sadness

Feelings are important. I don’t mean this in a trite, self-help sort of way. I mean, you have a right to your feelings. Full stop.

Most people view regret as a sign of personal failure. As a sign that they have made some sort of error. The more serious they believe that error to be, the more regret they feel. It’s as if people view decisions as diverging paths, with one side leading to happiness and the other leading to regret. If you’re smart, you’ll choose the correct path. Therefore, when you end up experiencing regret, it’s evidence that you were foolish enough to choose the “wrong” path.

When I share that I’m in a bad place, I’m told to curl up in bed with a nice book, eat my favorite ice cream or to take a relaxing bath. While these are all wonderful and helpful ideas, I think it’s important to discuss aspects of self-care that aren’t all about resting and treating yourself.

When we are left to make sense of the senseless, how do we help our children navigate the same waters we tread? When the fear of the unknown incapacitates us, how can we help them to be less afraid? How can we help them to go on, even when we don’t want to? Especially when we don’t want to.

“It can feel quite isolating or even invalidating when someone is trying that ‘Cheer up’ approach, or comparisons like, ‘It’s not so bad, look at the people who have it so much worse’,” explains Tal Schlosser, Clinical Psychologist at My Life Psychologists. “We have the feelings we have and someone saying, ‘Don’t worry about it’ doesn’t make it go away. In fact, we can feel even worse about the fact we can’t just snap out of it.” Part of the motivation to cheer people up is tied to how society typically views emotions. According to Dr Janine Clarke, Psychologist at Mend Psychology and The Sydney ACT Centre, there are six ‘basic,’ universal emotions — sadness, anger, disgust, fear, happiness and surprise — and we’ve been conditioned to perceive happiness as the only one worth pursuing.

Breakup blues got you down? Our resident film buff fills you in on what to watch with your ice cream when you're wallowing.

New ink trend #DivorceTattoos is weird and intriguing. Would you?