Sadness Podcast Episode

It’s good to remember that God will meet us in our sadness. Jesus was acquainted with sadness, and so he has that experience. Greetings and welcome, everyone, to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. It’s good, as always, to have you along. Kathy Knochel and Brian Sutter are with me here today. 

Welcome to both of you. Hey, thanks. The concept and topic of emotion come up a fair amount around this venue through this podcast. I’ve certainly been blessed by that. Just to see the depth of the human experience and while emotions are, well, they’re ethereal in some ways, right? They really are beyond words. 

It is an experience and yet it also communicates in a couple of different directions. It communicates outward and it communicates inward. Oh, sure. And I always love it when some perspective and help is given on that particular topic. I want to needle in on one negative emotion and that is sadness. My own voice comes to me in this moment. And I remember just in the recent days looking at Rebecca and saying, I am so sad, and we all have that. That’s not unique to me. I am so, so sad. What do we do with sadness? What is it communicating outward and inward? And how do we healthily walk through sadness? Is that a fair way to tee it up? 

Yeah, I think those are really great questions and emotions. That’s certainly a space that we do delve into a lot around this place and thinking about how we understand emotions, what we believe about emotions, how we interact with emotions is just such a big deal. And one of the things that comes to mind right away is from a counseling mindset when you say that sadness is a negative emotion. I think probably both of our alarm bells go off. Kathy and I wouldn’t call it a negative emotion We would call it an uncomfortable emotion. 

Yeah, fill that space out, that’s good. Yeah. Well, I think it’s good for people to recognize that all emotions are a gift. And so, whether you’re feeling happy or sad, like you’ve stated, it’s communicating something, but it’s not good or bad. Like even anger would have a proper place. 

And so being able to recognize that there are positive things that come from sadness, or it can be a good emotion to experience. Right. And in many ways, it’s like we’re driving along on a gravel road. There may not be a lot of signs on the gravel road or the highway but as we pass signs, they’re giving us information. 

I grew up in a lot more gravel world. The word is interstate. Okay. All right. I’m getting very sad here as we’re talking. But I think in some ways I think it’s helpful to think of emotions like those signs that we pass that are giving us information and if we can learn what that information is and how to interact with it in a helpful way, it changes the game a bit, I think. 

And as I think about an uncomfortable emotion, it absolutely is. It is tough to be in the same room with somebody who’s sad. And I definitely feel like my job in that moment is to make them unsad. Right? I think that’s universal. I mean, is that what we do? Yeah. And I would even say in my role as a counselor, when someone is very sad in session, it can bring up just a little bit of feeling uncomfortable with sadness, but a little bit of discomfort of like, where do we go with this? 

I can’t solve the sadness. Somebody has to walk through it. And actually, I would tell people that experiencing sadness is a good thing. Like you need to feel the sadness. And I think in that, to acknowledge that sadness can make us very uncomfortable, and almost always pushes us into what do I do to get rid of it. And if we can notice that pull, then shift into what you’re talking about there, Kathy, is okay. 

Wait, maybe that’s not my job. Maybe sadness is important for us to connect to. Maybe it has something that it’s trying to communicate. And getting rid of it actually isn’t going to be productive in the long run. Yeah. And not only do we do that interpersonally, but we also do that within ourselves, too. Oh, I’m feeling sad. 

Right. So, what kind of interference do I need to run in this moment within myself to get out from underneath the emotion? And in our modern day, one of the things that we’ve gotten really good at is learning different ways to help solve problems and to move pretty quickly towards being able to feel better or different. 

But in some ways, that’s developed a lot of unhealthy ways of getting rid of sadness that actually then create more problems on the other side of it. Can you give us an example of that? Well, one thing I would say too is that sadness is a unique emotion that somebody is walking through. 

It’s not like anger, when we can feel momentary irritation. But sadness is something that somebody can experience over the long run, kind of a grief piece, but then also connected with joy and positive experiences in the moment. It’s like two things can be true at the same time with sadness sometimes. 

Yeah. And then I think the trouble with that is if we work, like Brian was saying, just to numb our sadness, then we’re numbing the joy or the other emotions that can be going on with life too. Okay. So that sadness cooperates in a healthy manner with those other emotions. And I think it’s interesting even as we read the Scripture, we’re promised someday that there won’t be any sorrow, and those tears will be wiped away. And while we don’t know exactly what that means, I think one of the realities it points to is as we live in a fallen world where there is death, where there is loss, the natural product of that is sadness. 

So, in some ways to be able to view sadness as that means there was a good or a desirable thing, that’s no longer there. Sometimes certainly we can have sadness about losing something that wasn’t good as well, but in some ways, sadness is connecting us to this reality that I had something positive and when there’s a void, then it’s sad. 

You could even say then from an apologetic argument, sadness is an indicator within us that there is a good and a right thing. Absolutely, yeah, and I think that speaks even into the teachings of Jesus where he talks about, blessed are those that mourn. Why? Because they will be comforted. I think you’re exactly right. 

It’s that inner yearning for things to be restored. And as believers, that makes sense to us and connects with the storyline of the Scriptures. You said a moment ago about the numbing that can happen. And I think we follow that, but I think an example would be helpful, Brian, can you give that? 

Yeah, so I think it can show up in so many different ways, but generally at a high level it would just be where we’re feeling something that we don’t like, and we look to something to neutralize that pain. So, whether that’s looking on our phones, getting on YouTube or a social media app or food or drugs and alcohol or sex, those sorts of things that bring just a checking out or they bring a dopamine response in our brain that neutralizes the sadness. 

Those are easy things to move into. Well, I know I’ve said sometimes it’s either I’m going to laugh or cry, so let’s laugh instead. And certainly, laughter has its beautiful place even in the healing process and all of that, but to your point, I think helping people to slow down and feel their sadness is really important. Which is what you’re talking about. 

Even if we can help that happen with kids or other people in our lives. Sometimes I can encourage that through the use of journaling or something like that to just account for and notice what is making you sad, because then you can grieve it. And then I think when we were talking about it, using too much humor or that sort of thing or the avoidance that happens because we haven’t allowed our bodies to slow down and experience the grief. So, now you’re really getting to that tactic of how you would help a person, Kathy, and part of that is a slowing down process whereby you do the sadness well in journaling and otherwise which I think in many ways is just being able to identify the emotion. Sometimes it sounds pretty easy to do but it’s actually quite hard. 

Like, am I feeling sad or what is it that’s going on here? And maybe how is this a little bit different than what I was feeling last week. And then, like you said, sometimes it just doesn’t even register why we might be feeling that, or what are the things that have happened this week that maybe have piled up and contributed to the sadness. If we don’t slow down and consider those things, they don’t register and then a lot of times it just festers. Yeah, and because we inaccurately say, well, I’m not crying, or I don’t have tears coming out of my eyes so I can’t be sad. But you can feel those effects of being sad without that physical symptom of tears. So, Kathy, would you say that sometimes working with a person in the counseling room, you have helped them see that they’re sad and they didn’t know they were? 

Is that true? Yeah, well, and I think what I can hear without them saying it is if there has been something that has come to an end or they’re in a transition or that sort of thing, being able to point it out. This feels a little bit to me like grief over the ending of something or whatever the situation. 

Unrealized expectation. Yes, definitely. And I think what I notice is for somebody to think about, could this be grief? It can be really helpful, and it gives a different perspective. It’s different than feeling frustrated or anxious or any other emotion because they’ve come in saying, I’m frustrated, I’m anxious and those types of things. 

So that’s what’s on their radar and you’re helping them see that there’s something else at play there that needs to be paid attention to, which I think speaks to reality a lot of the time. We experience mixed emotions. And so that means we experience lots of different emotions at the same time. 

And some of those emotions we’re going to be more comfortable with and some we’re going to be less comfortable with. So, then we’re going to tend to highlight or identify the ones we’re more comfortable with and slow down and say, oh wait, actually maybe sadness is part of this or underneath of this and can be helpful again. 

Whereas sometimes we would be like I don’t know what this is, but I know what anger is. I’ll stick with that. Yeah. I know things are not linear. Things are not formulaic but provide some help in the sense of laying out the landscape. It simply says, this might be what sadness is telling you. And this is how we think about it. And this is how we move through it and are healthily sad.  

Kathy, you’ve already tipped your hat to it, I think, in recognizing it. Can we take another step? Grief is like the process through which you’re sorting sadness and depending on how big of a loss we’ve experienced, that grief might be a very thought through process that you have to do really purposefully, or something that you naturally move forward through, and you haven’t even realized that you’ve gone through those steps. 

Well, let’s say a little bit more about steps in grief. Yeah. So, in grief, we’re thinking about a loss. And then generally on the other side of that is the protest. Like, man, I really don’t want to lose that. I wish I could have that back. And that makes sense. And then as we move to the next step, then that’s going to move us into despair. 

And despair is basically the emotional response. So, depending on how big the loss is, despair is going to fit if it’s a really significant loss. It might be something less intense than despair if it’s a smaller loss, and then as we keep moving forward, the next step really is acceptance and being able to accept, oh yeah, this thing is gone, and I don’t have to like that it’s gone. I don’t want it to be gone, but that’s the reality. And then thinking about, okay, what does life look like in this reality? And then you go around that circle a lot of times. You can slip in and out of those stages. I’ve been there already and now I’m back there again. Right, exactly. Okay. Would you say that there would be some that don’t push to that level simply because they know what they should be feeling? 

They know that you should be accepting whether this is God’s timing, right? Sure, this is God’s timing, this is God’s will, you know, and so all of a sudden that’s kind of forcing my hand to prematurely accept. Is that a truth? Sure. Can we prematurely accept? I guess is my question. That’s a good question. 

I don’t know. I mean, I think that the challenge is are you working through the steps. And is it a genuine acceptance? And I think just based on how God’s put different people together or the different losses they may have processed already in their life, some are going to be much better at that step and able to step into it very early. 

But sometimes I think we’re so quick to say, I don’t want to feel sadness, or I shouldn’t be sad about this, or I’m through it, that sometimes, you find out after a little discovery that it’s a false acceptance. Okay. Which some of that makes me think too, people love to avoid the sadness, and it maybe goes back to Matt’s original comment because it feels like a negative emotion or a weakness when it’s actually healing for your body to feel the sadness and grieve or process through it. Yeah. And I think it’s interesting too, all of these things that we are talking about are often on a spectrum. And so, one side of the spectrum is we want to avoid it. 

On the other side of the spectrum, sometimes you get lost in it and you can’t get any distance. And that’s where sometimes being able to, like we talked about earlier, use humor to be able to step out of the sadness. If it’s stepping out rather than avoiding, it can be really beneficial. So, then you can go back in, you catch your breath. 

That’s exactly what I was thinking. Get a breather, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, when it’s too close, you lose perspective on the other things that are grounding for you. Like the other things that bring you joy or peace or that sort of thing. Right. And sometimes when it’s been so close for so long, then you start to see that as part of who you are, or this is how people relate to me. 

And if I lose this, is that going to change all these relationships or who I am? Or even sometimes when there’s been a significant loss, to think about moving to a place where you’re more settled, there’s maybe going to always be a degree of sadness around that. But the thought of getting to a healthier place is like, wow, does that mean that it didn’t matter that I didn’t really care? 

No, not at all. But those are the sorts of internal thoughts sometimes that are really hard to sort through. Yeah. And so, what I heard you say is too close. So, there’s this proper relationship we have with the matter and that we have with sadness. And you can be too close to it where it becomes an identifier. 

It sounded to me like you were speaking in identity terms. It then becomes our identity and that would be not healthy. Yeah. Would you say that if it’s too far away, that’s where we would have identified that there’s a lot of avoidance happening there, or I think so. Yeah. And again, too, like we’ve talked about in the grief process, the emotion of sadness is going to be far at times and closer at times appropriately. 

So, you just have to be able to think about, okay, where am I at and putting ourselves in a community that can walk us through that and say, oh, no, you should be really close to the sadness right now. Of course, that makes sense. Or what would it look like to give yourself a little bit of a breather that might be wise or helpful and then we can step back into it. 

And that’s where I think being around people so they can speak into it and walk with you is such an important thing of the sadness as well. It’s good to remember that God will meet us in our sadness. Jesus was acquainted with sadness. And so, he has that experience. Yeah, and I think what a beautiful picture just to be able to think that in our sadness sometimes it wants to shut us down and isolate us and like, oh, go away. 

But to just have this picture of Christ being with us, that he’s not afraid of our sadness, that he’s not disgusted by our sadness, but he’s with us and weeps with us, I think is so powerful. You’ve really made a strong case for the incredible potential of sadness if indeed moving through sadness includes an invitation to God to be in it or maybe a realization that he is in it. Sure, that really brings him near and so now I’m going to risk some vulnerability here, but I have noticed if I’ve made Rebecca sad, that’s really uncomfortable. Right. Sure. And I want the sadness to stop. Yeah. Right.  

And so, as a husband, I try to run interference, but I need to recognize that no, she needs that. That’s what I’m learning here. She needs that sadness. Yeah, and there’s actually a healthy dependence she’s going to find with Jesus apart from me fixing it. Right. You know what I mean? Right. Which is another uncomfortable husband position to be in. Right. And I think husbands go on record for wanting to try, you know what I mean? Yeah. Really regretting that. So, my point in the matter is allowing sadness to have that perfect work of finding God enough for the loss that we’re experiencing. 

Yeah, that he has something to offer and that he joins us in it. And if we can make space for that and sit with the uncomfortable long enough something really beautiful can come, that those ashes can be made new and beautiful. I appreciate that.  

So, to recap, we recognize the sadness, we name it, we don’t necessarily push it away, we invite Christ into it, see him very near to it. And then what? I would say from there, it’s important to just be curious about how do I move forward with this sadness as I integrate into life or as I keep moving with life. Would it be more accurate to say moving forward, not with the sadness, but with the loss? 

I mean, does the sadness go with us forever or is it the loss that goes with us forever? I think probably a degree of both. But yeah, if we keep looking in the rearview mirror at what has been lost, then that’s going to be the thing where we keep looking back and thinking about what’s been lost. 

But if we move forward that this loss is real, but now what are the opportunities in front of me? Or how can I engage life now in the midst of whatever is here is really an important step. You know, the phrase time will heal. It isn’t time itself that heals, but if you allow yourself to keep moving with the sadness, there’s the new experiences that come in that start to diminish or decrease, or there’s less sadness, more sadness, joy or there’s a possibility for other emotions there.  

Okay. So that’s really, really helpful. So, I asked for that clarification because I was thinking that we would move forward with the loss, but not the sadness, it would run its course. But even as both of you hesitated with that correction, I get a sense now that moving on sometimes does throw those emotions out. But moving forward now includes and retains the emotions in my person and in my past, and that is part of my story, but it has a different pull and effect. Moving on would be like ignoring some of the lessons or some of the experiences that you had there. Yeah, and I think one of the visuals that comes to me after a loss is there are going to be big waves, a high intensity of sadness, and they’re going to be really close together, those waves, but as they move out in a concentric circle, those waves get a little bit less intense, and they’re not quite as frequent, and that’s going to be hopefully part of the journey.  

So, if you’ve walked through, let’s say the loss of a child and all of a sudden, you’re there celebrating your friends who have eighth graders who are graduating. You’re like, man, I don’t even know why, but I’m sad. And then upon reflection, you’re like, oh, wait, yeah, that would have been a graduation for me too. And that’s a great example of the loss certainly is always with us and the sadness will always be too. Sure. Right. Which is again, just the interesting piece with the emotion of sadness. 

We can walk through a time of something really exciting or happy that has happened, and we can look back on the memory and remember the happiness. But I think the thing with sadness is just what Brian said, it hits in waves, and then all of a sudden, it’s gone for a while, but then it comes back like a wave. 

Over time, the waves decrease. But I think to your point earlier too, Kathy, it’s not just time itself, it’s the time and walking through the process of making space for those steps that we’ve just talked through. And I think it’s really important to make sure those get paired together. Yeah. 

Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Kathy. I think a common human experience as we reflect on all of our lives is those losses that bring sadness or make us into who we are. And God has a plan. As we read in the Scriptures, beauty from ashes, he works redemption in this particular area of sadness. 

Yeah. And I think the way both of you shared that and how sadness ultimately brings us back to him is a testimony to that and makes sense. So, I appreciate that. That was really helpful. Thanks. Thanks Matt. Thanks to each one for listening in.