by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Sadness is Feedback From Your System that It’s Time to Complete the Past
Have you ever found yourself watching a movie and suddenly feeling your eyes well up for no obvious reason?
Perhaps somebody said something pretty simple and mundane, a character hugs their father, a couple reunites after years apart, or somebody finds the courage to start all over again – in other words, nothing particularly dramatic happens but something inside you stirs and you feel overcome with emotion?
Or maybe you’re standing outside watching a beautiful sunset as the colours spread across the sky…everything is peaceful and everything is fine but there it is again: the undercurrent of sadness and melancholy – the feeling that there’s something moving beneath the surface of your life:
You can’t quite explain it but it haunts you wherever you go – sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s overwhelming, but it’s always there – if you stop and pay attention – like it’s trying to ‘tell’ you something:
It can appear when you’re driving your car, listening to music, sitting in a café, spending time with people you love, or even during moments that should feel completely ‘happy’ – it’s almost as though a ghost from the past keeps showing up in the present.
This article is about the idea that sadness completes the past:
It’s about understanding that the tears we might shed along the way are not signs that something is ‘wrong’ with us and that they’re actually signs that something inside us is trying to come to the end of a cycle once and for all.
In fact, the tears that arise are often part of a cathartic process which means that they emerge when we finally stop resisting what needs to be felt and allow ourselves to move into a new season or cycle of our lives so we can walk our own path.
We’re going to look at where this sadness comes from, how to move beyond it, and how to step into the REALEST season of your life so far.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
The Tears of the Way: What We'll Cover in this Article
- Sadness is Feedback From Your System that It’s Time to Complete the Past
- Sadness Is Not the Same Thing as Depression
- Sadness is a Signal – Not Reality Itself
- The Cargo You Came Here to Deliver
- Why Tears Are Necessary
- How to Use Sadness to Complete the Past
- 1. Regulate
- 2. Integrate
- 3. Accelerate
- The Tears of the Way, Sadness, & the Real Path Forward
Sadness Is Not the Same Thing as Depression
Before we go any further, we need to make an important distinction which is that sadness and depression are not the same thing:
They key distinction is that when we’re dealing with sadness, we can still MOVE – for example, we can still go to work, still train, still laugh, and still have meaningful goals.
Our lives may even look great from the outside and – in many cases – they genuinely are great but, despite, all of this we still have that undercurrent of haunting sadness that makes us unexpectedly emotional (in some of the ways mentioned above, for example).
Depression hits different because – in very simplified terms – depression is what happens when we stop moving:
It’s what ultimately occurs when we become disconnected from our real purpose and spend so much time in the Void that we lose contact with the flow of life altogether.
If you haven’t read about the Void already on this site, then it’s the state that we live in where we become disconnected from the truth about ourselves and end up creating a fragmented version of ourselves (the ego) to filter life through:
Instead of participating in life, we withdraw from it; instead of expressing ourselves, we shut down; instead of moving forward, we become stuck.
Sadness doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve stopped flowing to this extreme degree (though you may still be in the Void to some extent) – in fact, the very presence of sadness often suggests that some part of you is still alive and trying to move back into WHOLENESS over fragmentation.
The problem that you have is that that the past keeps interrupting the flow and so you’re attempting to step into life but you’re carrying yesterday on your back – in other words, you’re trying to move forward but something unfinished keeps pulling you backwards.
To break out of the cycle you have to listen to the signal and start completing the past so you can step into the current season of your life.
Sadness is a Signal – Not Reality Itself
What we can say, then, is that sadness is a signal – feedback that tells us that there’s something from the past that still needs to be completed.
- Some old emotion.
- Some old wound.
- Some old belief.
- Some old story.
- Basically: Something that should have been left behind years ago is still being carried into the present.
The sadness itself is not the problem because it’s just the messenger – the real problem that needs to be resolved is whatever the sadness is pointing towards.
Everybody’s journey into completing the past will look different but there are some pretty common themes:
1. Letting Go of Old Beliefs About Who You Are
Many people are living according to the identities they were given rather than something that’s actually REAL:
- Perhaps a parent told you that you were lazy.
- Perhaps a teacher told you that you weren’t intelligent.
- Perhaps the world convinced you that you were “too much” or “not enough”.
- Etc. etc. etc.
Whatever your own personal history is, the tragedy is that many people spend decades carrying these labels around as though they were facts when they’re anything but.
Sadness comes from constantly attempting to live in conflict with reality by continuing to give this ‘stuff’ from the past a weight and gravitas it doesn’t deserve.
The short version is that in your REALNESS you know who you really are but your ego is trying to live according to who you were TOLD you were.
The gap between these two creates sadness and will continue to do so until you let go and unlearn any of the unreal things you learned about yourself and life.
2. Healing an Old Broken Heart
Many people are still protecting themselves from relationships that ended years ago:
- Somebody hurt them.
- Somebody betrayed them.
- Somebody left.
- Etc. etc. etc.
Instead of healing the wound, they built walls around it and close their hearts (which always creates more long-term suffering than having a broken heart and then learning to grow beyond it).
The problem is that walls don’t only keep pain out – they keep life out too and this holds you back from actually being present in yourself and your life.
Sadness remains in this case because the heart knows it was built to love, connect, and participate whereas closing the heart may feel ‘safe’ but it will never be able to feel real.
3. Releasing Shame from Childhood
For most people, shame sits at the centre of the story because shame keeps repeating the message that:
“Something is wrong with me“.
Or:
“I’m not enough“.
Or:
“If people really knew me, they wouldn’t love me“.
These beliefs become invisible operating systems that influence everything we do and so when driven by shame:
- We play small.
- We hide.
- We doubt ourselves.
- We settle.
- We avoid our calling.
The sadness that follows is often the pain of abandoning ourselves and thinking that remaining in this state of abandonment is ‘normal’.
The Cargo You Came Here to Deliver
There’s an old story that says every human being arrives carrying a kind of spiritual, creative, or purposeful ‘cargo’ that they’re supposed to ‘deliver’ to the world.
The ‘cargo’ is really just a metaphor for the gifts they came here to bring into the world:
- Some people carry wisdom.
- Some carry courage.
- Some carry creativity.
- Some carry compassion.
- Some carry leadership.
- Etc. etc. etc.
The details of the ‘cargo’ actually don’t matter that much – what matters is that each of us has something real that wants to be expressed and so when we refuse to deliver what we came here to deliver, life becomes heavier and filled with sadness.
The sadness emerges because we’re carrying a burden that was never meant to stay inside us because the whole point of the ‘cargo’ is that it was meant to be delivered.
In many cases, then, the sadness is simply feedback that you have weighed yourself down with old stories, old wounds, and old identities for so long that you can no longer fully express what is trying to emerge through you.
The lesson is that the sadness will remain with you until you catch up with yourself.
The short-version of how you catch up with yourself is that you learn to:
- Get in touch with your ESSENCE (your realness)
- Learn to EXPRESS this essence (through real action).
This is the journey back to realness.
Why Tears Are Necessary
Most people think tears are a weakness and though this can certainly be true in some cases tears are also often a form of completion which takes strength.
The thing to remember is that sadness is like any other emotion which means that it needs to be felt (“you gotta feel it to heal it”).
The word emotion literally points towards e-motion: energy in motion – this is pretty apt because emotions ‘want’ to move and flow so that they can complete themselves and either be released or integrated.
The problem is that the ego resists by telling us not to feel things or to project an image of being something or somebody we’re not in order to suppress the emotion but the only result of this is inner TENSION.
This goes against the simple law of Tension and Release which tells us that:
Tension always seeks Release.
In practical terms, all this means is that the more sadness we suppress, the more pressure builds until eventually something ‘happens’ like a song, a memory, a conversation, a sunset, or a random Tuesday afternoon and then…suddenly, the TEARS arrive as a release of tension.
This isn’t weakness or ‘failure’ – it’s literally just the RELEASE of the Tears of the Way – the tears that emerge when the tension of the unreal finally gives way to the truth of what we have been carrying in ourselves all this time.
The Tears of the Way are the tears that wash away resistance, dissolve old stories, and return us to the present moment.
In other words, they help us find the path again.
If you want to leave the Void and start living you real life then you might find my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace helpful.
How to Use Sadness to Complete the Past
Understanding sadness is one thing but working through it is another – fortunately, the process can be simplified into three stages:
1. Regulate
Before you can feel difficult emotions associated with sadness and whatever you’ve been holding onto (and creating TENSION for yourself with), then you need to feel safe to feel.
Many people try to process sadness while their nervous system is already overwhelmed but this hardly ever works because they start to see their own emotional ‘stuff’ as a threat.
This is why the first step is always regulation and creating a baseline of safety within yourself for yoursef:
- Slow breathing.
- Walking in nature.
- Prayer.
- Meditation.
- Exercise.
- Journalling.
- Good sleep.
- Etc. etc. etc.
Basically, anything that helps your body remember that you are safe is going to help you because you can’t force emotional integration – you can only create the conditions for it and the safer your system feels, the easier it becomes to experience what needs to be experienced.
2. Integrate
Once you feel safe enough, you can finally stop resisting!
This is where most people struggle because they’d rather analyse their sadness by explaining it, ‘fixing’ it, and learning to control it.
None of these things ‘work’ because they just keep you detached and separate from it which is why, instead, you need to allow yourself to feel it:
This basically means sitting with it, noticing where it lives in your body, noticing what memories arise, noticing what truth emerges, and letting the tears come if they need to come.
Remember that sadness isn’t permanent so you have nothing to worry about – like every emotional process, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end and it only lingers when you refuse to let it move.
Integration means allowing the movement whilst remembering that you aren’t trying to become the sadness – you’re simply allowing the sadness to complete itself.
(Sadness isn’t something you ARE but something you HAVE temporarily).
3. Accelerate
Once the past has been processed, then energy, clarity, and purpose return as life starts moving again.
This is the point where many people make a mistake because they stay focused on healing everything (which is impossible) and thinking it’s something they need to do forever (which is why many people get stuck in shadow work).
The thing to remember is that healing isn’t the destination – your REAL LIFE is the destination.
The purpose of processing the past is to free yourself to be present so you can make real choices about your future and this is why Accelerate means stepping into the next season of your life.
This is going to be different for everybody:
- Start the business.
- Write the book.
- Have the conversation.
- Open your heart again.
- Share your gifts.
- Take the risk.
- Become who you are now instead of who you used to be.
The past has already taken enough from you – don’t let it take your future too.
The Tears of the Way, Sadness, & the Real Path Forward
The deepest truth about sadness is that it isn’t trying to destroy you – it’s actually trying to guide you by showing you where the past remains unfinished by pointing towards the places where your life became fragmented.
It’s asking you to return to wholeness and any tears that arise along the way are not evidence that you’re broken but are evidence that something inside you is healing, that tension is becoming release, that resistance is shifting into acceptance, and – most important of all – that the unreal is becoming real.
When sadness is finally allowed to complete the past you stop carrying yesterday into today, stop being your own worst enemy and holding yourself back and stop tarnishing new opportunities with old stories.
Gradually, perhaps without even noticing, you find yourself standing fully in the present because you finally let go of what was keeping you from arriving.
That is the gift of the Tears of the Way – they don’t pull you backwards: they show you the way home.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to step away from the past and into your real life then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you catch up with yourself.
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