Does being mindful mean you can’t be sad?
Being more than our sorrow
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."
~ Khalil Gibran
I feel ever so sad this week. About so many things.
The floods in Chiang Mai, Thailand, that have swept away people and their homes, and many of the elephants in the sanctuary. About the people in America losing their homes, livelihoods and lives to hurricanes. About the trees and animals destroyed by them too. About not having a home and having to leave where we’re from, and where all our loved ones are, if my husband and I are to ever afford one. About the 360,000 people in the UK who are homeless.
About my sister-in-law being critically ill and her condition worsening with every treatment she’s given. That Western medicine doesn’t look for the root cause of her issues, which have been ongoing since she was a teenager, but focuses on the symptoms and has just drugged her to suppress them for the past 45 years. That everyone in our family dismisses “alternative medicine” as quackery and thinks my husband and I are deluded and weird for using it and encouraging them to use it too.
About the division and competition at the heart of our societies that keeps us all disconnected from each other, from our planet and our true nature. That money and material objects are said to have more value than human life and the natural world. I could keep going here with the many things my mind has found to be sad about this week.
So no, having a mindfulness practice doesn’t mean you can’t be sad. It’s okay and normal to feel all the emotions you’ve always felt and you will always still feel them. It just changes how you process them. Before I would get consumed by the sadness. It would take over everything and I’d be unable to find joy in anything. I’d fixate on all the different things there were to be upset about and they would layer and layer and layer on top of each other until I was completely weighted down by them all. I would cry for days.
Now, alongside the sadness that has been ever present this week, my mindfulness practice means I can still recognise the joy of being alive in the first place to experience it all.
“Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful…How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural–you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”
~ Thich Nhat Hahn
So even though I’ve been sad, am sad, I have still smiled and laughed, I’ve run and jumped and danced and sang. As I am more than my sorrow even though it has been strong this week. And because through mindfulness I now realise that it’s okay to still feel joy when there’s so many terrible things happening in the world. Because even though all of the suffering is going on, at the same time life is filled with love and beauty and laughter.
"I will find new meaning in every joy and sorrow."
~ Rumi
I believe that the more joy we all project out into the universe, the more we have to draw on so we can help others when they need it, and ourselves too. When our sorrow is at its peak. So yes, I’m sad and I’m mindful of those feelings, but I’m happy too.
What about you? Has mindfulness helped you to manage sadness, and happiness, differently? I’d love to hear about your experiences.
With love,
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Such a timely piece, Amanda. My nature has always leaned towards melancholy. Through my practices, mindfulness included in my spiritual survival kit, I've learned to live in that paradox of joy and sadness. And still, it is hard to witness and feel into the pain of others. I sometimes wonder where I'd be without the practice.
After a lifetime of running, I'm so grateful to be able to feel...all of it and to be able to feel for others. It's taken me my whole life to truly see that I'm not the center of the universe, yet in a way ~ a very special, unique, loving way, I am ~ as long as I remember I am the faucet, not the water.