Your hectic day has finally lulled to a stop.
Thereโs nothing left to do. Thereโs nothing more to say. Now you have time to relax. But instead, the silence descends upon you with oppressive force. You feel suffocated underneath the weight of this momentary, but seemingly eternal, nothingness.
Suddenly that old feeling returns โฆ the feeling of desolation, the feeling of a gaping inner hole inside. Your insides ache under the gnawing pressure of this profound vacuum. How can feeling empty be so terribly painful?
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As the feeling intensifies, so does your desire to seek relief. No matter what it takes, you just have to suppress this emptiness a little longer. It seems too hard, too endless to bear such hollowness.
So you reach for a cigarette, your phone, the fridge, the bottle, the remote control, or the next sexual conquest, all in an attempt to escape your old, dark friend: emptiness.
Table of contents
What is Emptiness?
Emotionally, emptiness is a feeling of inner desolation: a complete absence of joy, hope, or satisfaction. When a person experiences emptiness, they are plunged into an inner abyss which often results in addictive and escapist behavior.
Feelings connected with emptiness often include despair, depression, and loneliness.
Read: Feeling Alone – 13 Ways to Stop Feeling So Lonely and Isolated ยป
9 Signs Youโre Experiencing Emptiness
Nobody ever tells you that emptiness weighs the most.
โ Anonymous
Signs to look out for include:
- Fear of being left alone
- Lack of meaning in life
- Feeling empty/hollow inside
- Struggling with an existential crisis
- The absence of true happiness or fulfillment
- Addictive behavior (to escape the emptiness)
- Emotional numbnessย
- Inability to slow down/workaholism (as a form of escape)
- Chronic boredom
Not everyone will share all of these signs, but if you identify with more than half, you are probably struggling with emptiness.
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Emptiness and Spiritual Awakening
There’s much more to feeling empty than meets the eye. This is a perplexing emotion (if you can really call it that) that is often closely linked with the process of spiritual awakening. In fact, those who endure chronic emptiness are often led to the spiritual journey in the search for wholeness and inner peace. Trying to cope with the numbness of emptiness each day is enough to eventually trigger major inner life shifts โ this can actually be a positive thing. When one’s soul loss (read more about this below) is fully faced and comprehended, a spiritual metamorphosis is ignited.
3 Reasons Why Emptiness is Haunting You
Contrary to all logic and reason โ emptiness hurts. You would not believe the pain and the suffering that can come from a thing which, by all accounts … is not even there.
โ Ranata Suzuki
As a person who has struggled (and still at times struggles) with emptiness, I can tell you that depression is often a symptom, not a cause, of emptiness.
When looking online and listening to others explain emptiness, it is often linked to various mental illnesses such as BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), Schizophrenia, alcohol and drug addiction, anxiety disorders, and of course depression. But to me, these labels are distracting and often times shallow, meaningless, and even harmful because they donโt go to the root cause of what causes emptiness.
Donโt get me wrong, while emptiness is sometimes caused by neurological chemical imbalances, I dare to say that for most people, it goes much deeper than that.
So what are the origins of emptiness? Why does this inner desolation haunt you? I have often explored this topic in-depth privately because it is one of the major issues I have (and still) struggle with.
When it comes to exploring what is really causing your emptiness, be careful. Iโve run into so many justifications which sound true, but in reality, they are band-aid symptoms of much deeper issues. Here are some of those false reasons Iโm talking about:
- I donโt have a partner.
- I donโt have enough money.
- Iโm not successful enough.
- My partner doesnโt love me anymore.
- I have no close friends.
- My husband/wife is boring.
- I donโt have enough sex.
- Iโm not in the right job.
When you dig deep enough, going to the core of each of these issues, you will find some common themes.
Here’s what Iโve found lies at the root of emptiness:
1. Soul Loss
Soul loss means being disconnected from your soul. All of us have experienced soul loss to some extent. Soul loss is caused, and reinforced, by trauma, abuse, childhood conditioning, materialism, and ego-centered living.
Soul loss manifests as the eternal sense that something is โmissingโ from our lives. In other words, it is disguised as the perpetual โsearch for happinessโ which often results in misguided, futile, and externally-focused pursuits. Our obsession with money, fame, power, beauty, and the โperfectโ relationship are all attempts to get back that which we have lost: contact with our soul.
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Soul loss is a modern epidemic of epic proportions. Itโs symptoms manifest as low self-esteem, suicidal depression, mental illnesses, physical illnesses, rage, grief, and in extreme circumstances, acts of violence, cruelty, and depravity.
Read: 21 Signs Youโre Experiencing Soul Loss ยป
2. Lack of meaning and purpose
When you’ve lost touch with your soul and are feeling empty, you’ll inevitably lose touch with your life purpose. What are you destined to create or do? What does your heart crave to express? How can you experience self-fulfillment? When you experience soul loss … who the hell knows!
We are all brainwashed and conditioned to act in certain ways. Since childhood, we are pressured to conform and fit into nice little boxes by our parents, teachers, and society at large. When we become adults, itโs the same story, except now we mistakenly believe that we are the ones choosing to study that accounting degree, get married young, get a mortgage, rack up huge student debt, and live a socially โacceptableโ life.
Because few of us were told to look inwards, we live most of our lives externally. We listen to what everyone tells us about who we should be and ignore who we really are. We try to fix our inner wounds by using external distractions. We lock away anything uncomfortable, confronting, or โdeep and meaningfulโ and prefer the comfortable and commonplace instead.
Why is it that people who experience breakups, job loss, death, and illnesses suffer so greatly? Yes, loss of any kind is painful. But what is more painful is the feeling of emptiness left behind. The creeping sensation that oneโs life is not being lived to the fullest, and oneโs unique purpose is not being accomplished … now that is fucking scary.
If feeling empty is becoming an increasingly large problem for you, it could signify that you are starting to become more conscious. You’re starting to spiritually awaken. Youโre starting to reach breaking point. Your soul, locked away, is sick and tired of being ignored. It is trying to get your attention. Emptiness is the messenger. And although it may seem like a horrible thing to experience, it is actually a blessing in disguise my friend. (More on that soon.)
3. Suppressed and Repressed Emotions
So what happens if youโre living your life purpose? Youโre regularly making contact with your soul? Youโre devoted to living a path of heart โฆ but that emptiness is still haunting you?
If emptiness is a constant companion with you, even on your spiritual journey, it could be because you are suppressing and repressing emotion.
What is suppression and repression (and whatโs the difference)?
Suppression is consciously shutting away your emotions. Repression is unconsciously shutting away your emotions (i.e., you have no conscious awareness that youโre doing it).
If you grew up in an environment that demanded you to be stoic and punished any form of strong emotional expression, you probably struggle with this issue.
The problem with suppressing and repressing emotions is that over time, they begin to build and stagnate within you. The more your emotions are dammed up inside, the more disconnected you feel from yourself. The more disconnected you feel, the more you feel empty.
In other words: you stop feeling your emotions. Life becomes dull and bland. Where you would otherwise feel joy, you feel mild enjoyment. Where you would otherwise feel anger, you feel mild annoyance. Where you would otherwise feel sadness, you feel mild listlessness.
Shutting out your โnegativeโ emotions not only keeps them at bay but through time, it keeps all of your emotions at bay, positive ones included.
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If you want to read more about this issue, I recommend checking out our article on emotional numbness.
5 Ways to Feel Better if You’re Feeling Empty
Personally, I feel empty when Iโm not permitting myself to experience my emotions โ both good and bad โ and also when I’m spiritually disconnected. But the cause for your emptiness might be totally different.
Take a few moments to reflect on the causes of emptiness above. Ask yourself, โWhy am I feeling empty?โ and examine each one of the points. Which do you resonate with the most? Keep in mind that itโs possible to feel empty due to all three reasons.
Now you might be wondering โYeah, OK, I’m feeling empty โฆ but whatโs the solution?โ
Here are some helpful tips:
1. Establish your own spiritual practice
Connecting with your soul is not a novel, wishy-washy, one-off experience. It is a serious practice. It is a daily practice that one should commit to for life. You need to make an effort every day to introspect and turn inwards in order to reap the most benefits. And when I mention the benefits, I mean everything ranging from the small and subtle, to the paradigm-shifting-mind-blowing-mystical-experiences.
This website is full of suggestions on how to connect with your soul, but here is a great place to start. In my current spiritual practice, I make use of dream work, shadow work, inner child work, journaling, the I Ching and oracle/tarot cards, self-love, meditation, spirit guide contact, and prayer (but my practice often morphs and changes).
I recommend experimenting with various practices that you feel comfortable with at first. This might range from mainstream spiritual practices to more esoteric methods. The main point is that you need to explore what โsoulโ feels like. If you’re in desperate need of this contact, I recommend finding a local (or international) authentic/trustworthy shaman who can guide you on a spirit quest through the use of plant medicine. Plants such as psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, san pedro, and ayahuasca provide sacred gateways into the realm of soul and spirit.
2. Seek relentlessly for self-fulfillment
Emptiness is the ‘possibility yet to be filled.’
โ K. Hara
Start trying to find what will emotionally, mentally, and spiritually fulfill you. This will require you to look inwards and to possibly ignore everything that everyone has ever told you about who you โshouldโ be.
Self-fulfillment is 100% personal and up to you to discover. No one can hand it to you on a silver platter. You have to explore what sets your soul on fire and makes your heart sing. YOU have to take the steps, set the goals, and put in the effortย because if you donโt, you will wind up feeling empty and unfulfilled.
Remember, your destiny is in your hands. Once you start taking a proactive approach to your life, you will likely feel much better.
Read: 9 Exhilarating Ways to Be True to Yourself ยป
3. Allow and embrace your emotions
Feeling our emotions and actively embracing them flies directly in the face of everything weโve been taught growing up.
In particular, emotions like anger and sadness are shunned and largely feared because of their ferocious power. Such emotions are usually buried and expressed through sports, alcohol binges, workaholism, or relationship conflicts.
One powerful and healthy way of letting your emotions out is through catharsis. Catharsis, when done in a safe and private environment, is immensely liberating. Different forms of catharsis include intense exercise, screaming, dancing, laughing, and crying. I personally enjoy crying and punching catharsis because I struggle with repressed grief and rage.
Other passive forms of catharsis include art therapy and journaling (check out our self-love journal.) In my book โAwakened Empath,โ I also explore a technique called SOAR which helps you to experience and regulate intense emotions. (You can check out our Youtube channel for some examples of SOAR put into action.)
I must stress here that our emotions are not here to be โfixedโ or โcured.โ You simply cannot rid yourself of anger, jealousy, or grief for your entire life. These emotions are normal and are part of the human experience. What we can do is learn how to let them flow through us without clinging to or dramatizing them. Once all emotions are permitted to dance through you, feeling empty will no longer be a problem for you because life will become vibrant again.
4. Create your own support network
You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.
โ Carl Sagan
As much as we like to convince ourselves otherwise, we are not islands. As human beings, we are innately wired to be social. We needย some kindย of social contact, care, and support to be emotionally and psychologically healthy.
One of the best ways to stop feeling empty is to seek out others. Try to locate those who feel the same way as you and/or are experiencing similar problems. Realizing that a lot of what you experience is a shared human experience has the potential of relieving you from a lot of suffering.
If you don’t have anyone in your life right now, there are always support groups online. You can also look into your local community paper and see if there are any communities you could join. There are free help networks like 7cups online, and you could reach out to a therapist/counselor if you desperately need someone to hold space for you.
Creating a support network doesn’t need to look or be perfect. Even just one or two people can be sufficient enough to help you handle your feelings of emptiness. If you don’t know where to start, hop onto a social media platform and join a group or page to do with emptiness/depression. You can join our group on facebook (called ‘lonerwolf tribe’) if you need a place to go.
5. Create a solid sense of self
This may be unconventional, but I believe that possessing a weak sense of self can be the cause and result of feeling empty.
When we lack a stable ego, we float throat life being tossed here and there with no sense of solidity or wholeness. It’s absolutely imperative that we all have a stable ego as, without it, we simply cannot operate in this world effectively.
As such, possessing a frail sense of self is kind of like being a vagabond with no home to return to โ and feeling empty is often a result. Psychologically speaking, we need to be like the humble snail who carries its shell (ego) around as both a form of protection and shelter.
I have written more about how to develop a stronger sense of self in the past (you can explore that more in-depth if you like). But for now, here are a few suggestions:
- Who are you? What qualities do you love the most in yourself? What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? Record your responses in a journal, making sure that they’re you’re original thoughts (and you’re not regurgitating what other’s have told you)
- Reflect on what you genuinely enjoy or what gives your life meaning, and begin to explore these subjects/paths. (Even if it feels a little silly, that’s okay! Be true to yourself.)
- Take some free personality tests.
- Learn how to set personal boundaries with others. This will help you to build a grounded sense of self.
Having a weak sense of self (and the resulting sense of emptiness) is often due to living in a dysfunctional and toxically enmeshed family as a child. If you were raised in an overly-strict family with rigid roles, you were likely taught that “it’s not okay to be you.” This, of course, is utter bollocks. Learning how to love yourself and caring for your inner child will also be tremendously helpful in not only creating a strong identity, butย acceptingย that identity fully.
***
Feeling empty is often a sign that you’re disconnected from something โ whether that be your soul, a lack meaning/purpose, or your emotions. But whatever the case, the life force energy within you has become blocked.
While trying to learn how to overcome inner emptiness can be complex and daunting, I hope this article has taken off some of the strain. My advice is to keep pushing yourself in the direction of growth and expansion. Start small. Keep experimenting. Keep going. What you’re experiencing has a purpose and above all, you are not alone.
So tell me, what is your journey with emptiness? Which of the above practices do you plan to explore? Please share below. You never know: your story might help others feel less alone.
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My understanding is emptiness is an experience gained in childhood. It could be you did not have a deeper emotional connection with your care givers that is your mother or father. The care and love you had fromyour parents was not unconditional love and care. As a result you were deprived of the unconditional love you needed to develop as a child.
This loss of love results in emptiness in the personality and when you experience loss of love or abandonment in adult life situations your childhood emptiness is felt unconsciously. The cure for this is to gain insight into your unconscious and become aware of it and come to terms with unfortunate experience in the childhood. This is my personal experience.
Yes, that is exactly what the root of mine is, Iโm starting to realize. My father abandoned me at an early age and my mother was very neglectful, especially emotionally, but in many other ways too. I had the feeling of having to take care of myself as a child. I started trying to fill my void very early, and staying busy was one way. Another was becoming obsessed with and longing for crushes, and as an adult I still seek to fill the void through a romantic partner, which has just made everything much worse. It is not easy for me to get in touch with my feelings, but Iโm doing that now using art therapy and shadow work, and I feel itโs helping. All this because my parents didnโt give me what I need. It feels impossible to heal this, I work so hard at it! It feels like itโll never go away. But at least I have more awareness, and I get up every day and keep trying. What else can you do?
Buena pagina web… Gracias, Un saludo
Thich Nhat Hanh’s talk on emptiness (10 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqBKiPAVBeE
This article has opened up so much for me. I wonder what people who aren’t empty feel like. This makes me want to go watch movies or read books of people who have an opposite experience just to semi-experience it in a way.
In other words, the fact that some people DON’T feel like this feels like a privilege in a way
Cried my eyes out reading this page. It describes exactly what I am feeling right now. Part of me wants to drink myself into oblivion to make this goddam awful feeling go away, but I know that whilst it might provide temporary relief it is not the answer.
Thank you Josephyne for having the strength and wisdom to endure through this feeling with the knowledge that eventually it’ll pass and many of us have been in that same place. It’s easy to forget in moments of struggle that the short temporary relief often comes at a huge cost later on as the contrast of not feeling vs feeling again feels all the more intense and drives again down an addictive loop to do it again. Wishing you the best.
All I have is the sound of emptiness inside my head to keep me company, I have however finally stopped walking around like my own little personal PR bot telling everyone exactly what I think they want to hear… because I just wanted them to go away but it never helped with that either, only took me 25 years and I would absolutely ask for a refund for those 25 years if I could but I lost the receipt.
I feel totally lost and empty. I wouldnโt say I feel depressed. I just donโt understand what Iโm feeling and what to do about it.
That’s what emptiness is
Hello!
I don’t know who to ask this but I’d like to hear your opinion.
After reading a philosophical metaphor about the one light that fractures differently in different prisms I suddenly realized that it is like that. like it is the light (we) and our brain (prism). After that realization I feel disconnected from my self (like me is not me and why do i have thoughts etc.) and it feels disturbing and stressful. (Before I read this metaphor everything was fine)
I would really appreciate your answer!
Jesus heals all pain. He is our creator and saviour and He fills and completes all voids in the perfect way – because He made us He knows how to heal us.
For the past few months, I speak to my mum about it but she just doesnโt seem to understand, I know she may not mean it but she makes me feel stupid for feeling this emptiness. I went up to my room and cried. No one is there for me. I just want to feel happiness. Why am I here. I have no purpose. I wanted to fill this empty void so I tried going out on walks, getting good grades, getting fit and healthy. But it just didnโt fill the emptiness at all. I was stuck. I didnโt know what to do anymore. I thought I had given up trying at this point and I may as well go and end it all. Itโs scary feeling like that. Terrifying. These monsters of emptiness inside your head just wonโt go no matter what you do. I didnโt know what to do so I typed up on google. โWhy do I always have a dark empty feelingโ. And I came across this website. It made me realise that maybe someone does understand me. And it showed me how to get rid of the emptiness and I thought. I havenโt tried everything yet, Iโm not going to give up on life. This emptiness wonโt last forever. My soul will always be with me. All I have to do is connect with it.
Ironically we googled the same thing. Perhaps we all could benefit from helping each other.
Anaya, as I am reading this my eyes got watery. I can totally relate to this on a whole level. Whenever I try to express myself and instead I feel unheard or misunderstood I just go back to my room and cry instead. I also feel like no one understands or cares or even tries to comfort me so I just repress those feelings and cry till I feel better. I want to give you a big comforting hug right now and I honestly donโt like physical touch but I can relate so much to this. On every single thing you mentioned here, I feel as well. I hope we find the root of this problem. Take Care!
I know how you feel. Everytime I tell my parents anything negative or that I feel awful, they get angry with me. They really only want to deal with me if things are going well. My mother rips any happiness that I have to shreds by telling me how undeserving I am. I donโt take to my โfriendsโ anything because theyโll just say โitโll be okโ and change the subject. This is every friend Iโve ever had in my life. I had one friend distance themselves from me because I was โbumming them outโ A friend that was like my brother said that he was over it. He said that awful things constantly happen to me and that heโs sick of seeing it and hearing about it. He doesnโt want to deal with it. Basically, Iโm saying that I donโt have anyone to talk to either and the times that Iโve reached out, Iโve always been cruelly shutdown.
Reading this over made me sad. It sounds like the problems of a child. Iโm a middle aged woman that lives hundreds of miles away from my family. I still havenโt found peace and people that I can talk to yet at this advanced age.
Reading your post is heartbreaking.
You have so much to love for.
I hope you find your peace and joy.
You are not alone. A lot of us feel the same. It is painful but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You go thru the pain to become better. You will find clarity,