Im happy but there is a heavy feeling of sadness in my heart that I just can't remove. Why am I like this?

The sadness was still there.

In the absence of a should, I was free to be as I am.

I had run out of hope.

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It’s here now, writing to you.

You are the masterpiece you came here to discover.

Needless to say, my failed attempts to fix my sadness simply brought me more pain and suffering.

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This interpretation lead me on a path of self improvement, to fix what I considered to be “wrong” with myself.

I was tired of fighting.

So I finally threw my hands up and said something to the tune of “fuck it, since I can't seem to change, I’ll just be whatever I am then.”

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Without resistance, sadness has a sense of beauty and depth I cannot find otherwise in life.

When I stopped trying to force myself to be something I am not, I gave myself the freedom of being who I am.

I was tired of trying and failing.

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So if you are sad - like me - then be sad.

Your job is not to be the manager of your life, but the one who discovers yourself fully.

You are like me, then.

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What I am trying to say is that when you stop trying to change yourself into something you are not, you give yourself the gift of discovering yourself as you already are.

It’s the most beautiful and liberating thing in the world.

Now, this may sound like a story of failure and giving up, but it’s actually a story of liberation.

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But unlike before, there is no more resistance to the sadness.

But no matter what I read or practiced, I could never make the sadness budge for longer than a few fleeting moments - and even then, it was likely due to me being distracted from the sensation of sadness rather than anything actually shifting.

Most people that know me would probably describe me as a social, happy, and somewhat quirky person with a twisted sense of humor.

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And the sadness?

What most people don’t know unless they’ve looked more closely is that there is also an element of deep, profound sadness that has always been with me since as long as I can remember.

It’s difficult to put into words exactly what caused what, but to the best of my ability to describe it, I felt as if my will to keep fighting was beaten right out of me.

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Be who you already are.

It’s still here.

For much of my adult life, I interpreted this sadness as something being wrong - with either myself or my life in general.

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It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I finally fell out of that ferris wheel of trying and failing to fix myself.

It’s impossible to overstate the freedom and peace I discovered, and I realized the only one who had been keeping those from me was… me and my imagined standards and expectations for how I had imagined I should be.