Research Paper: The Importance Of Sadness To Growth

What does it feel like? Yes, again, it feels like you’re relaxing. It feels like you’re lying back. You lose your tight grip on life. You lose your desire for things to be other than what they are.6

We realise even though these things are true, it is okay. We are still alive and still have choice. This is extremely liberating. This one of the gifts of sadness. There are lots more. Deep sadness and despair can lead to profound spiritual transformation. We have heard so many stories of people finding God in the depths of their despair. One such example is described of Leo Tolstoy, by James, in the Varieties of Religious Experience. He describes Tolstoy reaching a height of his life, career, wealth and fame at the age of fifty and suddenly falling into despair, seeing it all as meaningless, transitory and wondering what was the point in his existence. Tolstoy was in this state for a year, contemplating suicide daily, but throughout his melancholy, he experienced a feeling he could only describe as a ‘pining for God.’ Following this new feeling, finally led to his recovery, transformation and birth of an amazingly influential philosophy that has inspired people ever since.7

In our moments of sadness we find ourselves undone, weak, vulnerable, uncertain, in need – all the things we despise the most. And here is our opportunity to truly practise self-love. In her talk, The Power of Vulnerability, when speaking about how to relate to a newborn child, a human at its most vulnerable, Brown says:

Our job is not to say,

Look at her she’s perfect, my job is just to keep her perfect.

Our job is to say,

You are imperfect and you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.8

It is only in the depth of sadness, in our deepest vulnerability that we have the opportunity to say this to ourselves. To accept ourselves in complete sensitivity, softness and fragility. When we accept ourselves here, in this place, our self-acceptance begins to become whole. We are able to love our whole being and say to ourselves,

I am enough, with my frailty, need, pain, weaknesses, I am enough, I am complete, I am beautiful.

With this level of self-acceptance and self-love comes the most tremendous relief and deep sense of peace. Finally we are free of the fear of not being enough that causes us to constantly seek more from outside. We come home within ourselves. We are content and fulfilled simply with the existence of our own being.

Then, as we accept ourselves at this deep level, we grow in our acceptance of others. And through practising allowing our sadness, we give others permission, allowing them to be their whole selves. Ironically, our practice of accepting all of this vulnerability, this sadness, this uncertainty and loss, enables us to be incredibly strong and brave. Sadness, amongst the emotions is closest to pure emotional pain. It is the emotion you get when the thing you most did not want to happen, happens, or the thing you most wanted to happen does not. Fear comes before. Sadness is the endpoint of pain. When you have learnt that you can not only endure that pain, but flourish from it, what is left to fear? In the words of the great meditation master, Chögyam Trungpa:

The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that, the warrior can be brave as well. Without that heartfelt sadness, bravery is brittle, like a china cup. If you drop it, it will break or chip. But the bravery of a warrior is like a lacquer cup, which has a wooden base covered with layers of lacquer. If the cup drops, it will bounce rather than break. It is soft and hard at the same time.9

Coaching Application:

Based on the understanding above, how to support our clients to grow through sadness is relatively straightforward. Really it is a matter of transferring the principles of welcoming and appreciating sadness into the coaching space. The first thing we must do is establish with the client that this is the avenue the client wishes to pursue. It would be inappropriate for us to decide it was right to make our client sad, or encourage them to be sad. We just simply support them when they demonstrate their own need to be in touch with their sadness. Then what there is for us to ‘do’ as coaches is very little:

1. We must practise sincerely being with our own sadness and growing from it. In supporting our client, the most important thing we will be doing is simply holding space, and our ability to do that will depend on our own level of ease and safety with sadness.
2. We demonstrate that it is safe to feel their sadness, by witnessing neutrally, without judgement, simply acknowledging what they are sharing without naming at as good or bad, and through the energy with which we hold the space.
3. We allow. We need to show a great deal of patience as a coach, be willing to listen and hold space without saying much, to give our client the opportunity to truly be with their sadness and acknowledge the thoughts that come up in this space. If we do ask questions, most likely they will be simple questions such as “Is there any more?” or “And what else?” constantly increasing the space to allow all of their sadness to fully express itself.
4. We can help them access the feeling, by asking directly what they are feeling, and encouraging them to breathe, and feel the full sensation. We can offer them the chance to describe the sensations they are experiencing as a way of getting in contact with them.
5. If we have established with our client that they want to be more in touch with their sadness, when they experience blockage or resistance, we can discuss with them the importance and potential gifts of sadness and remind them of these when required.
6. If the client does not naturally make the next step themselves, we can guide them by asking them what new (or newly acknowledged) information they now have about the situation, themselves, their world and what they can do with this information.

This kind of work is on the border of counselling or therapy so we need to be careful as coaches. I would generally expect this kind of support to be appropriate for a single session, but if it is continuously repeated in further sessions with the client expressing the same feelings and the same thoughts without showing movement, it may be appropriate to refer them to a therapist.

References:

* name changed.
Care of the Soul, by Thomas Moore
What are the Physical Effects of Sadness?, by Vita Ruvolo-Wilkes
Slow Counselling: Promoting Wellness in a Fast World, by Astramovich and Hoskins, in the Journal for International Counselor Education, 2012, Volume 4
The psychophysiology of fear and sadness: Cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory responses during film viewing, by Kriebig et al. at the Society for Psychophysiological Research, 47th Annual Meeting, Savannah, USA (2007)
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, by Debbie Ford
F**k It, The Ultimate Spiritual Way, by John C. Parkin
The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James
The Power of Vulnerability, by Brene Brown at TEDx conference, Houston, Texas (2010)
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa