Earlier, I wrote about natural emotions and how most of us tend to either suppress the flow of feelings or amplify them, especially when it comes to painful emotions like grief and sadness. I’m no exception. Even after years of “working on” my emotions, I can still see subtle ways in which I push sadness away. Some of this comes from family and cultural conditioning — the old belief that “men are strong and don’t show emotion.” Other times it’s the more spiritualized version: I’m above sadness, I shouldn’t be feeling this.

Then there’s the opposite tendency: when sadness does break through, I can amplify it through a quiet sense of shame or by catastrophizing mentally. With awareness, I try to meet sadness and grief gently, without judgment, but it remains an ongoing practice. And I’m not young — this has been a lifelong journey.

But I’m certainly not alone. As a society, we don’t handle painful emotions any better. I work in a health system where we routinely ask frail, ill elders if they’re “depressed,” as if we’re hunting for a diagnostic label. Of course there are cases where someone truly fits the criteria for clinical depression. But for many older adults who are sick, declining, and navigating enormous losses, of course they feel depressed. Why do we need to pathologize what is a natural emotional response to loss of health, vitality, and the approach of death? In a way, it’s another form of amplification: turning a human emotion into a medical condition.

So we’re stuck in this odd split — either deny sadness or medicalize it.

I also lead kirtan, the call-and-response chanting of Sanskrit mantras. At times it’s elevating, joyful, and light. But my music teacher has been clear: all kinds of emotions arise when leading chanting, including painful ones. They have to be welcomed, not resisted. He also said something deeply wise: these so-called “unspiritual” emotions give a depth and authenticity to the kirtan that nothing else can. Imperfection is the human condition. And that includes the full spectrum of emotion.

Ultimately, we circle back to awareness. Awareness is the space where insight — inner sight — opens. It’s what allows us to feel sadness without collapsing into it or pushing it away. It’s what makes room for new ways of experiencing even the emotions we’ve spent a lifetime avoiding.