When you’re sad, angry, or upset, do you ever get frustrated with yourself and question if you’re doing this whole spiritual thing right?

Well let me tell you this now: It is spiritually healthy to be sad! The feeling of sadness occurs because a part of you wants to be healed. A major key in this process is understanding. Getting to this point is quite the process, though, and that is okay.

We all have a core set of emotions, with extremes. The extreme of happiness is an enlightened blissful state, while the extreme of sadness is depression. Often times we may find ourselves in this deep depressive state and we may not understand why it has occurred. This deep sadness hinders us in our progress of spiritual growth, though. As stated before, sadness or just feelings of negativity in general cause us to question our spiritual progress.

Often times, you may think “If I’m growing and changing, why do I feel sad?” This is a very natural reaction. Any great change in our life will inevitably bring up a feeling of nostalgia. As an example, I experience nostalgia when I hear a song from my childhood because it brings back feelings of youthfulness with it. Spiritual growth often brings up the same feelings within us. This is the core of attachment itself. We often attach to those feelings or memories we have and in the end it hinders us. Psychologically, we often think “If I’m happier the other way, maybe I shouldn’t change at all?” but we have to remember that no personal liberation or greatness comes easy. You can’t close your eyes and walk through a maze. You have to take the time necessary in order to get to the destination. The process of change is much harder than remembering when it was all “happy” and “perfect”.

The beginning of this process is to think about what is causing our sadness and question where it stems from. We have to mindful of what we are experiencing physically and mentally. If we can pinpoint where our sadness is coming from, we can then make progress towards a happy, blissful state.

Think of working out a math problem: when you don’t get the right answer, you go back and look at where the problem occurred and then make changes from there. The journey of spiritual growth and sadness is very similar. If we can pinpoint where the problem is, we can make necessary changes from there. In doing so, we also free ourselves from the sadness that is holding us back. We “detach” from it.

Understanding sadness is very pivotal on our journey of spiritual growth. It allows us to get a relative understanding of complete joy and the changes we are enacting. The dips and moments of sadness show us that we do have the ability to move forward. If we have a state of despair and then root out the source of that sadness, we will feel joy because at the point it is understood that progress has been made. We are letting go, changing, and adapting to a new channel of life.

Take advantage of being a communal species. Communicate with one another and learn from the minds of your like-minded acquaintances. We are given tools on our path, and we must take advantage of them. Feel grateful for your sadness because it is growing and shaping you into the person you will need to be during your next phase on this path.