Encountering Internal Emptiness

Sometimes there have been times when we have each experienced that strange sense of routine survival that gnaws on our guts.  We get used to meeting friends, co-workers and family. We talk about our lives as if we were someone who could just fly over the water without drowning, saying something like, “Sure, it was horrible, but no worries, I’ve already survived it” or  “I couldn’t achieve what I wanted, but hey, I still can . ”

Externally, we are like little soldiers, hiding the weight of our regrets and sorrows, marching forward and surrendering forward, hocking something in the direction of  “That’s how things are now”.

We get used to collectively surviving without mumbling, we share our words of encouragement, and we have a certain common understanding of tactical silence. But underlying all of this, within our deepest latent parts, lives an invisible enemy that feeds us with consuming emotions such as emptiness, pain, and loss.

And what do we mean when we talk about loss? By this we are not only referring to the concrete loss of the person we love as a result of death. After all, there are many different types of loss and they each define a certain type of feeling of emptiness. Some of these losses refer to frustration, disappointment, any type of fear, failure, or bottomless depth that we feel and experience as “existential emptiness”.

What is the most effective way to face these different levels of personal loss and the emptiness they cause? How can we defeat these inner wolves who, while allowing mercy without it, will greedily eat us piece by piece? Let’s look at some of these methods:

Let us accept our loss and understand our emptiness

Just as the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman often explained to the general public, many of us live in a kind of “liquid society” where immediate pleasure and transient achievements are of the highest value.  Nothing seems sustainable, not even (or especially) personal relationships.

It’s as if our society is watching the bright side of things, but as soon as something difficult happens or a deeper level of involvement is required, the  “garment of humanity” weakens and falls apart.  For example, think of a friend or family member who was diagnosed with depression. In addition to clapping your shoulder, we offer a couple of comforting words like “yes this about this” and, of course, a reminder to take medication.

All kinds of pain and agony surprises us. We don’t understand it, so we try to escape it out of reach.  What if we were placed face to face with that friend or family member and we asked them to tell us about the pain they are experiencing or the emptiness within them? Or what if we let them unleash their feelings on us through their words and tears?

In order to survive in our complex and difficult-to-understand world, we must face our enemies face to face, we must know how to understand and accept them. In doing so, we truly grow as human beings, for grief and pain do not end up being just a pile of waste in the corner of our soul or in the darkness of our minds.

All existential emptiness has a form  and we need to know how to understand this essence in order to stop running our inner wolf away and to go through our lives more safely by being aware of what we really need.

Take action to face our personal emptiness

It’s good to keep in mind that we may be deceived by the following idea that almost every one of us naturally plays with:  life is going to be just the way we want it to be  or “almost” as we once imagined it to be. Of course, this belief or wish is not a bad thing in itself, but we must be considerate of our beliefs and also accept the possibility that we will not receive everything we desire.

But does this then mean that we have inevitably and helplessly been destroyed to be unhappy? The answer is in everyone’s own mind, for indeed it is that real happiness is not found in achieving all we want, but in learning how to be happy and grateful for everything we have gained and done, and… What we have lost.

Surprising? I hope not! In any case, it is beneficial to strive to understand these different dimensions of our experience, these steps to face each and every one of our personal losses.

1. When you find that life has brought things in your way that you didn’t expect,  don’t give up.  Instead, take the first step to accepting your own place in each dimension, including your suffering and pain. If you have to cry, cry, and if you have to be out of your mind in some way, allow yourself to feel it.
2. Step Two: Never force things to be exactly as you would like them to be.  Doing so will only make the problem more chronic. If your spouse says he or she no longer loves you, accept this new state of affairs, don’t let it control you. If you haven’t gotten the promotion you hoped for at work, don’t opt ​​for this observational failure, as there may be another way to achieve what you want.
3. Accept what is happening,  understand what it is and, while this may seem incomprehensible, try to be grateful for what you were able to learn. Perhaps the pain you are experiencing now will help you avoid repeating the same mistake in the future. It may even be that this existential emptiness is pushing you to explore new areas in your life that will make you truly happy. Why not give it a try?
4. Move forward, forgive,  turn the page, break the burden, and connect everything you’ve learned in your life. After all, there is no better way to enrich your life than to fill a void with knowledge.

Photos provided by: Colin Blogue