Life is a system of moving forms whose destiny is sculpted in the anatomy and in the armor.

You are walking through your favorite shopping center. As he turns down the hallway he sees a single person at the back, completely unknown, who catches his attention. He is a man of about forty years old, dark, of medium height, slightly disheveled. His unironed clothes, his greasy, disheveled hair.

He is in front of the cookie rack, with his legs slightly bent, his back curved, his neck and entire body bent forward a little, his head between his shoulders, and when he moves, he does so slowly, as if he hasn’t slept well. When you pass him, you can see his dark circles, the outer part of his eyes drooping downward, like the corner of his mouth, and deep wrinkles on his forehead.

He doesn’t know that man, he hasn’t exchanged a single word with him, but he can see in him the living image of sadness. Seeing that man he knows what it is to feel sad.

Sadness: an emotion that is reflected in our body

The body acts like a scroll where images and metaphors are inscribed.. This modeling begins from conception itself, during pregnancy and especially during the critical moment of childbirth, and in everything that is experienced after birth.

Human existence is recorded in the body and feeling sad is no exception. The body map collects the configuration of our genetics, experiences, fears and aspirations. Our external and internal worlds, and therefore emotions such as sadness, are recreated on our central nervous system to go from there to model the viscera and the external support structures, muscles, bones, cartilage and tendons.

The body wall reflects the state of the internal cavities, the organs of digestion, the heart and respiration, all of them anchors of the person’s life experience.

Anatomy of sadness: this is how we reveal that we are sad

This modeling work, this way in which emotions are expressed through the body, shows its rules and laws. Fear and anger make the body more rigidwhile love and joy open and soften it. And that occurs as a fractal that reflects from the shape of the bones to the liver structure or the water that irrigates the spaces of the body, capable of ionizing and modulating its structure through the acid geometry of stress or the alkaline geometry of the state of calm.

Neurotransmitters and hormones are liquid anatomy that, watering that liquid sea, makes us sentient structures.

The same thing happens with sadness, which is also reflected in the body. We face the world in a vertical position, but submission and sadness induce a closure; and the disorganization of the structure, to decline and defeat. The fatigue and inability to fight and face life that accompany sadness is drawn in cavities and viscera..

There are still other signs when sadness invades us. The head drops, chest pressure deflates, the diaphragm descends, the chest collapses and all the cavities collapse. Hope disappears, internal and external collapse occurs, and even morality is lost (and demoralization arrives).

The legs are deformed, the head and spine crumble, the tongue fallsthe collapse of the abdominal organs occurs.

There is no reason to continue trying and despair, apathy, defeat and fear appear.

When we feel sad, muscle tone is left without resistance, weak and spongy, announcing atrophy and energy leakage.

After the collapsethe abdominal contents descend due to lack of muscle tone, the fallen stomach and intestines drag the diaphragm, and the intercostal muscles collapse. The spine loses its tone, and organs such as the uterus or bladder prolapse. A curvature appears in the neck, the chest sinks; the brain, pharynx and heart descend.

When you go from abandonment to cryingsobbing and impotence induce abdominal protrusion, the diaphragmatic dome flattens and the intercostal muscles press and drag the structure, pulling downward. A forward bend occurs, elasticity disappears and a greater feeling of helplessness appears.

Like all other emotions, sadness is influenced by the amplitude of breathing. Oxygenation decreases, sensations in the throat and mouth are inhibited, motility of the esophagus, bronchi and lungs decreases, the feeling of defeat, weakness, insignificance and lack of self-esteem dominates.

Feeling sad does not mean being sick

Can we regulate emotions? When is sadness normal and when is it pathological? This vague and deep sadness, which can arise from physical or moral causes, carries with it the reluctance to live, which aborts the body’s ability to adapt.

The aura of nostalgia and isolation is taken advantage of by this supermedicalized society to nullify the person’s ability to overcome their own reluctance.

Does being sad mean feeling sick? There are things that explain why the person is discouraged, such as when there is the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, difficulty in personal relationships or the diagnosis of a serious illness of oneself or a loved one.

In our time we are witnessing the massive pathologization of normal sadness. Unhappiness is considered a mental disorder and the voracity of the pharmaceutical industry finds a vein by medicalizing a society that cannot bear the weight of its own freedom.

What can I do if I feel sad

Maybe this is where we should start. Doing an exercise in acceptance of life, its joys and sorrows. The increase in freedom that human beings and Western society have gained implies living many choices in solitude.

You have to have courage to be able to choose. And the world of pleasure and complacency looks the other way in the face of the irrefutable fact that life also includes occasions of sadness, the emotion that most hinders the fullness and flourishing of human life.

Sadness locks the self within itself and exempts it from acting. Giving up on overcoming it and putting yourself in the hands of medication and a psychiatrist is give up autonomy, freedom and the ability to improve.

Of course there are pathological depressions, authentic black holes beyond a person’s reach, but that does not apply to most sadness.

Starting the process of overcoming sadness involves look at life from consciousness and the body as a toolready to respond to the already reviewed changes in breathing, posture and emotions, manageable through practical guidelines and acceptance of the complexity of life and our universe.

After all, that’s life: moving shapes whose destiny is sculpted in our body.