EMPTINESS

There is a not uncommon experience people refer to as “emptiness”, meaning a deep sadness, yearning, or inner sense of something missing.? It often connects to a felt sense of deep deficiency or unworthiness.??? [This psychological emptiness is quite different in meaning from the Buddhist concept of the same name, which refers to the reality that things do not exist in the way we suppose that they do;? that life is empty of anything which is inherently substantial?or permanent enough for us to hold onto.?]

A good way to think about the psychological experience of emptiness is in terms of parts of us which have been lost from awareness. ??What has been lost from consciousness leaves a vacancy, a place inside which feels empty.? Sometimes emptiness is a hole in our lives which comes from the loss of someone or something. ?It may arise in relation to something we want very badly but despair of ever finding/having. Psychic holes in the mind may also come about as a result of traumatic experience or something else barred from memory.??

We can begin to explore emptiness by inquiring into?the “holes” we find in our own lives.?? What is missing?? In what way(s) do we regard ourselves as insufficient? ?What emotions do we not want to feel??Emptiness is also revealed by noticing what we do to “fill’” the vacancies we feel within:? our addictive attachments to substances, activities, and people.? By exploring the strategies we use to block the feeling of what is painful,? we can deepen our awareness of the underlying feelings.

In a different vein, the experience of emptiness can sometimes be illuminated by contrasting it with its psychological opposite: aliveness.? We can explore experiences in which we feel whole and complete, authentic, at peace with ourselves and with our world.?? And, we can bring awareness to what habitually blocks our channels of vitality and aliveness.

Ultimately, our empty places, our "holes", can only be filled by connection: connection with ourselves, with others, and with the wider world in which we find ourselves.?

******* Borrowed from my book? INQUIRING DEEPLY: PROBLEMS AS A PATH TO AWARENESS.? Inquiring Deeply Press,? October 2023.