– If you have ever wondered why melancholic music lifts your spirits…

– If rainy days inspire you…

– If you feel emotional when you look at old photographs…

Then you are likely experiencing a bittersweet state. A sweet melancholy.

What is melancholy? A tendency towards nostalgia and sadness. A deep awareness of the passage of time. A bittersweetness for the beauty of the world. It is when you recognize that light and darkness, birth and death, the bitter and the sweet, will forever be intertwined by an invisible thread.

In the book Embrace Your Melancholy, Susan Cain argues that melancholy can be a quiet and defining force through a compelling narrative that interweaves psychology and spirituality with personal experience and contemporary culture.

She also shows us how to transcend our personal and collective pain, whether it be loss or separation, addiction or illness. If we do not first recognize our own pain, she writes, we will inevitably hurt those around us. However, if we realize that all people experience - or will experience - loss and pain, we can turn to one another and build more meaningful relationships.

In a time of intense loneliness and stress, Cain brings us together in an unexpected way. And she invites us to embrace our melancholy in order to transform it into creativity, beauty, and love.