Advice Girl: More Thoughts on Sadness
Wednesday are now advice days at Magpie Girl. We can share our wisdom with one another about this thing or that. Launch your queries to moi @ magpie-girl dot com.
So last week we talked about three kinds of sadness: hormonal, empathetic, and pervasive. Your comments and emails have been wonderful, and I love that everyone is contributing to the wisdom pool.
I have a few more thoughts, and I’m struggling to make this eloquent. But better to get it down in the rough, than to not get it down at all right? So here goes…
Right Place: Right Time
One thing I wanted to follow-up on was this question asked by Tami:
“With all the grief and loss in the world, how would one not feel empathic sadness constantly?”
This was interesting to me, especially in light of what Lisa said about empathetic sadness helping her in her healing work with others. In my experience as a minister, I’ve found that people tend to have empathetic reactions only to certain people, situations, or physical spaces. This is sometimes called ‘having a gift of discernment,’ or ‘the personal prophetic.’ Let me tell you a story….
When I was a minister in the University District of Seattle, I had a strong affinity for the neighborhood. Although it was run down and dirty, with people begging on the corners and a plethora of homeless kids, I adored it. It gave me good energy to walk down the streets, and I enjoyed the personalities I encountered there. I did not even mind the garbage. (Once while walking down the alley from the church to my car with the kids, my then 3 year old pointed to a dumpster and said, “Look Mama! Wildlife!” She was pointing to the crows picking through the trash! I found it delightful that my urban a baby considered crows “wildlife.”) All in all, the place and I vibed together well.
Anyway, at the same time I had an acquaintance who came from L.A. to visit. He had a knack for discernment as well, and he lived in a pretty hardcore part of L.A., so I figured the U District would be a cake walk to him. I was so wrong! His radar was on high alert the whole time and he could barely walk down the street without having to back up against the wall and say a few prayers. The spirit of the place completely demolished him.
What I took away from that is that you can be attuned to different things. You probably will not be tuned in to every instance of sadness around you. If you feel panicked and overwhelmed, perhaps that is your radar telling you this in not the area/person/situation for you to work in or with. But if you are just feeling sad and have some sort of insight about an area/person/situation, then that might be a clue from God and the Universe to lean in and listen a little closer.
What do you think? Does that make any sense.
What to do if you are connecting with everyone’s sadness.
That being said, there are times when your empathetic sadness goes on high alert — you feel every news report, every blog post, and every tragic email.
One obvious answer might be that something is amiss and your are projecting, projecting, projecting. So check and see if there’s something you need to grieve in your own life. But if that comes up empty, try this on for size…
One of my favorite stories is told by Sue Monk Kidd in The Secret Life of Bees. In this novel one of three sisters has an over-active empathetic sadness reflex. Every sadness she sees, she experiences as her own. The sisters help her cope with this by building a sort of wailing wall in the back yard. The physical exertion helps dispel some of the energy, and it creates a concrete place for her to express, and deposit her sorrow.
At one point in my life I found this happening to me, especially in regards to world events. At the time I was attending Regent College and was fortunate enough to take classes under Eugene Peterson. He advised the class to sink into one place/issue at a time, and to only focus on learning about that situation. At some point along the path of following this advice, I glommed on to the situation in Sudan, and to help me focus my sadness, grief, and intercession, I built a shrine. There I kept images of people of Sudan, news clippings, a candle, and a jar for money I later sent to a relief agency. It helped to have a place to focus my connection with that situation, and to express sorrow for her people. Perhaps, if you are feeling overwhelmed by sadness, this kind of symbolic focus might help you as well.
What do you do when you are overwhelmed by either grief or sadness? What techniques to you have to channel your empathic energy?
Next Week: How to create a soulcare community when there’s nothing in the ‘hood that fits.
2 comments
Rough? You call this rough? It’s freakin’ brilliant! My head, heart and soul all said “oh yeah, that’s it!” when I read the part about being tuned in to some situations/places/things/people and not others. You are absolutely spot on.
I sometimes have an opposite response when there is a lot of sadness and that is to go numb and/or start glossing over everything. Doesn’t happen that often, but it is one of my responses. And sometimes I’ll get agitated but not know why. One of the things I picked up a long time back is to ask God (using my church language) if there is anything specific I could be praying for, then pray for who/what comes to mind. Strangely, this most often happens if I can’t fall asleep at night. These are really short prayers and then I often conk out asleep.
I’ve recently learned how to hold space for the agitation (daytime agitation – yes, I’ve got different sorts in my life!) and not try to solve it. Sometimes I have to pretend that I’m outside, looking in as an observer. A quaker friend of mine has been very influential in my life teaching me how to ask holy questions in these sorts of situation. I try to hold it (whatever it is, some times it’s a lot of its) in the Light. As I do that, I try to be open to questions that come. What am I reacting to? Is this my reaction or is there something bigger going on here? Am I being asked to participate in some way or just feel? Is this mine or something bigger?
And in all this, it’s absolutely essential to have a trusted friend. I’d go crazy if I had to do this on my own.
Rachelle, so interesting to reflect on the energy of the U district from my current vantage point. I appreciate your insights on both counts. Thinking about world news, I definitely filter in the way described by Peterson. It helps in not getting overwhelmed. It is a big world and we are more acquainted with things on the other side of it than people ever have been before.
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