Current cultural standards reflect some very definite ideas about emotions. Americans encourage optimism here in the land of opportunity. We use humor to reduce stress and improve health. Even expressions of anger are tolerated, and in some segments of life they are actually encouraged. Many people, however, feel uncomfortable when trying to cope with feelings of sadness. Seeking expert help can help restore equilibrium.

Generally, people stigmatize physical suffering less than emotional suffering. Most find it normal to work through a process of therapy, treatment, and recovery following an injury or illness. Why, then, do so many struggle to give the same grace to emotional pain? An injury to the psyche also heals best when handled with appropriate care.

Attaching negative connotations to sadness is counterproductive. Humans experience a wide spectrum of emotions and all are valid, acceptable and, most importantly, temporary. Understanding the transitory nature of emotions can help us to fully experience them, and then in turn moderate them rather than be overwhelmed.

I encourage clients who are dealing with sadness to fully submit to their feelings without blame, making sure to pay attention to the physical responses and mental images triggered. Learning to quietly meditate on these responses and images can lead to recognition, control, or even resolution of the feeling. Then, I teach techniques for accessing these impressions to manage future sorrows and to empathize when interacting with others who experience troubles.

While conquering the blues is not an easy task, it is better to work through sadness than to try to deny a normal, natural emotion. Unresolved feelings of loss from the past have a way of bubbling up at difficult moments. In the beginning, clients in counseling may have trouble identifying the source of their unhappiness, but during treatment they are able to uncover sources of sorrow from the recent past, or even further back.

If a problem is buried too deeply and the client is not making progress, hypnotherapy may provide an effective way to discover and confront the root of the difficulties. I provide a safe, supportive environment that allows people to change their perception of previous trials and then experience personal growth by integrating the lessons learned. Processing these feelings and events allows them to dissolve.

Emotional complexity is part of the richness of life. A thread of blue woven in with the sunny yellows, passionate reds and hopeful greens adds to the beauty of life’s tapestry and should be given its rightful place.