Sadness’s Equal/Opposite: Joy
Exuberance, excitement, energy, cheer— everything absent in sadness is present in joy. Where sadness may create distance and disinterest, joy generates playfulness and stimulation. While sadness lends itself to isolation, joy thrives in connection. Joy is the bliss that mirrors sadness’s despair. Of course, even joy should be approached with moderation; after all, ongoing euphoria and mania are of psychological concern too! As suggested in the previous posts, there’s an important balanced relationship here.
Joy Vs. Happiness
Joy represents something deeply internal, but in our culture, we often settle for its more surface-level cousin “happiness.” You may have noticed that “happy” doesn’t even appear on the version of the feeling wheel which appears throughout this series, and that’s because happy is something dependent on external factors. Joy may include happiness, but it signifies deeper connections happening. For example, I’m happy when I drink an Aardwolf El Mariachi stout. My taste buds have signified there’s something delicious in my mouth, and this makes me happy. I experience joy when I share this beer with friends or when I remember the first time my wife and I visited Aardwolf together and had one of the bartenders say with a smile, “So you like stouts? How do you feel about spiced chocolate?” Sure, the beer is still something external, but its connection to deeper emotions, memories, and relationships makes this an experience of joy, not just happiness. I’m getting into a personal soapbox now, but I think one of our biggest mistakes as a culture is settling for happiness instead of joy— settling for an immediate sensual gratification when there might be deeper fulfillment available. Anyway, as to joy’s relationship to sadness…
Getting to Know Your Sadness and Joy
Of the feeling pairs we’ll look at, sadness and joy are unique because we actually have English words for when the two coexist at the same time: poignant, bittersweet, and even nostalgic (as in “happy it happened but also sad it’s in the past”). We don’t really have comparable words for anger/power and fear/peace, but we’re comfortable enough with the idea of something being both happy and sad that we’ve found ways to describe the feeling. Sadness and joy may seem like polar opposites who couldn’t possibly coexist, and yet, our grief often involves both. So often, sadness relates to the loss of something that once gave us joy, and entering into that sadness may help us to reach a place where we can feel joy again. There’s an ebb and flow to these particular feelings. Sadness may do the therapeutic work which will create the space for joy. And just because joy will someday recede again doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the feeling in the moment.
On a Personal Note
I once worked with a recent widower (maybe a year and a half out from the loss) who had entered a deep sadness he couldn’t seem to shake. He had moved in with one of his adult children, and whenever he began to talk about his feelings toward his late wife, his child would shush him. As time went by, my patient felt more and more isolated and lonely. He could only talk about the pain and despair he felt with his loss. He wondered if he’d ever be happy again. Noticing that the inability to talk about his wife was a major part of his suffering, some of the nurses and I began encouraging him to share stories about her with us. As he recounted tales of his various adventures with his wife, he began smiling and laughing more often. In my last visit with him, he reported feeling significantly better after his time in the hospital. Sharing those stories hadn’t made his sadness go away. He still missed his wife. But that sadness was now partnered with joy. His grief now had space for both feelings.
Sadness and joy are potent and important emotions.
They inform one another.
Rather than keeping either at bay,
we should feel them.
Embrace them.
Let them do their work.
Next week: anger.