Be sad. That’s right, be sad, embrace your feeling of melancholy and give yourself permission to explore why you’re feeling sad.

With so much focus on being happy, sadness is shunned as a bad emotion. However, as a human you’re designed to feel sadness. The key is how you deal with it.

Any emotion, positive or negative, requires a high level of effort and energy to maintain over a long period of time because you are constantly looking for reasons to justify feeling the emotion, to validate your feelings.

Don’t be afraid of sharing that you’re feeling sad. Those that really care for you will understand and you’ll also give them permission to share when they’re feeling sad too.

While experiencing sadness is part of part of life, you do not need to dwell on it. Experience it, understand it, and then re-focus on the things that do make you happy and that you are grateful for. Allowing yourself to feel the range of emotions that you were made to feel is an integral part of the human experience.