Sadness has a bad reputation.

In western culture, sadness is stigmatized and cast as a negative feeling. People are taught to feel uncomfortable being sad, because society doesn’t accept that sadness has value. This situation can make it difficult to work through those hard feelings.

Sadness has been even more frowned upon with the rise of social media. Everyone is smiling, having fun, and looking put together. This can give us the false idea that everyone feels happy all the time. The fact that you might be feeling sad or some other mix of emotions could make you feel weird, alone, or singled out.

One benefit of sadness is that it can help you make connections with others or to deepen existing connections. Since sadness isn’t normalized, it can feel reassuring and comforting to find out that someone you know is feeling similar things.

Experiencing wide ranges of emotions can help you to become an emotionally intelligent person, because you can understand what other people are feeling and empathize with them. Empathy is a valued skill in almost every walk of life, and it can only help you.

The brilliant animated film “Inside Out” focuses on the character Sadness and how she seems to make everything worse. Throughout the movie, we see how, even though she makes mistakes, she continues to be helpful. Meanwhile, Joy is either ignoring her or putting her down, because Joy thinks Riley (the girl whose head they are inside of) only needs to be happy. At the end of the movie, we learn how Sadness can help you understand why you don’t feel good, and how others can see your sadness and take action to help you. The overall theme of the movie expressed that it’s okay to be sad, which isn’t shown very often in the media, and is vital to our everyday lives.

Sadness can help people realize what matters to them. For example, let’s say you try out for a soccer team and you don’t make the team. If you feel sad, that just shows how much you really care about soccer, and maybe you should start prioritizing it more. Whereas, if you don’t feel sad, that can tell you that you didn’t really want to be on the team and it’s for the best that you didn’t make the cut. Another example could be when you fight with someone you love, you might feel sad because you value that person and want them in your life. Sadness can help you define your values and make good decisions.

Despite how the idea of sadness being hurtful and negative is being pushed, sadness is an important part of life. Sadness lets us know that something is wrong, and it can help you understand why you don’t feel good. Feeling sad allows you to have an opportunity to reflect and look within. A common misconception is that pushing away sadness or pretending it isn’t there will help you feel better. That may be a short term solution, but that sadness you feel is there for a reason.

It’s okay to feel sad.