“Look: today I put before you life and happiness, death and misfortune…Choose life, and you will live.” (Deut 30:15,19). 

We have all experienced sadness in our soul at some point. That deep sadness that colors what we experience with heaviness and antipathy. Often what surrounds us loses its meaning, its color and its beauty. Sadness is capable of making us lose our memory of the color and joy of life.

There are situations that cause us pain, loss, frustration, and failure, such as a breakup or estrangement. These experiences leave a mark on the soul and sometimes so deep that it colors our vision with that dark tone. Sadness has the strength to immerse us in the dynamics of forgetting happy events, the joys experienced, the people who love us, our successes, the good we have done and received. Sadness has the ability to separate us and make us lose our memory of the good things in life. 

Have you ever felt that way? It is not about avoiding or denying sadness, because what is not assumed is not redeemed. Jesus also felt sadness, “sadness of death” that foreshadowed the end of his life, when he prayed to his Father in Gethsemane. When we are sad we need to pay attention to the three most common deceptions. First, sadness is a part and not the entirety of what happens to us. Pay attention to what is really valuable in your life, and it will help you put sadness in its right place, in relation to other things that are also present in your life. Second, difficult times are not permanent, just as they came, they will also pass. Wait patiently, even if it hurts and is uncomfortable…this too shall pass. Third, and perhaps the one that opens the door to spiritual growth, sadness, like every feeling, brings news, it tries to tell you something. Our emotions are messengers that bring news, they inform us of something we need to pay attention to. And it will be there for you to learn something from that time. 

In short, sadness can be lived as an opportunity, since its mission is to talk to us about our losses and learn from them; We must not allow it to make us lose the memory of the happiness and joy we experienced. Each person has in their hands the personal possibility of experiencing sadness as an opportunity for life or death, learning or despair. Choose life and sadness will be just a part of it that will help you live fully. 

Step Two The Way of the Heart – Editorial Team