Growing up, my sister died of sudden infant death before i turned three. Nobody really talked about it - we all just tried to be cheerful and carry on. My parents split up a few months after she died; no one talked about that either. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that i had been running away as well from sadness. And this just feels like something i don't want anyone else to have to go through. There's a way that we can get better about talking about this kind of thing than we should.
We react to sadness in a variety of unhelpful ways. We try to suppress it. We experience guilt over it and apologise to the people around us for feeling it. We assume it means we've failed. We even fear it.
But sadness will touch us all - and to be happier and more resilient we need to accept the emotion and work with it to make our lives better. Journalist Helen Russell (author of How to be Sad: Everything I've Learned About Getting Happier by Being Sad Better.) joins Dr Laurie Santos to explain why our view of sadness needs to be rehabilitated.
You can purchase her book, How To Be Sad at - https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-to-be-sad-helen-russell?variant=33051661762594 - and follow her @MsHelenRussell on social media platforms.
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