Sarah Billington

Sarah Billington first shared their experience with A Lust For Life, an Irish organization dedicated to reducing the stigma surrounding mental health issues through sharing personal stories. In Ireland, a culture of silence about mental health has led to many not speaking openly about their experiences or seeking help. Like us, they believe sharing stories breaks down the barriers that makes seeking help hard.

You have to cry out the sad to make room for the happy

by Sarah Billington

When my friend’s Mam passed away a number of years ago, her little boy saw her trying to hold back the tears in front of him. He climbed into her lap and said to her “It’s okay Mammy – you have to cry out the sad to make room for the happy”. Such wisdom from a four year old.

Three weeks ago on a workshop that I was doing, I was asked to say, actually to shout, the phrase “I am alive”. Never mind shout, I couldn’t even whisper it. The words just wouldn’t come out. I’m not sure if I didn’t want to acknowledge that I was alive in that moment because I felt guilty being alive when my beautiful husband wasn’t or simply because being alive was just too hard at the time. Either way, the phrase completely overwhelmed me and I had to walk out of the room.

This morning, half way through swimming lengths of the pool in a local hotel, I suddenly stopped and started repeating “I am alive” over and over again whilst simultaneously crying my eyes out. Fortunately, there was no one else in the pool at the time so I didn’t cause any distress or alarm for any poor unsuspecting morning swimmers!

I have spent the last few weeks crying but I realise now that I wasn’t crying out the sad. The tears I shed were tears of frustration and fear. Now that the clouds have lifted a bit I can see that I exacerbated a really difficult time by resisting it at every step of the way.

The panic and anxiety that I was feeling really scared me and I just wanted them to go away so I kept trying to squash them down. Of course that didn’t work. I could have told anyone else that was experiencing similar feelings that it wouldn’t work but I seemed to be incapable of telling myself that, which in hindsight made things very miserable for myself and some of the people around me.

So what changed? Self compassion and acceptance showed up to the party. I finally acknowledged the feelings of panic and anxiety that I was experiencing and as cracked as it sounds (and I know it sounds cracked!) I spoke to those feelings as if they were little children who I really loved. I conceded that they had every right to be there but explained that I’d like to make them feel a little bit more comfortable if I could. I am fully aware that some of you reading this will be thinking how daft and simplistic that sounds but for me, this time around, this approach worked.

Almost as soon as I acknowledged the difficult feeling’s presence and spoke to the feelings lovingly, the energy of these feelings changed completely. The tears started to flow but this time I really did feel that I was crying out the sad and making room for some happy. Not only did I acknowledge the feelings to myself but instead of hiding them away from everyone around me I shared them with a few close and trusted people. Slowly but surely the power these feelings had over me weakened.

I’m not under any illusion that these feelings are gone for good. I know that they’ll be back with a vengeance hopefully later rather than sooner and with a bit of luck I’ll be a more hospitable host and acknowledge them, allow them to be felt – experienced – processed much more quickly the next time they visit… so that they won’t stay as long and do as much damage.

I am alive. My husband is dead. No amount of wishing, blaming myself or guilt will change those facts so I will endeavour to continue to cry out the sad and make room for the happy. I will breathe into my life as it is right now and I will be alive because I owe it to him, I owe it to our children and most of all I owe it to myself.