Sad Like Rain

Humans have the capacity to feel emotions. With this capacity comes a range of different emotions that can be felt. From joy and happiness to crushing sadness and furious anger, the emotional spectrum has more colors than the rainbow. Every day and every action can prompt a different emotional response. No one wants to be sad and no one wants to be sad for sustained periods of time. It is human nature to feel sad but it is human desire to want to be happy.

Getting through the sad periods of life can be difficult. Sometimes events happen where happiness does not seem possible. Darkness comes like a veil that cannot be uncovered. Events such as the loss of a loved one, a relationship ending, moving away to a faraway place, an injury sustained, or any of the countless other reasons to be sad. Overcoming sadness is easier when you do not hide from the emotion, when you fully feel the emotion. By accepting the emotion as real you are better able to take steps to counteract it.

Treat emotions and negative emotions especially, like the weather. Weather is real. You cannot change the weather by wishing it goes away. If it is raining or snowing you cannot make the sun come back out. Sometimes it will stay dark and rainy for days or weeks at a time. There is nothing you can do about the weather except accept it and go on with your day. But one day, the sun will come back out. The sun will make its glorious return and you will feel its warmth on your skin. With emotions, it can be the same way. Sadness and negative emotions are real. They can be overpowering like a week-long rain storm, but one day the happiness will return. One has to accept how they feel in life, just like how they have to accept the weather outside.

By accepting your emotions you are putting up a mental umbrella, just like you would put up a real umbrella to go outside when it is raining. You accept how you are feeling and realize things may be better later today, tomorrow, or the next day, but eventually things will be. In this moment of acceptance you are able to acknowledge that once the sun does come out, you will be able to take full advantage of it. The sun being a metaphor for happiness, always returns, sometimes it just takes time.