How to Draw Comfort Through Sadness

There is a certain sense of peace that comes from sadness. It's counter-intuitive, but true. By turning toward positive affirmations and happy, motivational uplifting messages, it can almost make a person feel disconnected from life. I can recall speaking with a friend who was going through a divorce sometime back, who was struggling with the very real emotional impact of feeling abandoned, and feeling like her husband no longer desired her - and she was one of those people who was prone to those short little motivational passages like "I feel great!" and "I'm a winner!" And, talking with her, I could literally see the pain behind her eyes. It was disingenuous, and she knew it.

It's exhausting, trying to convince ourselves we feel empowered and excited about life, when we feel like our butt has been kicked. Why do we do that? Why do we try so hard to convince ourselves that everything is going to be swell? Is it because we fear that if we completely surrender to the feelings of pain, we'll lose ourselves completely - fall off of the cliff into and abyss of pain and misery?

Al Franken took this on on Saturday Night Live years ago with a character who said "I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me."  I'm not knocking the notion of being motivated, but without an honest sense of feeling completly authentic, it can feel hollow and meaningingless.

I can't recall a time when I didn't thoroughly feel the emotional weight of the song "Funeral for a friend" by Elton John. This past summer, I went to the funeral for a former friend and supervisor of mine from several years ago. I hadn't spoken with her in some time, and I was aware, through friends, that she had been stricken with cancer. It was a bittersweet story. Well into her forties, she had found the love of her life; someone I also knew. The two of them met, went through divorce of their first unhappy marriages, rediscovered love through each other, married, and had a child together - about the same time my daughter was born.

Not long after the birth of their son, she learned about her cancer. For close to ten years, she was battling it - she went through chemotherapy, gained an upper hand, went through remission, retired prematurely, and then, out of the blue, I heard about her memorial service. It's one of those things you know will happen, but still it's sobering to accept. I hadn't seen or spoken to her in several years, but I showed up at her service and sat quietly in the pew while I listened to people talk about how solid of a person she was. I watched a video her grown children made for her, honoring her as a mother. And even though I hadn't seen her in years, I was moved to tears.

This is the kind of raw emotion that moves me when I listen to this song. A truly meaningful, beautiful pain that moves me, strengthens me, and makes me know what it truly means to be alive.

 On March 20, 1991, four and a half year old Conor Clapton, son of guitarist Eric Clapton, fell from the 53rd story window of a New York City apartment and died.  His son's death had a huge impact on Clapton, and he took a long break from performing as a result.  When he returned to the stage, his music became softer and more reflective.  "Tears in Heaven" was one way in which Clapton dealt with the loss.  It's a beautiful, heartfelt, melodic haunting song.  And there is seldom a time when I've listened to it when I haven't felt the beautiful, heartfelt, spiritual message of a father grieving for his son.

Is it sad?  Absolutely.  But I feel richer, stronger and blessed because he felt willing to share his grief with all of us.    

I love the faux motivational messages put out by despair.com. Surely, you've seen the dramatic motivational posters in offices everywhere, designed to stimulate you to persevere, reach down deeply into your inner drive and push yourself to limits you never thought imaginable.

Despair takes them to a new, sarcastic and deeply hilarious context. I've given classes on employee supervision, performance management and discipline and these posters and videos take the emotional weight from all the class participants. It's so easy to get so overwhelmed and flustered by the fear and angst caused by the necessity of dealing with the frequently off-kilter/dysfunctional behavior of others. As supervisors, most people have this image of a thoughtful, supportive mentor they're supposed to emulate - but what they really want to do is wring the neck of the unmotivated, antagonistic, narcisisstic knucklehead they've been hired to oversee. They know what to do, and just need support and comic relief to remind them they haven't completely lost their marbles!

Seriously though, life is pain, and to continually try to paper over truly difficult circumstances simply feels disingenuous.  There are millions of messages telling us to feel better.  There are few telling us it's okay to be sad.  That is the point of this discussion.

It's important to recognize the five stages of grief, identified by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, which are:

1. Denial: You tell yourself this isn't really happening. You think once you wake up, or once someone else comes to their senses, the problem will resolve itself. While it's a normal part of grieving, it doesn't truly recognize that a painful event has occurred.

2. Anger: When something occurs that doesn't happen in the way you expected it to, or when someone decides they don't want you, or agree with you, it's aggravating. And only natural you're going to hate it - hate fate, hate God, hate that other person, etc.

3. Bargaining: Even though you may know intellectually the thing you're grieving has already happened, there's this sense that you can negotiate a better deal, one that doesn't result in the same end that resulted in your grief.

4. Depression: This is a sense of helplessness, where crying and tears demonstrate your hurt. I've heard it described as "anger turned inward", but to me, it's more that sense of dealing with and feeling the pain of grief.

5. Acceptance: This is where you come to understand that things happen for a reason. You may not want the result, but you've accepted that what has happened is part of what was meant to happen, and you agree that what happened was not only inevitable, but was part of a master plan that you can't control, but which governs the universe, and the affairs of mankind.

One of the most beautiful and simple songs I have ever heard is "Edelweiss", which you will recognize from the movie, "The Sound of Music." The song is simply about a flower, and goes like this:

Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me

Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever

Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever

Every single night, when my kids were young, I would sing songs to them before they nodded off to sleep. And every single night, the last song I would sing was Edelweiss. I don't know why - all I knew was that the song brought comfort - to them and to me.

In the movie, the Captain sings it, accompanied by his oldest daughter, in the time before the Nazi's invaded Austria and demanded that it's citizens embrace the Fuhrer. There's a peace accompanied by a certain sadness - especially considering it was at that moment in the movie when you realize the Captain and Maria love each other.

Listen:

 In the end, embracing the sadness and despair of life can lead to a peace that can't effectively be achieved through other means.  In our current economic environment, it's so easy to get swallowed up into the angst and hopelessness that can come from losing one's home, job, or relationship.  We know that we come into this world alone and depart the same way. 

I find strength through knowledge of self and through surrender to the knowledge that what will be will be.  And, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who authored Self Reliance, "it is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."