Fighting the ‘Emptiness’

Do you ever feel that pang of nothingness hit you? The world is blurring past you and you have stopped. The future is as dark as the dark hole. That you would rather lose yourself in dreams than stay in the present. That the dreams also are no solace. Do you ever feel hung up between the real and non-real?

If you wish to know, I often do feel this way. The feeling of purposeless seems to be the worst feeling in life. I wished to break out of this. Who wouldn’t? What did I do?

I cried and cried and cried on till no tears were left. Crying made me tired and I lulled myself into sleep or a peaceful dream. It did not take me a long time to become afraid of my own tears. Then I tried to drown the feeling of emptiness in anger. I started throwing thing one way or other. Hitting things, trying to destroy them to postpone my own destruction. I began shouting. These were not solutions. They were temporary reliefs. They only increased my self-loathing. After I found out this fact I began waiting out these periods, like a Polar Bear in hibernation awaits the summer, I waited for my feelings to get back. I knew that they would come back because they did every time. Knowing this was a solace. It did not necessarily make things easy.

Man learns with time. I also learned the techniques, rather discovered them, to pull myself back to the present. Today I shall share them with you-

Whenever something is troubling us intensely and we can feel the pull that will bring us to the state of non-real existence, the kindest thing we can do to ourselves is to pull us back to the present; We have to keep our legs firmly rooted, even it means starting a tug of war game with our mind. So how to keep us rooted? Here are some effective ways-

1.We must put ourselves to the most rigorous work-out routine. It works both ways- » It brings us back to the present moment as we can concentrate on a physical feeling than a fleeting emotional one. » It releases Endorphins which give us a sense of euphoria and relieves pain.

2.We must distract ourselves. The best way to do this is to what we love-dance, sing,read,play or even cook. Doing this activity gives us  a sense of purpose and direction. It makes us feel good as we gain some confidence on ourselves due to the things we are actually good at. The world appears less bleak.

3.Meditate. We need practice meditation. The great thing about meditation is it helps us clear our mind completely and gives us a feeling of enlightenment. The emptiness or void created is neither painful nor claustrophobic. It really helps in reducing stress.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    4. Eat. I don’t know if it helps anyone else or not but having a full stomach always      helps me to get a burst of energy. Healthy food is essential.

I must warn you that getting into these activities during the period of apparent feeling of emptiness is not easy. This is because you have to fight your own mind. You may not want to but you have to get up and start what you have to do. Lying alone and alienating yourself, shouting and screaming won’t help.

Keeping all these advice aside, the most important thing to do if these feeling become recurrent is to consult a psychiatrist. It may be symptoms of depression and medication will help you to get a complete cure for this.

So don’t just read this article, start practicing it. Hope it helps.

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Know that this is difficult.

“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.“

–Elizabeth Wurtzel

Know that you are not alone.

“I found, when I left, that there were others who felt the same way. We’d meet, they’d come and seek me out, we’d talk about the future. And I found that their depression and pessimism was every bit as acute as mine.“

-Wole Soyinka

Know that everything will be all-right as long as you can do what you love.

“Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.“

-Jeanette Winterson

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(I am no expert on the subject. I put up this post to share some things I found necessary to share.)

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