Honestly, sadness should be one of your favorite emotions.

Case and point: The Pixar movie “Inside Out”.

Everyone is surprised by the impact Sadness has on the person of Riley. However, it is Sadness that allows others to come alongside Riley and show love, support, and connection.

Emotions are all about connecting the inside with the outside. We try to make sense of our experience of reality by this internal system of communication, even if it isn’t always a perfect.

It is important to keep these three things in mind when navigating sadness:

1) Emotions are complex and confusing. Reflect on your day and practice naming the emotions you’ve felt. For example, look for all the times you either felt mad, sad or glad. Building this vocabulary will help you process what you’re feeling.

2) We can shorten the lifespan of an emotional experience by accepting it when it arrives. Instead of trying to fight a feeling, validate it. Once accepted, the emotion will move through much more quickly.

3) We all want these good things… however, we aren’t always able to recognize them unless we first feel the absence of it. Sadness can help identify the good things you want for your life and so you can focus on them more clearly.

Overall, we can look at our relationship with sadness and ask ourselves if it tends to move us towards a good life.

If you feel stuck with this, it may be an indicator that you need additional support and to potentially meet with a counselor to help unpack things.

Sadness is a normal emotion. It is a part of our system of emotions. We can accept it and understand it wants to help us live a good life.