Welcome

Hello Reader

I welcomed the return of rainy days this week. I like how warm sunny days make me feel, but I shrink away when it gets too hot. For someone who lives in the UK, warm sunny days are the exception to the rule and I don't mind. After a hot spell, I love the smell of the first rain, a good thunderstorm, and I really like to feel cosy under my duvet as I listen to the rain. There is a saying that there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing. It is why packing for a holiday in the UK can be a challenge!

Curious

I am curious to ask:

What are you longing for?

This is a powerful question. You may know what you long for in a particular moment, but do you long for something bigger that you cannot easily put into words?

Inspired

My inspiration for this week’s newsletter came from a podcast, which invited me to embrace the feeling of longing.

I listened to a TED talk with Susan Cain and Min Kym which was recorded in 2019. The title is “The hidden power of sad songs and rainy days.”

In fact, it affected me so deeply that I listened to it twice.

The podcast’s show notes explain what to expect:

“Have you ever wondered why you like sad music? Do you find comfort or inspiration in rainy days? In this profound, poetic talk, author Susan Cain invites you to embrace the feeling of longing -- or the place where joy and sorrow meet – as a gateway to creativity, connection and love. Accompanied by the splendid sounds of violinist Min Kym, Cain meditates on how heartache unexpectedly brings us closer to the sublime beauty of life.”

The music played at intervals, by Min Kym, is the Adagio in G minor by Albinoni.

Two things happened to me when I heard the music:

Firstly, I was moved to tears. This is not uncommon for me, and I suspect that I am a Bittersweet type. You can take Susan’s Bittersweet quiz here.

Secondly, I was transported back to my early teenage years. It did not take me long to work out where I had heard this piece of music before and how it was used to depict longing.

The BBC aired a sitcom called “Butterflies” from 1978-83. It was written by Carla Lane, who said:

“I wanted to write a comedy about a woman seriously contemplating adultery.” (2002)

You might think that is a strange subject for a sitcom, but the tension she created between comedy and longing really worked. She did it beautifully.

The sitcom was about a suburban family: husband, wife and their two teenage sons. The plot told of a housewife (Ria) who felt unseen, unheard, and unloved by a husband who was engrossed in his job and hobby (catching butterflies).

Ria meets a man and feels seen and heard by him. She is caught in a dilemma about what to do. The same piece of music was used in every episode when Ria was thinking and longing for something different. This clip is called “Losing the plot.”

In her TED talk Susan Cain makes the case that modern culture urges us to always seek out positivity. She argues that our culture has made us afraid of the dark. This is not endorsing depression but making the point that positivity and negativity are important in equal measure.

One of my favourite passages from her TED talk is this:

“In Hebrew, the word for longing, leh-heesh-toh-kek, it comes from the same word, from the same root, as the word for passion. The place you suffer is the same exact place where you care desperately. It's the same place that inspires you to ease someone's pain however you can. And it's the place that you vibrate with the insane beauty of this world. So, remember, there's light and there's dark. And when the dark times come, and they will come, don't be surprised, but ask yourself: What are you longing for? And follow your longing where it's telling you to go.”

Heartbreak and heartache take you to the place where you suffer and care desperately all at the same time.

Society and culture often view divorce as a failure: a failure of communication, a failure of two people to love with the same intensity for many years, a failure to respect each other, a failure to fan the flames when the fire is dying down, a failure of effort, and a failure to keep hopes, dreams, and plans aligned.

Esther Perel discusses the “Evolution of Marriage” in Debbie Millman’s podcast “Design Matters”. She describes how modern marriage is vastly different from marriage in previous centuries. We put the weight of societal expectation, all our hopes and dreams for perfection, a desire for stability, and feeling excitement, on to one person. Modern marriage is a private place, and most couples have little external support. It is set it up to collapse, despite having strong foundations, if we do not have supportive scaffolding in place.

Some relationships simply run their course. Two people find themselves in a place that neither could foresee. Having the courage to choose a different path is hard. The choice to stay is equally as hard as the choice to leave. Making that choice is not a failure.

When society and culture make you feel like a failure it is hard to feel positive, but “feeling” is an important part of the recovery process. It is not wrong to feel both negative and positive emotions.

In her book “Emotional Agility,” Susan David states: “your so-called negative emotions are actually working in your favour...too much stress on being positive is just one more way that our culture figuratively overmedicates the fluctuations of our emotions...”

She proposes that we should: “(hold) those emotions and thoughts loosely, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving past them to make big things happen in your life.”

When you feel that you are in a dark place your longing may point you to something tangible that is almost within your reach. You may have to wait to get it but that is all part of the bittersweet journey.

Accountable

What do you want to commit to doing this week?

I have added two more videos to my series on emotions, and I plan to finish the video series next week. You can access the videos here.

I plan to make a music playlist. I have not done this for a while. I am going to channel my mixtape abilities from the pre digital age and see what happens.

Thank you for reading my weekly email.

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