Sadness

Did you see the film ‘Inside Out’? A clever idea of personifying our emotions.

Many people think our emotions can be divided into good and bad emotions. They see emotions like sadness and anger and jealousy as bad and to be avoided and condemned. However, what the film brought out is that all our emotions are useful, and if we can recognize them and label them correctly, they serve to tell us what we need, and then we are in a better place to get our needs met. In the flim, sadness, rather than being the emotion to be avoided became the emotion which allowed the little girl to connect again with her parents - once it was acknowledged and shared.

Our emotions are neither good or bad. Like pain, they suggest, (or sometimes scream!) that something needs our attention. That's all. And the same way we manage pain in our body, how we manage our emotions will have consequences for us in our daily lives.