Before beginning this blog post, it's been almost 2 years since my last post, and I would like to give some small life updates. I returned to India after my exchange year in France. It was the most amazing 11 months of my life, and if given the chance to do it again, I would! I began university and am now in my second year. I also joined an NGO called Rotaract and am serving as its Vice President for our city’s club. So that’s all I had for the updates.
The idea for this blog came while listening to one of the newly released albums from one of my favorite artists, and her songs made me mourn a relationship I never had, but the feeling felt so familiar as if I had lived that before. The lyrics just resonated and gave me a sense of closeness to what she was trying to express, and it made me realize that, mostly in life, feelings are something that we all have in common. The five emotions that were well portrayed in Inside Out- Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear- and I have zero regrets referencing an animated movie. In each one of us, one of the emotions always overpowers the other. If I have to talk about me. I would say the two things that must overpower me would be joy and anger, but sadness always feels like the most familiar.
For this topic, I actually read a great blog, “ Why Do I Find Comfort in Sadness? Exploring Emotional Patterns with Dr. Susan Hollander, PhD.”, and I would be adding some of her very interesting insights.
For a lot of us, sadness brings a sense of familiarity amid life’s unpredictable challenges. Our brain’s system often associates this sadness with the feeling of safety, slowly becoming a comfort zone. It’s a place where we know what to expect, even when we feel sad. It’s like going back to that one ex; we know the result we would get out of it, but it's just a sense of comfort. Even though we know it's not at all healthy, we feel familiar when we try to get back with them. (It is just an example). It can also be an addiction; we feel a little stressed out, we go for something that we are addicted to, at the end a sense of comfort and familiarity, and we don't have to deal with the unknown; instead we go to something that helps us comfort ourselves.
Another insight I resonated with was the belief that we don't deserve happiness, like something you haven't earned or don't know how to maintain. This can also be pushing people away from you because you feel like you don't deserve niceness and would be ruining something good. It does happen with me when I feel like something is going towards the right path; I would start pushing people away to test the boundaries they carry or how much patience they can have with me. I would make blunders and check if they still want to stick around until they give up. The feeling of being left alone feels familiar and comforting because, in this case, you pushed them out of your lives, and it's not the other way around, where you get the feeling of abandonment.
I’m not being a psychologist here but just trying to make mere observations into something that we often feel. Sometimes listening to those sad songs makes us feel at peace, and watching tear-jerking movies feels comforting. Again, it can also be the thing that we crave the most: the feeling of familiarity, watching the same TV shows or movies on repeat; yes, the story wouldn't change, but you feel comforted knowing the ending, or you just find some of the characters being the same as you or listening to the same songs on repeat- again, the sense of familiarity. This also goes for food: when people have their “comfort food”, not having to make something new but sticking with what you like the best. When life gets very chaotic, and you don't know what will happen next, this is what we crave: the sense of comfort that we don't get from others, so we just have to go out of the way to achieve it ourselves.
In recent years, I’ve been watching self-help videos and podcasts, and the suggestions I love the most from them are understanding our trigger points, what makes us react a certain way. Secondly, journaling is one of the best things I've ever learnt because every time I journal, I find a new thing about myself. Third would be affirmations, again something I believe in a lot: positive affirmations to make you feel empowered and boost your morale.
