Very often, in my work with my clients, when I ask them what they are feeling they say, “I feel sad.” Often, they do not know why they feel sad.

Sadness comes from two very different sources.

Core Sadness

Core sadness is sadness that is in reaction to something that is happening or has happened externally. Many life situations can cause sadness, such as:

“I keep getting into more and more debt, but I can’t seem to stop. I do great for a while, and then I just have to go shopping and buy stuff. This is going to ruin my life if I don’t stop, but how do I stop?”

Mary Beth is addicted to spending. What does this mean and how can she stop?

Mary Beth’s compulsive spending does not come out of nowhere. It is rooted in her fear of feel feelings that she believes she cannot handle. In her mind, it is easier to handle the anxiety of debt than to feel the deeper feelings – the painful feelings of life – that she believes she has to avoid.

Here is what happened that triggered Mary Beth’s last spending spree.

“I went home for Christmas and it was awful. I guess it’s always been awful, but this time seemed even worse. There was nothing I could do right in my mother’s eyes, and my father was, as usual, completely emotionally absent. At one point my mother screamed at me that I am hopeless. I thought I managed it all at the time, trying to not take it personally as she treats others this way too, but when I got home I went on the spending spree. I thought I did a really great job of not reacting to her and taking care of myself, so I don’t understand the spending.”

Celine, an only child, was 7 years old, her mother died tragically in a car accident. She and her father were devastated. However, unlike so many of my clients who lost parents and no one was there for them, Celine’s father was completely there for her, even while dealing with his own grief and heartbreak. Celine could call him anytime at work and he would talk to her or come home to lovingly hold her. Because he was so completely there for her, her feelings of grief, heartbreak, sadness and sorrow did not get stuck in her body. Each time they came up, they were released due to the caring, compassion, tenderness, gentleness, consistency and understanding of her loving father.

As a result of her father’s love, Celine did not develop the fear of intimacy and loss that so many people experience as a result of the loss of the parent. She did not close her heart to protect herself from future loss.

However, most of us did not have loving parents to help us move through the heartbreaks of childhood. In fact, many us had parents that caused much of the heartbreak with various forms of abuse. We needed to numb out and find protections/addictions to manage the heartbreak and loneliness of rejection, abuse, and loss. As a result, the pain got stuck in our bodies, causing both physical and emotional damage.