Outside sad is better than inside sad

I was feeling sad and overwhelmed and unmoored yesterday so after work I didn’t go to the gym or get groceries or any of the other things I* *should do.

Instead* *I drove to the park and walked in circles around the pond.

A pond with a walking path around it reflects green, yellow, and orange trees. A small portion of the bank with some brush in the foreground. Blue sky overhead. Behind the pond a hill slopes up to a building partially visible. The scene of my circles.

I was still sad but outside sad is better than inside sad.

The nice thing about being outside is that you can feel smaller. And if you’re smaller, the sadness is sm…

I was feeling sad and overwhelmed and unmoored yesterday so after work I didn’t go to the gym or get groceries or any of the other things I* *should do.

Instead* *I drove to the park and walked in circles around the pond.

I was still sad but outside sad is better than inside sad.

The nice thing about being outside is that you can feel smaller. And if you’re smaller, the sadness is smaller.

Looking up at deciduous trees curving over with a wide perspective. The trunks angle up from the sides and the leaves are fall colors, turning yellow and orange, and the sky is bright light blue behind teh trees and sunlight highlights a strip of leaves in the middle of the photo. It’s good to be small.

When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to live in rural places. Homes on country roads that fed into woods, creeks, fields. I did a lot of exploring and fort-building and tree-climbing, alone and with friends.

As an adult, I have discovered that no matter where I go, I feel at home, at ease, as soon as I’m around trees. That’s a superpower.

A tall oak tree with autumn foliage growing out of a grassy area with more trees growing behind it, several meters away, in a kind of semicircle of wooded area with this tree somewhat separate in the center of the photo. The sky is blue and sun streams down on the left side. This tree is my friend.

My hiking buddy1 and I talk about sadness often while we walk around in the woods. How scary it is. How much we fear it. How it feels like it will swallow us, eat us up. How it feels bigger than other emotions. How it feels like a place you will never leave.

But all sadness needs is to be felt2. Not ignored. Given a moment, a little space.

My default reaction to sadness used to be: Box it up tight, tuck it away, pretend like it isn’t there. This is not helpful. It leaks out, disguises itself, gets stale and dense and brittle. Better to feel the sadness as it comes, in waves, instead of freezing it into sharp-edged pieces rattling around inside.

A close-up of yellow leaves all swaying and alive on a tree branch, with more branches full of leaves blurred in the background and a bit of blue sky behind the brances. This tree exists right now

To me, it feels safer to be sad outside. Like I can let it well up and leak out and there’s room for it to be big and there’s still room for the rest of me. The trees and the ground and the sky are a witness, a reflection, a reminder that I have existed before and will keep existing. That nature is truth and I am part of it. That even where there is no path, I can find my way.

Jenn. We became close thru hiking together. Now, even though our friendship is much more than that, I still refer to her as my hiking buddy/friend which is a term of endearment and respect. ↵ 1.

I am referring to regular garden-variety sadness, not depression. Sadness is a feeling. Feelings are temporary. Depression is a persistent mental health condition. Big big difference. ↵

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