Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Quiet, joins Passion Struck to explore her new masterpiece, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.
In this episode, we dive deep into:
โข Why weโre wired to respond to sadness the same way we breathe
โข How melancholy and longing fuel creativity and transcendence
โข Why โenforced positivityโ is making us miserable
โข Susanโs personal story about her mother and inherited pain
โข The science of the vagus nerve and the compassionate instinct
If you loved Quiet, you need to hear this conversation.
Susanโs firstย record-smashing TED Talkย has been viewed more than 40 million times and was named by Bill Gates as one of his all-time favorite talks (and if you like that one, you shouldย check out her most recent TED Talkย with violinist Min Kym). LinkedIn named her the sixth most influential influencer in the world, just behind Richard Branson and Melinda Gates.
In Bittersweet, Susan Cain discusses why sadness and the happiness of the melancholy are key to achieving self-transcendence and the union between souls. As with the majority of people, youโve probably been taught your entire life to look at the positive side and be happy no matter what. While there is a place for optimism and looking at the bright side, burying your melancholy and sadness may actually be doing you a terrible disservice.
Hearย the secrets and philosophy of the Worldโs GREATEST high achievers every Tuesday and tune in each week for an inspirational Momentum Friday solo message.
Our impulse to respond to other beings’ sadness sits in the same location as our need to breathe, digest food, reproduce, and protect our babies; in the same place as our desire to be rewarded and to enjoy life’s pleasures.
Susan Cain
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What Is Bittersweet? Susan Cain Explains
Bittersweet is the quiet recognition that light and dark, birth and death, joy and sorrow are forever tied together.
It is the piercingly beautiful ache you feel when you hear a certain song, watch the sun set, or say goodbye to someone you love. It is the understanding that life is finite, that everything passes, and that this very impermanence is what makes everything matter so fiercely.
As Susan Cain describes it in our conversation:
โWe have this idea that the proper way to live is to be happy all the time. But the truth is that sorrow and longing are not detours from the main road. They are the main road. When we accept that, we stop running from pain and start transforming it into creativity, connection, and love.โ
In other words, a bittersweet outlook does not deny sadness. It leans into it and finds, on the other side, a deeper kind of joy.
Cain calls this โthe happiness of melancholy.โ It is why minor-key music can make us cry and feel uplifted at the same time. It is why we tear up at weddings and graduations. And it is why embracing the bittersweet is the fastest route to transcendence, the feeling of being part of something larger than ourselves.
In Bittersweet, Cain shows that this state is not weakness or depression. It is a superpower, one our culture has trained us to suppress, but one that artists, innovators, and the most connected people have always quietly relied on.
Ready to stop forcing constant positivity and start living a fuller, truer life? Keep reading or jump straight to the full conversation with Susan Cain below.
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More About This Show on the Happiness of Bittersweet with Author Susan Cain
I asked Susan Cain why we needed to concentrate more on the whole idea of bittersweetness.
Susan explains, “The message that we are sending our kids and our adult selves, the messages that when things are going well, that’s the main story. And when you experience sorrow or longing, that’s a detour from the main road. If we could instead understand that it’s all the main road, then what that would do is normalize our experiences. When difficult things would come to us, we would be able to experience them very differently, and also look at other people’s difficulties in a more open way, because we wouldn’t find them so scary, or so distasteful.”
Susan Cain on Raising Children to Value Melancholy
I asked Susan how parents can help kids grow up emotionally whole in a culture that treats sadness like a defect.
Her answer stopped me in my tracks:
โWe need to normalize it for them from the very beginning, not in a heavy way, but in a matter-of-fact way: this is part of life.
The years theyโre under our roof, wrapped in parental love, are the safest time to gently expose them to what the world actually holds. So that when loss, longing, or disappointment finally arrives (and it will), theyโre not shocked or ashamed. They recognize it as part of the deal.
Joy is part of the deal, too, of course. But if we only teach them one half of the story, theyโll spend their lives running from the other half, or worse, feeling broken when it shows up.
The greatest gift we can give our children is to hand them the full emotional map while weโre still there to walk it with them.โ
That single idea (expose them gently while they still have us) is one of the most powerful pieces of parenting advice Iโve ever heard.
Because a child who learns early that tears and longing are normal becomes an adult who can sit with someone elseโs pain instead of looking away.
And that, more than any trophy or perfect report card, is what the world actually needs.
Thanks, Susan Cain!
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*Website: https://susancain.net/newsletter/
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About Todayโs Guest Susan Cain
With her viral TED2012 talk and her bestseller “Quiet,” Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us. Now, she’s back to explore the surprising lessons sorrow and longing teach us about creativity, connection, and love. She is now doing it again with her new book, “Bittersweet.”