Sadness

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone."  I remember my mother quoting this when I was a child.  Sadness is thought to be a lonely place and so many times we don't allow ourselves to be sad because we don't want others to feel badly for us.  However, if the truth be told sadness and grief can be very healing for us and it is important to acknowledge it.

After working so hard to recover from West Nile Virus I began feeling better physically but all of a sudden I began to cry often.  It had amazed me that I didn't grieve or feel sadness about getting the disease and having to rebuild my body so I could sit, stand and walk.  I was so determined to get stronger that I never let up or allowed myself to feel sad.  My friends remarked about how well I was doing.

Then all of a sudden it was like the dam broke open and there were all these feelings coming through.  The emotions of being so very ill and coming close to death and acknowledging what could have happened.  I counted myself so lucky and blessed to be alive that I didn't consider what might have been but that was the conscious mind working and eventually my soul and spirit said enough.

As I saw pictures of myself when I was so ill with tubes all over my body and the distorted way I looked I was taken aback by how I felt.  How do I connect with that person when I seem so detached from her?  I really have few real memories from the time in the hospital but the stories, even though I have a need to know them, make me very sad.

I am in the process of allowing the grief and sadness in order to experience the joy.  I realize it is my soul's journey to clear up past grief and now that I am stronger physically I can begin to deal with the loss.  I know that the emotional healing is just as important as the physical but it is a bit more difficult to treat.  

The reason I share this today is because we are often so hard on ourselves and think that we are alone if we weep.  I am here to tell you that we are not alone in our grief and sadness if we will but share it with a friend or family member.  It is an important part of healing to allow our feelings and trust that joy will come in the morning.