Building up self-esteem I: You are allowed to feel sad

 

 

Almost two months have passed since the breakup. I experienced lots of different emotions and mental states. First it was a complete sense of self dissociation, followed by fear, deep sadness and regret. After that I could only feel hatred and rage against my ex.

I was then away for a couple of days visiting old friends abroad. That trip was an excellent moment to experience and embrace different emotions, like joy, love, freedom, and happiness. Now that I am back home and restarted to work, sadness came back.

My first impulse was to deny it. Pretend it wasn’t there. And then I could only feel apathy. So yesterday I had this epiphany while talking to a friend. That to be alive is to experience all this palette of emotions. And when we deny ourselves the right of feeling the so called “negative emotions” we are also abdicating of feeling the ones that make us feel good. That’s when we start feeling depressed.

Suppressing our sadness, denying us the right to feel the melancholy caused by the separation and mourning, will keep us in a limbo where no feelings can be experienced.

I tend to associate sadness and its consequent isolation with suspending life, and probably I am not the only one thinking this way. Our society, based in action and pleasure, tells us that being alone, feeling sad, and being less productive is similar to be dead.

 

This is of course a false idea. We need to accept the emotions we are feeling, and allow ourselves to fully acknowledge and experience them. To feel what is happening in our bodies, giving free expression to the thoughts and images that come with this emotions, and accept that this is the way we feel now.

Also is important to note that emotion states are transient. So these feelings of deep sadness caused by loss will not be here forever. This only happens when we deny them, trapping them in our minds and body. In this way they will grow, drying our capacities to experience other kinds of emotions, and eventually in the future they will manifest in unrecognizable ways.    

You are not the same as your feelings. You don’t become a less valuable person because you are feeling low and want to spend more time on your own. You are exactly the same human being, but for now, as a consequence of a sad event that happened in your life you don’t feel so good and active as you used to. You need time in order to heal the wound.

So there are important things to be aware of while sharing our feelings with friends:

1.      You don’t need to be ashamed of your sadness and inactivity.

 

2.      Your friends will try to cheer you up and say for you to let go, because that is what is supposed and it’s also what our culture values. If you don’t need to be cheered up you must tell them you just need to express your sadness and be hear and understood.

3.      If you feel like having a hug, just ask for it.

4.      Don’t force yourself to be happy just for the sake of the people around you. I am not saying that you should always be complaining about what happened to you, or making other feel guilty for your misery,  but if you are feeling low you need to share it. If your friends keep wanting to deny your feelings maybe they are not really your friends, and are only people to be around when you are happy.

Image of girl crying was taken from here