Dancing with my sadness

Greetings, my fellow Wonderstruck, how are you?

If I had to sum up how I’ve been feeling this week in one little word it would be sad.

It wasn’t until I got back from Ukraine that the full enormity of what I’d experienced there - and more importantly, what the Ukrainians have been experiencing for so long now - hit me, and all week, waves of sorrow have kept on rolling through me.

I’ve also really been missing my son, who now lives and works in Ukraine.

And I’ve been really sad over the end of a friendship.

All week I’ve tried pushing the sadness away, until it’s felt as if I’ve been pushing a boulder, but then last night something cracked and I started to cry.

And I cried and cried.

I’d been trying to avoid crying because I was afraid that if I started I wouldn’t stop but actually, it was really cathartic. 

And as I sobbed away on my sofa I had a thought that instantly made me feel better…

Our emotions are just like the weather, and even the worst of storms pass eventually.

Slovakian sunset, taken en route to Ukraine

And sure enough, my tears began to ebb, just like a downpour fading to drizzle. So I got up, put on some music and started to do the dishes. Then Spotify began playing a banging dance tune, the kind of tune your body can’t ignore - or mine can’t anyway.

And before I knew it, I was having a full-on kitchen disco!

As I danced around my kitchen, with the Spotify algorithm my virtual deejay, I felt my sadness being shaken from my body and trodden underfoot.

I danced for an hour in the end - until my hair had been shaken wild and my body was slick with sweat. 

I danced until I’d come back home to my true, joyful self.

Sometimes we can feel so overwhelmed by an emotion that it becomes our identity. 

‘I’m sad,’ we say to ourselves. Or, ‘I’m angry’ or ‘I’m depressed.’

But we aren’t our emotions. 

Just like the weather, they’re just passing through.

So don’t be afraid to feel them, to sit with them, to dance with them, even. Doing so makes them pass that little bit quicker.

Until next week, take good care of yourselves, and thank you so much for being a part of the Wonderstruck community.

Siobhan