#FridayFacts Feel Our Feelings

Most of us understandably want to avoid sadness. Yet refusing to face it in ourselves and others is both dangerous and impossible.

We cannot selectively censor our feelings so that we only ever feel the pleasant ones. Even trying to turn away from sadness often leaves us with little capacity to embrace happiness when it stares us in the face. In detaching ourselves from sorrow, both our own and that of others, we also separate ourselves from joy.

So, I’m reminding myself today not to be a cheerleader for only times of positivity or only to identify with the most positive feelings. A real if full of ups and downs. Rather than pretending my own sorrow doesn’t exist or avoiding the sadness of my mates out of fear of succumbing to sorrow myself, I’m going to feel my feelings and good or bad, I’m going to share in feelings of my mates. Together we will plunge into the pleasures of life and the pain.