I am sure that listening to sadness on many occasions would have helped me to take action in situations that were necessary.

Luckily now I do allow myself to feel the sadness, I let it flow, I listen to it and get the useful information that allows me to take action.

A few months ago I went through personal moments of great difficulty, and I allowed myself to feel what I was feeling, the sadness.

I got ready to listen to her, I knew she had something important to tell me, to help me, like all emotions (yes, all emotions, that's why I don't like to talk about negative emotions, all emotions have something to tell us to help us, that is the magic of emotional management, extracting useful information from it and knowing how to take action); so I did a self-coaching process.

I asked myself the questions and answered them by writing on a piece of paper, this is what I wrote:

What form does sadness have? For me, sadness is shaped like a big, tight knot.

In which part of the body do you feel sadness? I feel it on my sternum, I feel it squeeze me.

What color is sadness? it's black

If sadness were an animal, what would it be? If it were an animal, it would be a puppy stretched out with its head resting between its two front paws, with sad eyes, at the side of the bed of its master, its traveling companion, stretched out sick in bed. The puppy feels resigned and does what he thinks is in his hands to do: company with love and affection.

If sadness were a painting, what would it be? It would be a painting of a landscape of grayish tones. In the landscape, some trees would be visualized on the left, with leaves but few, a path in the center, flat and long and without being able to see the destination, and on the right an abandoned house. There are no animals or people in the painting. The sky is clear, there are no nines, but it is grey.

If sadness were music, what would it be? Without a doubt I feel that music inside me, it is a piece of piano music by Ludovico Einaudi, it is a sad but beautiful piece for me, sad but calm… it is the piece “I Giorni”.

Then I set out to analyze all this information, what was sadness telling me?:

What does it mean that sadness has the shape of a knot? It tells me that I have several things that have arisen at the same time and that I feel that I am making a difficult mess to manage. It makes me see that I need to stop to put order to that knot, point by point, step by step, calmly, without nerves to be able to undo the knot properly.

What form would you like sadness to have? I would like them to be threads a little united but loose. In fact I imagine a certain breeze and the threads floating with the breeze of air. This tells me that I know that problems and difficult situations will continue, but each one will be managed on their own, calmly, flowing.

What does it mean that you feel sadness in the sternum?  It makes me think that it's not just about heart issues, that it's also about operational issues (I don't really know how to define this typology of aspects and it has come up operational, I suppose because it has to do with the fact that they depend on my actions to manage them and not only of acceptance, as it could be for me a matter of the heart).

In which part of the body would you like to feel sadness? In the heart, yes, I think in the heart. Because I know that if it is in my heart I will have done everything I could and with love and affection I will say goodbye to sadness to give way to joy.

What does it mean that sadness is the musical piece of “I Giorni” by Ludovico Einaudi? It means that sadness is not hard, it is sad but it is beautiful, it has a sweet and hopeful melody.

What piece of music would you like sadness to be? No doubt this, the same, the one I feel. It is a piece of music that inspires me, that I listen to when I need to be with myself.

What does the puppy metaphor mean? The puppy is a companion animal, and that is what it does, accompany its sick master with love and affection. He does what he knows and can do, with acceptance and resignation. This indicates to me that I must accept that there are things that are not in my hands and that I must understand that I am doing what I can.

What does the metaphor of the painting mean? The first thing that comes to mind is that the painting lacks light and color, probably it has to do with how I feel. It is a lonely landscape, devoid of animal and human life, and it is curious, far from being something unpleasant, I feel that it transmits peace and tranquility to me. How important peace is to me! The long road with no visible destination is how I feel... I am experiencing moments of change in many areas of my life, and although I know what destination I want as the next stop on my journey, I still cannot see the stop, although I know it is there. The road is long but it is flat, I know what I can achieve. The abandoned house has its charm in the painting and I don't want to see it in any other way than with light and color. This indicates to me that there are things that I should leave behind and put light and color in that step.

What does sadness want to tell you with all this information? Sadness is telling me that I have several situations to solve, but that wanting to solve everything now, all of a sudden, is not helping me. That each one of the situations requires different actions and that I cannot pretend to do everything at once, that I must go step by step, that the road is long but feasible. Sadness is telling me, prioritize, focus, and step by step you will achieve it.

What would you like to say to sadness? Thank you, thank you for being there. Thank you for wanting to help me put a pause, to put order in my life. Now, if you allow me, I'm going to focus on solving these actions and for now I don't need you anymore. Thanks again.

What does sadness answer you? Thank you, thank you for accepting me, for letting me express what I want to tell you. I know that now you don't need me anymore, now draw your energy to take action.

………

I listened to the sadness, I allowed myself to go step by step, and although there are still situations to be resolved, I feel how they are evolving: that little dog with sad eyes stretched out next to the bed of his sick friend is now smiling because thanks to his affection and love the master is healing, that painting of grayish tones and with a long road with no destination now has colors and a huge sun that lights up the end of the road.

This exercise I did I wanted to share it, as always, in case it can inspire or help even one person. It is not a simple exercise, listening to our emotions is not easy, therefore metaphors can help us interpret what is happening to us.

Being sad is not negative, sadness is not a negative emotion, the negative is not letting it appear or not extracting information that helps us.

Allow yourself to listen to the sadness by extracting useful information from it, sadness is a powerful agent of change.