Sadness

The feeling of sadness is an emotion brought on by a thought.  The thought may be about the past or it may be of the future. The thought might even be about the present. You might think about someone you loved and feel sad because they are no longer with you.  You might think of something you desire and know you can never have it. You might be thinking about how lonesome you are and there is no one for you to talk to or to comfort you.  Sadness can spread over you like a dark veil.

From where did the thought appear?  What initiated the thought in the first place?  It may have been an external event that triggered the thought or it may have been something inside of you.  Whatever it was, it caused a thought and the thought grew into an emotion. The emotion in this case is sadness.  It's okay to be sad but you don't want it to grow and fester.  Long term sadness can be detrimental to one's health and well being.  Sadness can turn into despondency, depression, and grief bringing dark, grey misery.  You want to stop the sadness before it spreads.

When sadness comes over you, for any reason, feel where it is in your body.  See if you can describe it. You may feel it in your heart as a heaviness, in your head as a throbbing ache, in your stomach like a knot tightening.  Some people describe sadness as a feeling of total body weakness, as though energy has been sapped from every pore and cell. 

By feeling and describing the emotion allows you to be the observer and it the observed.  This puts distance between you and the sadness. The sad feeling becomes an object.  Feel it, describe it, observe it.  Put the sadness out in front of you and study it.  Allow your awareness to expand around the emotion and watch the sadness dissipate like smoke and slowly disappear.