Honoring Sadness

"Perhaps we would bear our sadness with greater trust than we have in our joys.  For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing."  - Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

My mother passed away about a month ago, in this time, I have experienced more sadness than usual.  I found solace in the above quote.  I notice I don't honor my sadness.  When I don't trust my sadness it becomes anger.  In those moments I fool myself into denying I was ever sad.

Some part of me believes a strong person doesn't get sad.  That trickster silently fools me into believing without conscious awareness that anger is my only strength and power. While I know that when I experience healthy anger it is truly strong and powerful, in these moments,  I watch, dumbfounded, as I  begin to destroy everything and every relationship in my path.

In sheer exhaustion and shame I scream inside the hollows of my soul, "What the hell!!"  I am quickly re-minded - Yes, indeed, I have powerfully created my own hell.

In that quiet moment of awareness, Wisdom's voice is heard and I re-member that true Strength does experience anger and is comprised of both joy and sadness.

"Sadness is the soul recognizing change." -M. Night Shyamalon

There is great change happening in my life.  Yes, Great Change.



Journal Prompt:  What feelings do you notice under your anger?

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