There are a variety of experiences a person goes through in the course of life. I have been through many different things, being very fortunate to meet and know many people and to visit some places.  Most of our experiences are similar, for the most part, and yet we still have a hard time talking about some things which cause us pain and heartbreak.  These are the things we have difficulty telling anyone.  The emotions are hidden, been too far inside.  It is time to recognize each and let them all go.

Sadness

One of our staple emotions is sadness. We feel this all the time, from the loss of something in many phases of our lives. But if you acknowledge your grief and say it out loud to people, you are perceived as weak and undesirable.  This fear has caused me to hide my sadness whenever it has arisen.  Push it aside, hold it down where nobody can see it, and it will go away. As if by magic.  For these reasons, sadness is uncomfortable and makes you feel there is something wrong with handling it.

The emotions we try to bury will always rise back to the surface, like a diver coming back up for air; these emotions will charge again to our consciousness at some point.  Often when you would least expect it. They come when any event has any remote to connect with a past sad event.  I have had tears rise to the surface saying good night to someone because it reaches into the experience of permanent loss I have felt earlier in life.  Sometimes it comes when you look at who you are, and it doesn’t match up with what you perceive others to think of you.  Being sad is a part of life. It provides the contrast to joy, which gives power and desirability to that emotion. There would be no joy if there were not any sadness.  It seems we should be more willing to talk about that.

I Hate Loss

As a child, I never liked the idea of loss.  When you have a thing, then you no longer have this thing. It is a part of life to learn to deal with the grief associated with a loss, but often, we are instructed as young men to “toughen up,” and as an adult signature on the path of life, I should have a higher handle on the losses.  But it still hurts when things and people are removed from my life. It can be a break-up, a job change, the passing of a loved one, or any loss of something once here that is now gone.

We all desire life to be controllable, predictable, and in our control.  Life will never be one of these things, and loss comes to us because we forget this hard truth.  That is why my goal is to enjoy everything that happens and not to build an attachment to that thing.  Events, ideas, and people will come into your life and deposit what you need to learn. Some will stay for the whole story, but most are just there for a chapter or two. Make those chapters the best they can be, and then turn the page and allow the following stages to come to you.  Losing things and people happen more and more as you get older; learning to deal with this process in a healthy manner is one of the most significant challenges we all face.

I Don’t Forget

One of my weaknesses hinders me from dealing appropriately with the last two things in my memory. It has a grasp of the times I enjoy that I can’t escape. If my thoughts are left to run on their own, to those happy things, they will run.  What is the harm in this? You ask. Our minds are a great tool but inaccurate. They remember things in a way that is not the most accurate—often stressing the good and moving the bad or painful to the background.  Soon we are nostalgic for past experiences and places, and those memories are false, and we remember things from our perspective.

There are many things, especially time spent with people, I never want to forget. No matter what happened, positive or negative, the value of that person is something you hold onto because you want to remember the places you went, the things you shared, and even if you got lost on the way, were late. The park closed before you got there, and it was still a valuable, memorable experience.  The problem exists because looking to the past brings a natural feeling of regret, which is not going to do you any good.  It is impossible, in my experience, to move forward until you put your past clearly and completely behind you.  Hold your memories in your heart, but don’t visit them; it is an unhealthy pastime.

There are many other things I cannot talk about, like love, hurting, disappointment, etc.  But this is an excellent place to start. The hard truth is that we all have these disturbing things inside us.  They are leftovers of our past, as far back as our childhoods.  They are essential because our subconscious mind uses this programming to run our lives when we are not paying attention to the events in front of us.

The trick, I think, is to learn to let the energy of the negative emotions pass through us and face our pain from the past.  Let the sadness move through us and pass away.  The fear of loss can cause many problems, but you can learn to master it by understanding that nothing lasts forever. Nothing.  We are just passengers on this planet for a short time, and our ultimate joy and enjoyment of life will come from how we live in every moment—putting the regrets of the past behind us and worries about the future,  which will cause anxiety, out of our minds.