08/08/2026
💖
HOSTING SAD
Sometimes I wake up sad.
And I know, as soon as my eyes open, that today,
I am simply sad.
I can (and do) choose positive thoughts, journal, have a cold shower, run on the treadmill,
but sometimes I will still simply feel sad.
And counting my blessings, on days like this, makes me even more sad.
How lucky I am and how tenuous that is.
How others are not so blessed and how unfair that is.
And I’ve learned to accept these little bouts of sad, or soul-flu, as I have now come to call them.
They are not within my control, this I know.
I don’t fear them anymore, they can’t harm me - because I don’t ‘become’ them.
I just let my ‘sad’ in the door and say “hey, how are you, take a seat…but don’t stay too long please, I have things to do.”
And I rumble along in my mental kitchen, making tea, emptying the dishwasher. And my sad sits there and just exists, without judgement or acrimony. Just acceptance.
I know she is many things you see, other than just sad. She is love, she is grief. She is fear, she is weariness, and really, she puts up with rather a lot in this life.
So I give her a cup for tea. And listen to her sorrows, until she’s ready to go back outside again.
Sometimes I wake up and sad has already let herself in.
But I don’t scold her for that.
She’ll go soon.
And really, she deserves a warm place, every now and again, this world gives her much to bear.
Sometimes, I wake up sad.
For no real reason.
And that’s okay.
💛
Donna
I have explored this ‘soul-flu’ in my next book, The Art of Being Easily Pleased. I know it resonates with so many of you 💛. Positive thinking and mindset are amazing tools but there is much to be gained from honouring and accepting our deeper feelings too. It’s all care. It’s all born from care x
