DADS READ: “When Sadness Is At Your Door” by Eva Eland
JER: “ When Sadness Is At Your Door” by Eva Eland reminds me of one of my favorite children’s movie - “Inside Out” as it navigates emotions and the processing of them. As a child, I felt like I tried to suppress any feelings I was experiencing. I think some cultural and religious expectations may have contributed to that, but for the most part I think I tried to suppress sadness based on my personal fear or shame. As I’ve grown older, I’ve found that inviting emotions in and sitting with them can be a much healthier way to process. I love the author/illustrator’s depiction of sadness as something that could be scary: “it arrives unexpectedly”, “it follows you around”, & “it sits so close to you, you can hardly breathe” to the point that “it feels like you’ve become sadness itself”. This is the “sadness monster” I tried to chase away and pack down when I was a kid. But if you: “try not to be afraid of sadness. Give it a name”, “just...