Ep #025 | The Best Way to Deal with Sadness

Sadness, depression, negative emotions. Those days when you just feel cloudy and down. Life has its ups and downs. We cannot control every aspects of life. There will be situations when a dear person in our life has to leave us and there will be situations when our health might not be the best where it could be. In these moments we feel sad. But what if there are some unique models of dealing with sadness so that you don't resist it, you don't fight it, but you gently sail with it. You embrace sadness. You don't try to push it away or feel guilty for having it. Yet you know that at the other end of sadness, at the other end of this dark tunnel, there is light. Maybe you've seen that brilliant Pixar movie Inside out and I won't give away the ending of that movie, but definitely watch it. It's this beautiful movie about the characters and the emotions inside a little girl's head. And at the start of the movie, the sadness character seems to be the one that is causing so much haybuck in this girl's life. Towards the end of the movie though, you see the purpose for sadness and that's what this mentoring episode is about. How can we not have to fight or resist sadness, but how do we transcend it while embracing it for the lessons that it can bring? And joining us in this episode, Michael Beckham. Welcome to the set, Michael.

Thank you so much. It's always a joy to be with you, Vishen. You're doing such great work.

Today's topic is exceptionally relevant to you and it's on how to deal with sadness. Now Michael, before we go into the topic, for people who might not yet be acquainted with your brilliant body of work, let me just give an introduction to who you are. So Michael Benant Beckwith is the spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual center in California, a transdenominational multicultural community of thousands of members with outreach programs spanning across eight African countries, helping at risk youth, food distribution, housing, schools, orphanages, clinics, financial programs and human advocacy. He is famous for teaching on the science of inner transformation. He is a best selling author. He is dynamite on stage. A two time a fest speaker, he was the opening face and voice in Mindvalley's first ever documentary. And most of all, he's been one of my greatest mentors as I've journeyed through life and I've learned a ton from this man. So Michael, welcome to Mindvalley.

It's my joy always to be with you Vishen.

So we were talking about sadness because so many people who are Watching this episode, like me, like anyone else, go through these days when we go through these dips. So sometimes it lasts a few hours. Sometimes it could last weeks or months. Let's talk about sadness.

Right? I'll start off with a personal story. There was a time in my life a number of years ago where sadness was my constant companion. It was kind of resident here in my heart, and it was with me all the time. And it became a focal point of my meditation. Now, as I watched the sadness in the beginning, it was like, where's the sadness coming from? Is it because of a loss? Is it because of something bad that happened in my life that I wasn't aware of? I never found the genesis of it. So it just became a companion, and it became a focal point of my observation and my meditation. It was there every day for a number of years. Vision. As a matter of fact, when I see old pictures of myself back then, my arm would be up like this, kind of protecting my heart. So my physical posture was even changed now over a period of time. I didn't try to get rid of the sadness. I didn't resist it. I didn't fight against it. It was just there. It didn't impinge upon the joy of my being, the happiness, the intelligence that would flow through, but it was there. And then one day I woke up, I went to my meditation, and it was gone. My mind searched for it. It's like, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? And it wasn't there anymore. It had dissolved itself. And in its place was a greater opening for more of life to come through. And so when we speak about sadness, there are people who have what you call sadness phobia, or some people have fear phobia, meaning they're afraid of being sad, or they're afraid of having fear. And so they do all kinds of things to not feel it. People will go to pharmaceuticals, they'll do all manner of compulsive behaviors to not feel their feelings, not feel the sadness, or not feel the fear. And oftentimes, that's preventing the evolution of their soul. It's preventing an awakening, it's preventing an emergence. It's preventing them from. From going to the next stage of evolution. In the western world, people do that all the time. They get sad, they get a little depressed, and all of a sudden, they want to take something to stop it. And so I call that a fear phobia or a sadness phobia. You don't want to be afraid of the sadness. You want to sit with it, it's a companion. Sometimes, in your observation of it, it will give you a message as to what you're releasing. Perhaps there's an old thought form or an experience that you had that you hadn't processed yet. And it's being processed. You're doing spiritual work, you're asking empowering questions, you're studying, you're coming to a fest, whatever the case may be. And you're starting to release something in the process of releasing doesn't necessarily feel good. Now imagine you have a really good friend, and you meet this friend for coffee or tea pretty much every day at the same time. And then one day he tells you, I'm moving to Australia. I won't be able to see you anymore. Didn't die, he just moved. But that space that occupied your time together is gone. And instead of expression, it becomes depression. There's nothing there yet. And then so you have a little sadness, you have a little depression, you have a little, oh, I miss him. He's not dead. He's just another part of the world. And so you may run around and try to fill that space with something. I'm going to go eat a lot, I'm going to go to the movies, I'm going to go drink, I'm going to, you know. But instead, if you just sit with it, you know, you realize he's just gone. Well, in the same way, you may have a piece of material, you may have a thought form, you may have a belief, you may have a perception that you've had a long time, but now it's gone. And in its place, it's a depression rather than an expression. So instead of running around and trying to get rid of that, you observe it, you watch it, you become aware of it. I call it a companion, you walk with it. And since everything is energy, it begins to change, it begins to dissolve, transmute, and ultimately your expanded awareness transcends it. And that sadness dissolves, and your natural state of happiness and joy is there.

That's interesting what you said, because you referred to sadness as a companion. In other words, you're implying that we are not sad, we are bliss, we are joyful. Rather, sadness is simply a presence within this field. And that idea really shifted the way I view sadness ever since you shared it with me a few days ago. Can you go deeper on that?

Right. When we look at ourselves as beings of life, light, luminosity, our innate nature is joy, is happiness. It gets covered up. There are filters that we see life through. And when we identify with those filters, then the companions of sadness, fear, doubt and worry are there again. We don't try to brush them away. If someone makes their transition and suddenly the energy of expression is gone and turns into depression, you know, we have to acknowledge that. We have to embrace that. But it's not our being. That's not who we are. That's not what we are. The sadness is a companion passing through. And so recently I was sharing with you that my father made his transition. About a week and a half before I came here, before I came to a fest and someone asked me how I was doing. And I became aware that I have this companion called sadness. When I think of him as a companion, I didn't say I'm sad. I have a companion now. That companion is in the field of an expanded awareness of joy and of happiness and creativity. But it's there. So I'm not going to run around and try to get rid of the sadness. I'm not going to deny the sadness is there. I'm not going to resist the sadness. It's a companion. It's walking with me. When I sit in my meditative practice, I do my meditation. I'm aware of the sadness. There it is. My attention is there because it's present. That sadness is not in the future. And that sadness is not in the past. It's present, just like your breath is present when you're in meditation. So that becomes a focal point. There's the sadness. So I'm able to watch.

Starts to change as you watch it.

As I'm watching it, it's shifting, it's moving, it's mercurial. Sometimes it's dense. Sometimes it's light and feathery. But eventually it'll change. I'll transmute it through observation, intentionality, and transcend it. It won't change any facts. My father is still gone. But the sadness itself, the texture of it, will change over the days, over the weeks, over the months, until it won't be there in that way anymore.

When sadness comes in because we've broken up with someone or we've lost someone dear in our lives, how do we think of it as a companion? Is it something that we view as a welcome presence? Is it something we deliberately try to ignore? Is it something we aim to eventually shrink and make disappear?

We definitely don't ignore it, and we definitely do not resist it. We watch it and we invite it as a companion. We embrace it as a companion.

And by watching it, what you mean is observing the feelings.

Yes, Observe it. Sometimes you can even see where the sadness is. For instance, that sadness that I had for a prolonged period of time, I could feel it around my heart center, which is why my hand would go up like this a lot. You know, it was kind of like a protecting. So I was aware of it there. Sometimes people can be aware the sadness is in the heart space. Sometimes they can be aware that it's full body. You know, sometimes it's more in the facial region. You just become aware of it. You observe it. We know through scientific studies that whatever it is that you observe changes on a subatomic level just based on observation. Anything you observe is changing based on observation. So when you observe sadness, but you're not trying to get rid of it, you're not trying to ignore it, deny it, but you're observing it to be free. You're observing it to come back to your real nature. Then the fabric of it begins to speed up, it begins to change, and you walk with it. As I said earlier, many people have a sadness phobia. They're afraid of the sadness, and so they'll do extraordinary things to get rid of it. Thus, it doesn't really get rid of it. It masks it. If you take pharmaceuticals, and I'm not saying that there aren't times where people need to take something temporarily for the surcease of PA or whatever the case may be. But if you run to that drawer over and over and over again, you don't really get rid of the sadness. You're actually masking it. It's still there. And then you find yourself becoming addicted to whatever it is that you're using to mask it. So what I'm saying is the backdrop of your being is life and light and brilliance and bliss and joy. Not pseudo happiness based on external circumstance. But the nature of your being is joy. The nature of your being is intelligence. The nature of your being is love. And so, as you are aware that this companion has entered in based on loss, sudden shift in your life, you watch, but you watch with intention. And then intention is to wake up. Intention is to wake up to your real nature and your reality.

Michael, that's beautifully said. I want to go to something you spoke about. The very first time we had you on this program. You spoke about kensho and satori moments. Kensho, which is growth through pain. Satori, which is growth through insight. How does sadness as a companion and kensho interrelate?

Well, if you have sadness as a companion, that's a Kensho moment. That's a slow burn here. It is something that you don't want to experience forever, but you can't deny it. It is there. It is present with you. So when you use that as an object of your focus in meditation, it's a slow burn. But it keeps you in the present moment. You start to finally attune your ability to observe and stay present. And then it starts to change the fabric of sadness at a faster rate. Whereas, Satori, that's an immediate insight. It's a revelation. It's an aha. It's like, I got it. It's like everything. All the filters dissolve temporarily or for a long period of time. And you see life as it really is. Full of light, luminosity, brilliance. Infinite possibilities, infinite potential. That's Satori. Eureka. I see. Kensho. Slow burn. You see, you may have a companion that you're looking at and observing. It may be just the ups and downs of daily life, you know, human life. You know, when we decided to take a human incarnation, that's not a wimpy choice, you know, the fabric of being human. People die, you lose things, the body deteriorates. Depending on what part of the world you're born. There could be droughts, there could be famines, there could be starvation, there could be war, you see. And so having a human incarnation is a very courageous act in itself. So there's a lot of kin show, a lot of slow burn moments in it. Sadness, breakup, whatever the case may be, it provides a level of humility as well. When the structures begin to fall apart, whether it's the body temple, whether it's the relationship fragmenting, job loss. As we stay conscious, we develop a level of humility. It's like we can't control everything. So there's an openness of the heart. There's an openness of our space. To be able to get great assistance now in relationship, you know, because people really want to know, how do you get through a broken relationship? So I teach basically there are three stages in that the first stage is acceptance. You have to actually come to grips and accept that this relationship is forever changed. It's not going to be the same as it was before. That means you can't go into wishful thinking. I wish I would have done something differently. I wish I was somebody else. I wish. I wish I was somewhere else. You can't let the mind run off into wishful thinking. You have total acceptance. This relationship is changed forever. What might have been a marriage may transition into a friendship. It may transition into a business relationship, may transition into something we don't know. But it's different. It's not going to be the same. And so first is acceptance. Second is harvest the good, meaning you go through the relationship and you see everything you learned in it. You know, who was I when I came into this relationship? Who am I now? What have I learned? What lessons have I learned? How have I changed? What little nuance of me is now available now that wasn't available when I first came into this relationship? How did I grow up?

It's harvesting the good.

Harvesting the good. That's stage two, Stage three, forgive all the rest. You know, so these are stages that you have to go through one at a time.

Wow.

You know, you can do them simultaneously, but it's not a one and done kind of thing. Because acceptance may take a moment. Oh, if only I would have done such and such, we could have stayed together. If only she hadn't done such and such, we could have stayed together, you know, so you have to really come to an acceptance. This is done. This is no longer going to be the same. So the mind doesn't run off on tributaries of wishful thinking. Then you really start to harvest the good. You know, what did I learn? Where did I grow? You know, how am I a better person because of this relationship? And then you can actually write that down. You can start, oh, my God. Because sometimes in going through the process, your mind focuses on all the negative, you know, so this shows you that that relationship was not a waste of time. You learned A, B, C and D. You can have that forever. You're going to have that lesson forever. Even though the person may not be in your life in the same way. Then you forgive everything else. You forgive your misgivings. You forgive their misgivings, their missteps, your missteps, their mistakes, your mistakes. You go into a total state of absolute forgiveness. Now if you go through those three stages, acceptance, harvesting the good, total forgiveness, you'll find yourself rising up as a new being.

Wow.

Without tremendous rancor. Resentment, animosity. Eventually you'll see that as a school that you went through.

And I think that's such an important thing. You lost your father recently. Yes, I ended a 19 year relationship recently.

Yes.

And those three protocols, I learned it from the lens of Catherine Woodward Thomas, who wrote the book Conscious Uncoupling. But those three lessons helped me and Christina, who has now moved to becoming a really good friend, significantly.

Yes.

It was acceptance that even after 19 years, this was not working out. And then B, harvesting the good, Looking at the gratefulness of all the great times we shared together. And third, total absolute forgiveness and a commitment that we were going to practice kindness to each other and do this in the most conscious way. That really helped me overcome what could often be a really painful moment. And I want to share that. The sadness of that as a companion is still in my field. Yes, it's still in my field.

Right.

And I even feel. Feel it right now. I'm trying not to tear up as you're speaking. Right. But seeing it as a companion and knowing that it's okay and that there are lessons to be learned makes me be able to still function in the world in an amazing way while still acknowledging that companion.

Right.

So thank you for these models of looking at the world and the process for dealing with this. Of course, if you're watching, all of us at some point in our lives will go through some sort of heartbreak. They say the average American will have three major relationships in their life. And that's just average. Right. That means two of those are going to end at some point. So this is a very useful tool, toolkit to have in your transformational journey. Michael. The final question is sometimes when sadness enters our life, it comes with an additional companion. Unworthiness. When we get dumped, unworthiness comes in. When we lose a job. Unworthiness comes in. When we fail at a business or a project, unworthiness comes in. How do we balance these two? Sadness and it's sidekick. Unworthiness, it's sidekick.

That's beautiful. Generally speaking, when that sense of unworthiness is there, we're looking at our life through the lens of what we think other people are thinking about us. And so we'll project this sadness onto the lens of someone else and look at ourselves. You know, he stumbled, he fell, he lost, he didn't make it. And so we have to become uninterested. And what we think others are thinking about us. And we have to ask ourselves a question. What does life think about me right now? What does life think about me now? Life. You know, many names for life. You can call life God, the love, intelligence of the universe, whatever name we call it. But life sees us through the lens of potential. When life looks at us, life sees that there's so much more to us than what has happened to us. There's so much more to us than any experience we have had. And so we ask ourselves, how is life seeing me right now? And what is life asking of me? How does life see me? And what is life asking of me? Life sees me as Infinite potential. Life is asking me to be courageous right now. Life is asking me to be strong right now. Life is asking me to start over right now. Life is asking me to go deep within my own soul and discover gifts that I forgot about that I put on the shelf. So if we go to those two questions, how does life see me? And what is life asking of me? Will start to spiral up. Because a disempowering question will spiral us down. What's wrong? Why me? Why is life doing this to me? What big mistake did I make? Will go down. If we ask a different kind of question, we'll spiral up and we'll be more receptive to answers of inspiration, insight, guidance. That's always here, but we have to be receptive to it.

I love that answer that speaks. There's so much to digest there. Thank you so much for sharing these words of wisdom with us. I hope you guys listening got a ton out of this episode. This is the kind of episode you may want to listen to a second time round to really let these words of wisdom sink in. So thank you for tuning in to how to deal with sadness, and I wish you and your companion well. And I hope that there's a great lesson or healing that emerges from whatever you're going through. Michael, any closing words?

The only closing word I would say is that space of sadness. As it begins to move faster through observation, there's more of us that gets to express. So what looks like a hindrance right now actually becomes an opening for more life to flow through. Beautiful.

Thank you and thank you guys for tuning in.