For many years, I have been going through what I called the Great Sadness.
I’m not clinically depressed or anything, but my emotions were generally so flat that I wondered if I was suffering from anhedonia, the reduced ability to experience pleasure in activities previously enjoyed.
The funny thing was that when I was interacting with people, say, my direct reports or my clients, I felt this burst of joy. I prided myself with being an introvert. Could it be I’m really a closet extrovert?
But overall, my face was generally stony and my disposition usually pessimistic. I have been called an Eeyore, although I identify more with the stoic and quite logical Mr. Spock.
It got to a point that I told myself “I have forgotten how to be happy” and “I do not give myself permission to be happy.”
I was stuck that way (did I say for many years?) until I applied what I learned about transformative coaching upon myself. Yes, coaches need to be coached, too. But in some cases, a coach can ask himself the active inquiries he was trained to do.
My breakthrough happened in one of my midnight musings. I would go to sleep at 8 or 9 pm, then wake up at the bewitching hour when I couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind would be engaged and thoughts seemed to take a life of their own. It was more so while I was shrouded by dark, utter silence while the rest of the world blissfully slumbered on.
That particular night, I grappled with the Great Sadness, echoing the Psalmist who scribbled, “Why are you downcast, o my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” (Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5). Hey, the Bible was already teaching self-awareness and self-regulation way before Daniel Goldman came up with emotional intelligence!
So there I was, talking to myself as if doing a Five Whys exercise.
“Nelson, why are you sad?”
“Because I don’t give myself permission to be happy.”
“Why don’t you give yourself permission to be happy?”
“Because I don’t deserve to be happy.”
“Why do you say you don’t deserve to be happy?”
“Because I’ve done things I shouldn’t have and didn’t do things I should have.”
Now, I haven’t committed anything illegal or immoral. It was more like I had a perfectionistic view of myself, only to beat myself up when I inevitably didn’t hold up to that perfection.
Upon my last self-response, an insight came out like a bolt of lightning. It triggered my shift from being a self-beater to being a self-forgiver.
To be concluded in Part 2. Stay tuned!
March 30, 2026
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