"Why do I feel sad?" The question that changes everything

Examining one's own emotions and feelings is fundamental to feeling better.

Psychology has many nooks and crannies, nuances and details that make this field a complicated world, difficult to understand. However, sometimes the worst thing is not that our minds are complicated, but that when we have an emotional problem we do not ask the right questions. That's why it's so important to get to the question, "Why do I feel sad?". From that moment on, everything in our life can start to change.

In this article we will see what makes sadness so persistent, what are the traps we fall into when trying to get out of unhappiness and how we can begin to consider the reconstruction of our own life starting from a very simple question.

Unhappiness is camouflaged

Nowadays it is difficult to detect unhappiness when it appears. Most people choose to give the best image of themselves, and they have many resources to do so; among them, social networks where they filter the photos and content that talk about them stand out.

That is why, when it comes to understanding what happiness consists of, it is not easy to have a reference point for it.. We look at both sides, we see that everyone seems happy, and we assume that, if we are considering that, maybe we are not; but beyond that, we know very little about what is happening to us.

Nor does it make things easier to lead a frenetic pace of life. In many cases, work leaves us no time to breathe and worry about our feelings.

Considering the above, it is very frequent that this possible unhappiness, which we were not even able to fully recognize because we did not conceive any other way of life, turns into sadness. But when this happens, two things happen.

On the one hand, we hit rock bottom, we feel really bad, sometimes resorting over and over again to memories of a better past that we can only memories of a better past that we can only see through nostalgia.. On the other hand, clearly recognizing that we are in a bad way allows us to start working on feeling better. And it all starts with a simple question.

Why do I feel sad? Re-composing one's emotions

Sadness has several facets, and one of the most harmful is the fact that it paralyzes us. This is a feeling that affects not only the way we analyze the past and the present, but also the future. By eliminating a good part of our expectations of progress at the root, our motivation disappears and, with it, our chances of improving our quality of life..

But all this only happens if we accept the mental framework that sadness provides us with. If we ask ourselves an honest "why am I sad?", new possibilities appear to approach our problems in a constructive way. That is, in a way that places in our short, medium and long term future several objectives.

After all, sadness is not a station of arrival in life, as if we cannot get out of it. We learn to feel that way, and in the same way, we can learn to get out of that state. from that state. It is important not to treat it as if it were a label that perfectly describes everything a person is or will be, in the same way that one is tall or short.

How not to confuse this feeling with depression

If you have already established that you feel sad, it is important not to confuse this state with depression, a sometimes confusing concept that can be mistakenly used as a synonym for sadness.

Depression is a mental disorder that often goes hand in hand with deep sadness, but it is more than this. People with depressive symptoms are often unmotivated to do almost nothing: neither to seek help nor to engage in activities to try to cheer themselves up. It is also very common they have difficulty experiencing pleasure, a phenomenon known as anhedonia.a phenomenon known as anhedonia.

In addition, depression can have no identifiable causes and can appear in all types of people, regardless of their economic level and their popularity in social circles. In a way, it is triggered in a way that completely overrides one's rationality, and no matter what we do, it does not let us go. That is why in these cases the right thing to do is to go to therapy, since help is needed that comes from outside.

Thus, while both sadness and depression have Biological causes, in depression the environment explains fewer factors than neurological alterations.

Listen to your own emotions

So, if you see yourself in the mood to ask yourself why you feel sad and feel motivated to change that, in addition to not experiencing anhedonia and other unusual symptoms linked to mood, you can move on to try to manage with your own tools that sadness by asking yourself several questions that try to answer the original one. Remember that in psychology there is rarely a single cause that explains a phenomenon; there are usually many of them, and there are many of them.There are usually many of them, and they all have various nuances to consider.

So, keeping in mind that sadness and hopelessness can be overcome, when you want to ask yourself why you feel sad, try to answer these questions:

• How long have I been feeling this way? Did it coincide with a specific event?
• Could someone be influencing my mood?
• What habits and customs might be fueling my sadness?
• Is there someone who can help me?
• Is it worthwhile for me to see a psychologist for therapy?

Starting to feel better is possible

If you learn to stop self-sabotaging, it is usually possible to stop feeling sad. Of course, we are not solely responsible for how we feel, we are not the only ones responsible for how we feelOthers may have done us a great disservice. However, taking control of the situation and taking a real interest in getting better is essential in order to be able to leave this malaise behind.

Thus, it is necessary to be aware that feelings of sadness or joy are not something that arises spontaneously from us. It depends largely on the way in which we relate to others and to our environment, so that in order to change our mood, it is necessary to promote change around us. How we do this depends on our values and convictions, and on our way of identifying a problem that is affecting us.