That deep sadness with no clear cause isn't a problem to fix—it's your soul's longing for wholeness and home. Learn why befriending existential sadness, rather than suppressing it, is essential inner work for women returning to themselves.

Have you ever felt a deep sadness that seemed to have no specific cause? A quiet ache that persists even when life is going well?

If so, you're not alone.

In fact, it might be universal.

In our happiness-obsessed culture, we're often taught to view sadness as a problem to be solved rather than a teacher to be heard (I sure was!).

What if our sadness carries wisdom we desperately need?

Why We Feel Sad for No Reason: The Difference Between Depression and Existential Longing

Before we go deeper, let me be clear: if you're experiencing persistent sadness that interferes with daily functioning, please consult a mental health professional. Clinical depression is real and treatable.

But there's another kind of sadness—one that's not about serotonin levels or traumatic events. It's what psychologists call existential sadness or what spiritual traditions recognize as soul longing.

This is the sadness that visits even when:

• Your life circumstances are good

• You have loving relationships

• You're successful in your work

• You're physically healthy

It's a grief without loss—or rather, a grief for the loss of oneness we can't quite remember but somehow know we once had.

In our happiness-obsessed culture, we're taught to view any sadness as a problem to be solved, a chemical imbalance to be corrected, or a mistake in our thinking.

But what if some sadness is actually spiritual homesickness?

What if it's not a bug in the system, but a feature—a compass pointing us toward wholeness?

My Journey with Sadness: From Suppression to Befriending

I definitely feel a deep sense of sadness at times.

For most of my life, when this feeling emerged, I either ignored and suppressed it or tried to make sense of it by finding its cause so I could "fix" myself back to happiness.

Until I embarked on my own inner journey, it never even occurred to me to simply FEEL or BE WITH these emotions.

I automatically labeled them as wrong and bad, believing deep within that I was supposed to be happy—that sadness indicated something was broken.

This meant I constantly overrode these more subtle, "not-so-happy" feelings.

Being Guided Toward Wholeness: The Hip That Broke Me Open

But…because life always guides me (actually, everyone) toward wholeness, in 2020, I felt the internal nudge to reclaim "sadness" (whatever the heck that meant!).

Apparently, I wasn't learning quickly enough and needed a little "help" breaking open because, in 2021, I broke my hip skiing and was forced to slow down and face myself.

Did you know that the hips store what we don't want to face—old memories, traumas, and uncomfortable emotions like shame and grief?

Thank you, Universe!

Since then, I've been committed to exploring and befriending sadness through shadow work and emotional healing.

And each year, I'm taken deeper.

The Deepening Journey

It could be maturity.

Or facing my mortality in new ways.

Or this journey to reconnect with all of who I am, to my depths, to my full range of emotions...

But recently, I've come to understand that we all feel some level of sadness, heartache, and existential longing.

Not just circumstantial sadness, but a deeper, more existential type.

That it's part of the human condition—and that it's okay.

(And I think it becomes more present and palpable as we enter and move beyond midlife—part of what I call a midlife awakening.)

But, as humans, we naturally seek to ESCAPE these uncomfortable feelings—to fill the emptiness, quell the longing, and suppress the heartache in countless ways—by fixing, eating, shopping, scrolling, etc.

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love." — Rainer Maria Rilke

It requires a lot of diligence and practice for me to intentionally create space to be present with these feelings rather than distract myself or run away from them.

But, as I do, I keep reaping the rewards.

Recently, I've been exploring something that has me curious.

It's not that I've never heard other spiritual leaders say this before, but for the first time, I've been experiencing it as a personal truth.

So, I've been wondering…

What If Sadness Is Actually Homesickness for Oneness?

What if it's a longing to be ONE?

One with myself, with God, with all that is?

What if this existential sadness is us remembering what it's like to BE LOVE, to BE ONE?

Remembering where we came from.

And our heart breaks precisely because it hurts to experience the pain of separation from love and oneness?

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Today, in meditation, I felt this in a way I never had before.

I allowed sadness to guide me toward the always-present and available oneness.

I felt it.

While there, my guides, smiling and spilling over with pride, reminded me that being human is such a gift—even with its trials.

And to appreciate it all—even the separation, heartache, longing, and pain—because I chose to be here to experience the contrast.

(And, of course, for the purposeful evolution of my Soul.)

They reminded me that this human life is short, so seize all it offers...because soon, I'll be reunited with oneness.

Wink-wink, but to remember, also, that I'm already ONE with all that is! ;)

The Lesson I'm Learning: Sadness as Sacred Teacher

In embracing sadness as a sacred teacher through this soul work, I'm reminded that the feeling of (and resistance to) sadness—and the longing I experience—is the compass that guides me home to myself.

That it's not pointing to what's wrong with my life, but to a deeper truth.

My Soul remembers the truth of who I am—a being of infinite love temporarily experiencing the beautiful limitations of human form.

In the words of the poet, David Whyte, "The well of grief, where all the difficult things can be known, accepted, and loved."

Perhaps in our grief and sadness lies our greatest capacity for wholeness.

Our existential sadness isn't a problem to be solved or a mistake to be corrected—it's the Universe's love letter reminding us of who we truly are and the larger thing we're a part of—of "home."

Sri Ramakrishna says life is a hospital: the Lord has sent us here so that we may cure ourselves of separateness and become whole.

And homesickness is a soul's whisper, reminding us of a comfort and belonging we've known beyond this earthly experience.

It's a sacred recognition—our soul remembering its origin story, gently nudging us toward the "home" that has never actually left us.

The Invitation: Befriending Your Sacred Sadness

So, I wonder, do you experience this existential sadness?

Perhaps sometimes believing that this feeling is a reflection of something wrong or bad in your life?

My question is…

When that familiar ache visits you, would you be willing to not rush to fix it?

And, instead, welcome it as an old friend carrying an important message: that your heart remembers your wholeness, the oneness and love that you are?

Allowing sadness to simply BE, perhaps touching something infinitely larger than your individual experience—a sacred connection to all that is?

"The cure for the pain is in the pain." — Rumi

Perhaps this sadness is something sacred that bonds us all.

That our sadness isn't something to overcome but a doorway to walk through.

Maybe by feeling it fully, we don't move further from joy but closer to the wholeness we've been seeking all along.

How Befriending Sadness Connects to Coming Home to Yourself

This journey to wholeness is exactly the kind of inner work I teach in The Whole Soul Way™.

For years, many of us have abandoned ourselves—overriding our deeper feelings, suppressing what's "inconvenient," performing happiness to keep others comfortable.

We've made ourselves smaller, quieter, "easier."

And in doing so, we've created a profound internal separation—a homesickness for our own wholeness.

When you feel that existential sadness, that's not just spiritual longing for cosmic oneness (though it is that too).

It's also your soul grieving the years you spent disconnected from yourself.

Befriending sadness is how we practice coming home.

It's how we learn to:

• Stop abandoning ourselves when difficult emotions arise

• Trust that we can hold the full range of human experience

• Reclaim the parts of ourselves we exiled to stay "acceptable"

• Build internal safety so we don't need to suppress what we feel

This is the work of integration—bringing all the parts of ourselves back into wholeness through shadow work and inner child healing.

Your sadness isn't the enemy. It's the part of you that's been waiting, patiently, for you to finally come home to yourself.

The Whole Soul Way: Your Roadmap for Coming Home

If this exploration of existential sadness resonates with you—if you recognize that you've been running from your own depths—The Whole Soul Way™ was created for exactly this journey.

This comprehensive foundational course (available free on my ELATE podcast on YouTube and podcast channels) guides you through 39 transformative lessons on how to:

• Befriend the emotions you've been taught to suppress instead of constantly overriding what you feel

• Practice shadow work that brings exiled parts of yourself back into wholeness

• Heal patterns of self-abandonment so you stop betraying yourself to keep others comfortable

• Regulate your nervous system so you can be present with difficult feelings without being overwhelmed

• Come home to yourself after years of performing, pleasing, and perfecting

• Cultivate the rich interior life you've been longing for—including the sadness, the joy, and everything in between

This isn't about toxic positivity or "fixing" your sadness.

It's about learning to be WITH yourself—all of yourself—with tenderness and presence.

So much awaits you on this adventure of coming home to your whole self.

Start your journey here…

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When you feel that unexplained sadness arise, what do you typically do? Run from it, try to fix it, or sit with it? And what might change if you welcomed it as a messenger instead? Share in the comments below.