The Five Stages of Waking Up: Sadness

Welcome to week four in our series called "Waking Up," the process by which we become aware of our conditioning and begin to make conscious choices about who we are and how we live. Sadness is one of the the hardest stages of this work. This is when and where we come into direct contact with our pain. Our work is to learn one of the most essential processes of life: how to grieve. We must learn it, allow it, and eventually come to embrace it. Grief is how we integrate our losses. We don't let them go... rather, they become part of us through the grief process. This is the expansion of the human being - from naive and immature to compassionate and wise. Our sadness will lead us, through our tears, to what we value most. This awakens us to who we truly are. When we allow our sadness, we create room for our joy. The depth of our sadness and grief holds our capacity for joy. This stage is one of the hardest, and the most rewarding.