Emotional Exploration: Bittersweet
This post is the start of a new series where I will be exploring emotions, or more precisely our emotional vocabulary. All too often I encounter people who are sitting with some very big emotions but are unable to describe what they are feeling because they do not have the words to do so. Having this feeling in itself is hard because not being able to express ourselves can be a struggle in itself. This series aims to look into a wide range of emotional words that you may not have come across. We will break down what the word means using contextual scenarios and situations in which it could be used with the aim of providing people with a better means of expressing themselves.
This month we will be looking at what I like to think of as the three basic emotions, happy, sad, and angry. Well, less these three emotions and more how we can begin to expand on them. We will be looking at this for the next Emotional Exploration, as the aim is to expand our emotional understanding, so why not start with the basics? I call these the basic emotions because even the least emotionally expressive person will use these big three emotions, and this is often where I have to begin when I am working with people who haven't been supported to express themselves.
The trouble with having a limited emotional vocabulary is how do we express those emotions that are between emotions like the big three? If we were for example talking about losing a close loved one who had been suffering from illness for a long time, it might feel silly to say that we are “happy/sad”. Happy that they are no longer suffering, but sad that they are now no longer with us, is how we are feeling, but that too feels a bit wordy. This is where today's emotion “bittersweet” comes in. Bittersweet means “containing a mixture of sadness and happiness” and is for those moments where life feels happy although something saddening has happened, or whilst you are sad about something there is happiness in it having passed.
Whilst often associated with death, bittersweet can be associated with other aspects of life, for example when meeting up with old friends that you lost touch with because they were associated with a life you no longer wanted to live. Reconnecting with them and having a good time, only to realize that they are still stuck in that same rut that you had managed to escape from.
Perhaps you can think of moments from your own life that upon reflection would be considered bittersweet, or iconic moments from movies that fit the definition. Either way, if you did not have bittersweet in your emotional repertoire you do now, and if you already did then maybe reading this has triggered some fond bittersweet memories.