sadness that makes my heart grow

photo: Joanna Kniaź-Hawrot

I realize that for some of you out there this title might sound like a bad joke because there might be so much overwhelming sadness in your life that the last thing you want is to magnify it any further. As much as this can even be possible, I understand it. So maybe this post simply will not be appealing to you at this particular time of your life.

I am a jolly fellow. Surely, not because I just choose to be. Rather, it’s a combination of my particular chemistry, life circumstances, and only then come my personal preferences and choices.

This being said, clearly, one of my “survival” strategies (a quick reminder here: no such thing as survival - no one will survive life) is my humourous and playful relationship with reality. It is my intentional fashion of behaving and, if you ask me, it works great. There is just one issue – the bloody yin and yang balance. Being playful can only get us that far. We need good tears just as much as good laughs.

For me, it boils down to which qualities of sadness can help us grow and which might be shrinking us. I’m in no way equipped to talk comprehensively about sadness, just wanted to share that today I discovered yet a new way of experiencing sadness in my heart.

Let us hurry to love people, they depart so quickly - wrote a Polish poet Jan Twardowski. As I was consumed by the Moon’s reflection in the water and early morning mesmerizing birds’ melodies, I heard my heart saying love life because you will depart so quickly. At that moment, when nature was opening up for me fully in its beauty (as she always does), I felt the immeasurable sadness of all unloved love in my life. It uncovered older, locked layers of sadness and I let them circulate through me freely. I felt this pure transmission of love flowing in both ways, or just it being there beyond my sense of identity.

In this context, I know very well the result of a yin and yang equation in my life. I need way more of this heart-opening sadness (even though it left me exhausted for the whole morning). I will feel sad when someone close passes away. What I want is to have a measure of it while he/she is still around so that I don’t wait with appreciating people until I can’t express it to them any longer. And human relationships is a straightforward example but the exact same principle applies to the relationship we have with ourselves and to “life, the universe and everything”, aka reality.  

I wouldn’t mind locking-in the feelings from this morning for longer. But it’s clear that my brain will be quick at rebalancing my emotional state to a status quo. And I know how difficult it might be to think myself into feeling. But today’s experience will not disappear without a trace.

This post flows with Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Hawai'i '78 Introduction