Reflection #10: I’m Sad vs. I Feel Sad
How language shapes identity, especially in grief. It’s a reflection on emotional agility, emotional literacy, and presence.
Some days, the words tumble out:
“I’m sad.”
Other days, they arrive more gently:
“I feel sad.”
Both are true. Both are valid. But they are not the same.
Psychologist Susan David, in her work on emotional agility, offers a subtle but powerful distinction: saying
“I am sad” fuses you with the feeling. It becomes who you are. But “I feel sad” puts a bit of space between you and the emotion. It creates room to breathe. “I feel sad” allows you to experience the sadness without becoming the sadness.
This isn’t just semantics. It’s self-preservation.
Identity and Emotion: The Language We Live In
In my work with grieving teens, or honestly, with many teens just trying to navigate teenhood, I often hear things like:
“I’m anxious.”
“I’m depressed.”
“I’m broken.”
Not “I feel anxious.” Not “I’m carrying sadness.” Not “I’m having a hard day.”
But full identity-level statements. As if anxiety or sadness had signed a lease in their body.
And it’s not their fault.
Somewhere along the way, our culture made it cool to brand ourselves by our pain, but not always to explore it. To name the feeling but not feel it. To wear it like a badge but never unpin it.
It’s also important to say this:
Some people live with real, diagnosable conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, or ADHD. Casually using those terms in everyday conversation, such as “I’m so bipolar,” “I’m totally depressed today,” or “I’m so ADHD, I can’t focus on anything”, can unintentionally minimize someone else’s lived experience. Words matter especially when they’re someone else’s reality..
The Anxious Generation or the Feeling Anxious Generation?
These days, it feels like everyone’s racing to name this generation of young people. Take the bestselling book The Anxious Generation, a title that somehow manages to both describe and doom.
What if instead, we allowed young people to say:
“I’m part of a generation that feels anxious, and I’m learning to name it, hold it, and move through it.”
I’ve been thinking about something journalist and well-being strategist Kate Woodsome wrote that really stuck with me:
What if this isn’t the anxious generation but the attuned one?
It’s easy to fall into the habit of labeling young people as “anxious” or “broken,” especially when they’re so open about their emotions. But what if that openness is actually a strength?
And let’s be real, between climate change, political unrest, book bans, school shootings, AI everything, the cost of housing, college admissions chaos, social media comparison spirals, mental health stigma, state bans on identity, and the pressure of figuring out your place in a world that feels unpredictable, well, feeling anxious might actually be the most rational response in the room.
So, what if they’re not more anxious than past generations? What if they are just more emotionally honest?
When we call them anxious, we risk slipping into a deficit mindset, focusing only on what’s wrong. But calling them attuned, well, that’s different. That recognizes their emotional intelligence, their awareness, and their willingness to name what they’re feeling. And that shift in language matters.
It’s like the difference between saying “I’m sad” and “I feel sad.” One becomes who you are. The other? Just something you’re moving through. That little difference? It can be where healing starts.
Kate says it beautifully: young people are “curious, courageous, and innovative.”
Adolescence isn’t a problem to fix. Maybe the real work isn’t about fixing our kids at all; it’s about changing the systems that haven’t yet made space for all their brilliance.
Now that’s power. That’s emotional literacy.
Feelings Are Visitors, Not Residents
Psychologist Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel, reminds us that building emotional granularity (getting specific about our feelings) allows us to better regulate them. When we go from “I’m sad” to “I feel overwhelmed and a little left out,” we reclaim agency.
Similarly, saying “I feel sad” instead of “I am sad” signals that:
This is a moment, not a sentence.
This is a state, not a self.
This is something I’m with, not something I am.
It allows grief to breathe instead of suffocate.
A Practice for the Days That Feel Heavy
Try this:
Write down three “I am…” statements that come to mind when you’re struggling.
Then rewrite each one with “I feel…”
Notice what shifts. Is there a little more air? A little more room to move?
Try moving from identity to experience:
“I am sad” becomes “I feel sad.”
“I am lost” becomes “I feel lost.”
“I am alone” becomes “I feel alone.”
“I am a mess” becomes “I feel overwhelmed today.”
“I am lazy” becomes “I’m having a hard time getting started.”
These changes don’t erase the feeling. They just make space for it to be felt without becoming all of who we are. A small shift in language can make a big difference.
It may seem small. But that tiny word, feel, acts like a hand on your back, steadying you.
You Are Not Your Grief. But You Can Be With It
This doesn’t mean we deny how deep or consuming emotions can be.
And, again, it certainly doesn’t dismiss the reality that for some, anxiety, depression, or sadness are clinical, chronic, and serious.
And also, sometimes? None of that matters. Sometimes you are sad. Or mad. Or overwhelmed. And “I’m sad” is exactly the right thing to say. Do it. Say it. Own it. Let it name the truth of the moment. Because part of being with our grief is giving ourselves permission to feel fully, without needing to soften, reframe, or explain.
Over time, though, what can shift is how we relate to it. The difference between living in the sadness and living with it. One can drown you. The other can move with you. Naming that difference is not about erasing pain, it’s about offering yourself a little more breathing room inside it.
But even then, language can still be a tool not to fix, but to frame. To soften the edges. To say:
This is part of my experience. Not the whole of who I am.
So today, I’m not “still sad.”
I’m feeling sad.
And I’m feeling grateful.
And I’m feeling present.
And I’m feeling human.