The goal is to be happy. To be good. We are taught that negative emotion shouldn’t exist. That it can be fixed. That it can be fixed by something external.

Some of us may even use the goal to be happy against ourselves. For example: thinking something like I’m not happy so there must be something wrong with me. We socialize people to think this from such a young age.

Here’s and example. Mom says to her child that’s crying “What’s wrong?” Which indicates to the child that If you’re crying, something is wrong. That sentence alone….if you do nothing more will create a cue in their brain moving forward that crying means something is wrong.

Ok, Darbi…so what do I say? I would say ”What’s going on?” This simple shift will keep your brain from assuming something has gone wrong and allow you to listen with less bias. It will also allow your child, or whomever is coming to you crying, to explain what’s going on without thinking something has gone wrong because they are crying.

Let’s say the crying individual is a friend. I can say “What’s wrong” or I can say “What’s going on?”. Do you sense the difference between the two questions? Lets say that friend tells you their year long relationship just broke up. I’m not saying you don’t sympathize with your friend but I would recommend that you don’t jump right into…that’s so sad and go through all the reasons that person who broke up with them is the worst. Sometimes we try to tear the other person down in an attempt to help our hurting friend. We start to attack the person we think is causing the pain. Which is misdirected because we know that we are the decider of our thoughts and therefore feelings.

I would mourn with them and allow them to cry as long as they need to and want to. I would let them know that being sad is ok. Sometimes we choose to feel sad.

It’s not necessary to move to happiness right away.

Let them stay in their own emotion without trying to pull them out in any direction.

We also see situations where the supportive friend insists that they do something to make the sad person happy. We want to do something that helps them forget or take their mind off the problem that they perceive.

You’ve heard it and seen it. “Oh man, you’re sad, let’s go out for ice cream, let’s go get drinks, I’ll help you run away from the pain.”

I would argue that a true friend allows the pain and sits in the pain with them. I would say a healthy processing of those emotions would be to sit in them and allow them all the way through. I would suggest avoiding the grab for what we call a buffer.

A buffer is anything we would use to numb an emotion and has a net negative effect.

Just be there. Help them to allow the emotion. Let them know that being sad is totally fine here. Just get curious with them.

I want to make this super clear and my hope is that this gives you a sense of relief. There is no good without bad and happy without sad.

It’s totally normal to be sad, dissatisfied, lonely, bored, etc.

The world is not supposed to be good all the time.

If you find yourself a depressed about how things turned out, that’s ok. We all feel that at different times in our life. This does not meant that something has gone wrong.

This is life.

It’s supposed to suck sometimes and good sometimes.

Don’t try to run away.

Now…when you’re ready to think differently you can go back to the knowledge that your thoughts create your feelings. If you can’t think a thought that jumps right to happiness from sad, that’s ok. It’s a process. Have some grace for yourself and others. Let it be uncomfortable. It’s ok....continued.