The opposite of love is not hate. It’s not fear either, though fear blocks love: you can’t feel any love when you are terrified. The true opposite of love is sadness, the feeling that arises in the absence of all that love delivers.

“Love” is understood in many ways, from intimate personal love to allegiance to country to a beneficent quality of the divine. All of them speak to a feeling of harmonious connection, intimacy, and what in the book The Seventh System  is called “Oneness.” When you feel love towards anyone or anything, you feel in tune with, linked to, deeply connected in some fashion to that other entity.

The opposite of that feeling is what you get when the sensation disappears, or is lost, taken away, or is simply lacking. It’s a hollow feeling. Love is a state of fullness people automatically pursue and enjoy. Its opposite, sadness, is an empty feeling when that wonderful sensation of love is missing.

Sadness lacks the intense passion of love or hate. That’s the whole point: it’s about what isn’t there. Given all the various people, places, activities and ideas we love, surely there will be moments of sadness in your life, when the love connection you cherish is broken or missing.

At those times, it’s perfectly OK to feel sad. Respect the honest feeling of loss or emptiness, as uncomfortable as that may be. Honor moments of sadness as part of the great complexity of life. They don’t last forever. Once they pass, you can move forward to find new feelings of love that are never far away.

When you understand how your emotional system works, you will spend less time in sadness, anger and fear. Remember that the resolution of sadness is in reconnecting with love, and take action to make that happen.