• Bittersweet is a mixed feeling of happiness and sadness.

• Brene Brown Atlas of the Heart p. 74

It's not the same as ambivalence (whenn we're unsure whether we're happy or sad), it's feeling both at the same time

One line of research indicates that multiple emotions, such as happiness and sadness, may be rapidly vacillating below our consciousness, but our interpretation may be a more integrated emotional experience.

It's possible that feeling bittersweet may be more fequently experienced or recognized by people who have a more nuanced abiliity to interpret their emotional states.

DDevelopmental research shows that the expereience of mixed emotion is not peresent in very young children, and that it develops gradually. At around age seven or eight, children resport experiencing psoitive and negative emtions simultaneously, and by age ten or eleven, they can recognize and udnerstadn the tenion caused by expriencing mixed emotions.

Gives a sadness about letting go of something, mixed with happiness and/or gratitude about what's been experienced and/or what's next.

Brene Brown Atlas of the Heart p. 76

Things Aren't What They Seem