On Feeling Sad, and Not Being It.
There’s a difference — a real, usable difference — between feeling sad and being sad.
It shows up in how we speak. Specifically, in how we say:
“I feel sad.”
Not all “I feel” statements are the same. The tone matters. The emphasis matters.
“I feel sad.”
Said plainly, this is often just shorthand for:
“I am sad.”
It becomes a declaration of condition — a fusion of the self with emotion.
In that moment, sadness isn’t something you have — it’s something you are – you’re not observing sadness – you’re submerged in it.
“I FEEL sad.”
But emphasise feel, and something shifts.
Now it reads more like:
“I, as a person, am experiencing the feeling of sadness.”
Sadness becomes something you’re in relation to, and with.
Something you can notice, hold, examine — even carry.
But you are not it.
There’s a subtle separation between the self, and the state.
Between the one who feels and the thing being felt.
This Matters
The first version is immersive. It leaves no space between the person and the emotion.
The second gives you room — not to escape the emotion, but to be more than it.
That space is where agency lives.
That space allows you to say:
“Sadness is here, but it’s not all of me.”
“I feel it. I don’t have to become it.”
Feeling is Perceiving
In that light, feeling is less about suffering and more about perception.
Like seeing, hearing, tasting — it’s an act of contact.
You touch the sadness with your awareness.
You don’t drown in it.
You feel sad — and the grammar matters.
Stay safe,
Sean
