Have you ever quietly cried in the bathroom at work while going through a difficult time because you didn’t want to be perceived as being less capable of your job or somehow “less than?” Have you ever felt the need to smile through pain in order to keep up appearances?
In her new book, BITTERSWEET: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, New York Times Bestselling Author Susan Cain explores our relationship to and expression of sorrow and pain, and how they can be transformed into beauty and healing. Cain is also the author of QUIET:The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, which spent seven years on The New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 40 languages. Here, she talks about bittersweetness in a world of toxic positivity and normative smiles and how workplaces can become more supportive environments for people to grieve.
In her new book, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, bestselling author Susan Cain ... [+]
Jess Cording: How do you define “bittersweetness?”
Susan Cain: To me, bittersweetness is about a deep recognition that in this life, joy and sorrow must forever be paired, that everything is impermanent and everyone we love best will not be here forever. At the same time comes a very intense joy and appreciation for the beauty of the world. Bittersweetness encompasses all of that.
Cording: In the book you discuss how pain can be transformed. What are some of the most common ways?
Cain: Some of the biggest or most obvious or clearest paths of transforming pain are of transforming it into beauty and another is transforming it into healing. I say in the book that whatever pain you can't get rid of, make that your creative offering. This doesn’t mean you have to go out and compose a symphony or have a painting shown in a gallery in New York City—It's not like that. You could bake a cake or perform a gesture for somebody who could use that gesture. You could turn in the direction of beauty and make that a proactive part of your life.
And as far as healing is concerned, the best way we can heal ourselves is to try to heal somebody else suffering from a similar type of wound. One of the great archetypes is that of the wounded healer, which appears in our mythology and fairy tales. That wound gives that person a unique strength that only they have. There's something in us that transforms pain into beauty by trying to heal the very thing that attacked us or hurt us or laid us low.
Cording: How does the tyranny of positivity impact people’s expression of pain?
Cain: The tyranny of positivity is the cultural message that all of us are sent that no matter what is happening, we should be putting on a happy face, that we should be soldiering through it and whistling cheerfully. I call it the tyranny of positivity and some people call it toxic positivity. What it really is, is a cultural directive that says, Whatever you do, don't tell the truth of what it's like to be alive. That said, it's still important to have boundaries. You don’t have to divulge everything.
Cording: In the book you talk about “normative smiles.” As a society, how did we get here?
Cain: Studies have shown that people in the US smile much more than they do in some other countries where smiling is seen as being foolish or insincere. We have this unspoken mandate to do this.
One aspect of it is that, especially in the 19th century, as we moved more towards wanting to be successful in business, we became a society where we divided people in our minds into winners or losers. People started to believe that if you succeeded at business, if you were a winner, it was because of something intrinsic to your nature. The more you start really believing that, the more you want to avoid displaying any emotions that have to do with loss, right? Of course you don't want to talk about sorrow or longing or bittersweetness, and you don't want to walk around without the armor of a smile because a smile is what advertises that you are one of the winners in whom other people should invest their capital and their social energy.
Cording: What are some of the ways that workplaces can foster an environment that feels safer for people to grieve or, more broadly, express themselves in an authentic way?
Cain: One way would be to come up with ways to invite people to share what they're really thinking without necessarily having to attach their names to it. Another way of doing that might be for places where people gather physically— have a whiteboard where people are invited to write down an emotion or an experience that they're going through—with or without their name as they choose. I also think that creating workplace cultures where people proactively perform acts of compassion can help as well. And of course, for leaders to go first is always one of the most helpful first steps.
