Many of us in the United States report feeling empty or hollow. Sometimes couched as loneliness, dissatisfaction, disconnection, depression, disquiet, or weariness, it seems as if more people are struggling with a lack of meaning and purpose in their lives. They may be doing all the same things in their lives, but it feels more like just going through the motions.
Many might find it hard to generate genuine care about others and even their own selves. It takes too much focus and effort, or so it seems. We just can’t summon the energy to care enough to do anything that might change things.
Our thoughts and feelings echo in that hollowness. These echoes may make us feel even more lonely.
Many who have struggled with addiction know this condition well. In the throes of our addictions, we may have felt hollowed out by our use. Some of us felt hollow even before we began to use. Our use may have felt like a short reprieve from that hollow feeling.
Others of us may have felt full and substantial at some point in our lives but our use gradually drained us. We may have felt like we were husks of our former selves.
The hollowness and emptiness can feel like a dull ache or a sharp pang. We may bounce like a pinball between those two types of pain. We know something is missing but we haven’t been able to fill ourselves in healthy and sustainable ways. Many of the things we tried may have left us feeling even more hollowed out.
Four steps to filling the hollowness
How can we begin to fill ourselves in good ways?
The first step is accepting that it won’t happen quickly. The hollowness may have developed over time, becoming very familiar to us. We may start to believe that it has always been this way or will always be this way. Countering those beliefs and filling what has been emptied will take time.
The second step is to think about what we need as opposed to what we want. Active in our addictions, we often confuse the two. Some of us excel at turning wants into needs and then feel frustrated or aggrieved when they are not realized.
We might do well to heed Epictetus (50-138 CE), who counseled us that wealth consists not in having great possessions but having few wants. Moreover, true happiness is wanting what you already have.
A third step is to cultivate an attitude of willingness to try something new. We become so locked into views about what we like or think possible that we quickly write off anything that is new and different. Trying new things expands our inner and outer worlds, filling them with new meanings and values. Bigger and well-filled spaces don’t echo as much.
A fourth step is to befriend that hollowness, strange as that may sound. There are thoughts, feelings, and sensations floating around in what feels like emptiness. If we pay attention to them, we may learn a lot about ourselves. We may be able to identify our reasons for why and the times when we started to feel this way. We may begin to understand what alleviates some of that hollowness or when we are particularly susceptible to it.
Self-knowledge is crucial to recover from the hollowness and even more important, begin to fill ourselves with experiences, commitments, meaning, and values that help us to flourish.
