Maybe It’s Time to Stop Avoiding the Void
When you get to the bottom, you realize there is no bottom. And this is a GOOD thing.
After spiraling around the layers of the onion on the path of spiritual and emotional growth, hitting one issue after another, peeling layer after layer, healing and going up only to fall back down again many millions of times, you finally “arrive.” Actually, that’s not true. We don’t really arrive anywhere. We are already “there.” Or “here” really. These metaphoric layers of the onion can also be compared to a hamster wheel or a never-ending roller coaster ride. It feels like we go around and around in different patterns inside ourselves with friends, loved ones, co-workers, and family members kind of like Bill Murray’s character does in the movie “Groundhog Day.” The good news is that you CAN get off of this ride. The rotten truth is that we don’t know we can get off of it until we KNOW we can get off of it. The frustrating thing we eventually realize is that this onion that everyone talks about isn’t something we ever needed to peel. We have already been whole this whole time. We just start to remember that as we expand our consciousness and spiritually evolve. But, life would not be as much fun if we didn’t have “problems” to solve and when we have had trauma in our lives and we lose sight of our authentic selves as a result, we certainly experience a lot of “problems” in the search for remembering who we truly are. That is real for most of us.
The coolest part of healing and connecting more with our true nature is that eventually we realize that the only way to inner peace is actually going inward. We hit that wall and we suddenly (not really suddenly at all—after like a zillion and one times, really) realize that no one can or should be the one to make us feel complete or whole. We see that vying for attention, love, and approval from anyone besides ourselves feels really deflating and not all it’s cracked up to be. When we are young (and even when we are young at heart in our golden years for many of us), we love the adoration of others. We think that external validation is something great and we feel more attractive, less boring, pretty intelligent, and not at all lonely—at least when we are getting this kind of validation. As soon as we don’t have it, we feel the pain of the void. Have you ever stopped and considered that our expectations are really what get us hurt? Let’s be honest, we don’t really know how to validate ourselves because no one knows how to do this well and, certainly, no one teaches us how! So, we expect others to do it for us. It’s just part of the gig…for a while anyway.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the void itself is not painful. It is simply stillness and it opens you up to something vast and greater. It is like floating around the Universe—so very quiet and still, but so much is taking place. New stars are being born and new planets are popping up out of nowhere it seems. The void is like a blank canvas. There is nothing there, but nothing can be a wonderful thing. Like the Universe, in the void things are happening. The void is like your own personal universe. You can create anything you want from a blank canvas with nothing on it, right?
The trouble comes when we “accidentally” go into the void when we aren’t ready for it. We consciously decide to go into the void in meditation and also when we have hit that part of our journey when we decide to get off that crazy hamster wheel and choose to go into the void to experience life on our own terms. But when we accidentally go into it before we want to, it can feel pretty “bad.” Why does it have to feel bad you ask? Well, it doesn’t have to feel bad, but it might. And that is simply because we as a species are not used to silence. We are not used to stillness. When we first experience this void, it is so quiet and still that it feels scary—much like I imagine floating around the actual Universe might feel. I bet most of us would feel a great sense of terror about floating aimlessly around the Milky Way and beyond.
Because we have been taught to “stay busy” and create all kinds of drama with ourselves and each other, not feel by overeating or over-exercising, watch pornography, work endless hours at work each week, gossip, use substances and on and on, the void can feel pretty bad at first. It can feel lonely. It can feel too quiet and still. It can seem boring. No one is there validating us—at first anyway. It can be filled with lost dreams and those pesky expectations we had for ourselves and for the love, the job, or the family we so wanted to have one day. When we are there when we don’t want to be (and even at first when we choose to be), the void can carry all the fears and the false beliefs we have always had about ourselves. It can remind us that we aren’t as handsome or as worthy as we wish we were. It can remind us that life is short and that we have wasted time. And this is what we want to always avoid, right? This is exactly why we never, ever visit this barren, hopeless wasteland. Why would anyone ever want to be reminded of their fears, lost hopes and dreams, and feelings of unworthiness?
The reason to visit it is because it is our ticket to true freedom. It is real life and who we really are—our true nature. It is love and peace. After you sit with all the icky stuff that has been floating on the surface of that void “soup” as I will call it, it starts to dissipate in the light and attention of your awareness. This can feel really sad and uncomfortable especially if you have never done it or have rarely ever done it. As someone who never would do it until I really felt I had to, I can tell you it is not a picnic—at first. But, I can also let you know that it does not have to take very long for the low vibrational emotions to flow and release. I am not a young chicken. I have spent the majority of my life avoiding that void like the plague. I am sure there are varying degrees of pain and suffering we all have had, so I will not tell you how long it might take you to get through some of this discomfort, but once you have made the choice to go there, I believe you can decide how often and how long you want to withstand it. Like with anything, it can become a practice—bit by bit you dip a toe in until you can finally take a deep dive. Or, like me, when you are sick and tired of that darn roller coaster, you can just jump off into the void and BE with your pain until you birth into a new, happier you. The wonderful thing about life and being human is that we have many choices and this is just one of them you get to make without anyone else’s permission.
These painful feelings may feel real for you, but they are not you. They are the energy created by your life circumstances and expectations that let you down in some way or that were not met. None of it is true. It is what the mind created to fill that void and to keep you away from it. The mind does not like it when it doesn’t have control and it controls our lives with “busyness,” “drama,” “problems.” If you were to stay in the void and manifest a wonderfully happy life from there, what would the mind have to do? Or so it thinks. It believes that it would lose its job. To be clear, we do need the mind. We just don’t need it for EVERYTHING. The mind also gets us into trouble because it likes to think in the past and the future, in all or nothing, and in black and white. It doesn’t really enjoy the present moment (another word for the void, by the way), maybes, or grays. It creates a lot of disappointment in us about the many mistakes we have made in our lives, and it also creates a lot of anxiety for us by making us think too far ahead about things. Thinking ahead and making plans for things too far in advance is a recipe for anxiety, overwhelm, and deep grief because we really can’t make plans for things too far in advance.
This is because everything that is happening is happening right now. Your future comes into being by BEING…NOW. Maybe at times in your life you made plans for the future and you have made those plans happen with flying colors. And that’s wonderful! We can all use our will power and make things happen much of the time. But, then there are those times where we expected and thought something was going to happen in the future and we were certain about it and it did not happen. No amount of planning or preparing made it happen. And we felt lost, alone, and scared. We felt angry and sad and defeated. Life “happened to us” we believe. We made all these plans and then another plan took over. We felt like life isn’t fair and we felt victimized or angry that something or someone took the life or the goals we had put into place away from us.
What happened? Why didn’t it work out the way we planned? I guess my answer is that this life is not a mind journey. It is a heart and soul journey. When we are living from the mind, we are living from past or future. We are being something for someone else. We are seeking past unmet needs from parents, love and respect from a significant other, or to impress the world at large. But, I have to argue that the soul is in charge here. It is the driving force of our lives. It knows way more than our minds know about our path on this planet. And when we can breathe deeply, slow down, and dive deeply into the void, we meet our soul. Then we can know the plan and we can even co-create the plan with the soul. We can get on its page rather than on the mind’s page. The mind is a wonderful tool. It helps us read maps and to-do lists. But it is not good with emotions. Emotions are the soul’s way to guide us to our true happiness and joy. We feel to heal. When we live in the void, we get to be more in the flow of life and be a part of the decision-making process. We get to find our true passions, our soul purpose, our abundance, and our truest love.
When we sit in the void and we feel all the sadness of the dashed dreams, all the loneliness of not having anyone validate or compliment us anymore, all the confusion of what life is all about, all the fear that we aren’t good enough, or all the anger about how we have been treated by others, we have the wonderful opportunity of being there for ourselves. We have the chance to love ourselves, hold ourselves, understand and forgive ourselves, and have true acceptance and compassion for what we have been through. We stop judging ourselves and life and become curious instead. We can start the journey of never feeling lonely again. Once you have your own back, you always have a friend.
Be in the void.
Get into the gap.
Find the space between.
Be here now.
It will change everything in one instant.
