One of several good articles from Dr. Cloud that I found today:
“Sadness… tells us about hurt and loss. We live in a world where we get hurt and lose things. We need it to help us grieve and let go. If we repress and deny sadness, there is inevitable depression. Unresolved sadness always leads to depression and often other symptoms.
“…sadness says that there is a hurt of some kind that needs to be processed, and usually it involves a loss.
“When people deny their sad feelings, they “harden” the heart, and that is to lose touch with tender grace-giving aspects of who they are. They become unable to love and be tender, and to feel grief over their wrongdoings. This state leads then to become insensitive persons. In addition, it leads to all sort of symptoms – depressions, physiological problems, substance abuse, eating disorders, and the inability to get close to others.
“Whenever trauma is not worked through, the development stage present at that age gets affected.
In particular, I think this speaks to the trauma of The Divorce — or in my case, the trauma of my parents’ adversarial relationship during my first few years. For me, The Divorce was an end to THAT trauma, of living with a mother who didn’t give much of a shit about me, and of my parents fighting and yelling at each other all the time.
“When we lose our ability to feel sad, we lose our tenderness. It is a major aspect of ourselves that must be protected at all costs. If we can’t feel sad, we get coldhearted. Sadness does not equal weakness. Rather, processing sadness leads to strength.”