The Way To Relating: Sadness Versus Chronic Depression

From the simplest place in your open mind you can definitely relate to how you feel when you feel sad. From here you have the opportunity to give your partner the space to express this natural emotion. You don’t have to own their sadness for them but you can encourage them to expel it from themselves. If you did this, imagine the freedom your relationship could have. If you tell your partner in any way they are wrong, all that happens is the natural emotion gets repressed, it turns into an unnatural phenomenon with resentment being the catalyst to destroy the relationship. Keep in mind there is no harm to sadness. Someone’s sadness is not an affront against you. It is a natural emotion that only wants or desires to pass through, so it can be released. It is not meant to be repressed and marry up with resentment. Resentment is a chronic emotional state that gets re-sent (resent) back into the relationship. Relief from resentment only comes from expression.

The time it takes for an emotion to pass through will be quickened if we can express the first emotion. If you cannot express it to a partner then maybe this isn’t the right partner. However, even if you cannot express yourself in a relationship, no one really needs to validate your emotional state other than you. If you are certain and comfortable in your emotions others will naturally sense this in you, and take you more seriously. The great thing about the first feeling is that it is simple. Someone asks you what is wrong and you say “I feel sad.” Further explanation is not necessary. When we feel our feelings are going to bother someone else, we jump up, say too much, become too emotional, and try and prove our feelings and their rightness, then no one takes us seriously. We look like an insecure chaos center and people turn us off. The first feeling for us is the raw truth. If something is real for us, state it simply. Simple phrases with deep meaning give our natural truths a sense of dignity. They are quiet and easy for the other to understand. The simple is always easier to relate to when it comes to emotions and feelings. Arguing, proving, yelling, tantruming, stomping are all loud, and the problem is… no one will want to relate to you.

At the end of the day, the sadness response is still your response and you are responsible for it. When it is obvious the other is not going to take any action to help in the clean-up of the sadness mess, you are still responsible to clear your sadness. Why, because we can clear anything without the approval of the other, once we can look at the genuineness and honesty of our first response. We can begin to see what makes us sad may not make another sad, and we can validate for ourselves why and how the sadness got triggered. Knowing yourself on this level will help you to help another relate to your feelings. Knowing your own responses helps you to deepen your relationship within yourself and to better represent yourself in the emotional world.

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