I think that many people are familiar with the state when life ceased to please, what was happening around them irritated, the days were similar to each other, and it was as if a vacuum, an emptiness had formed in the soul. And it’s not clear how to fill it. Usually this condition is caused by depression and deep apathy. And it’s good if it passes quickly enough. But if the emptiness in your soul does not want to let go, then something must be done about it urgently.
Before you start fighting mental emptiness and depression, you need to find out the causes of this condition. And there can be quite a lot of them.
Here are the most common causes of this condition:
Fatigue. Moral exhaustion from routine or eternal bustle. Imperceptibly, but slowly and surely it contributes to the exhaustion of mental strength.- Stress. The consequences of stress from any loss, sudden changes in life.
- Shock. Similar to stress, but I would still like to highlight it separately. This is betrayal and other similar things, after which the fragile structure cannot withstand and collapses overnight.
- Losing goals. The realized goals were not replaced by others (for example, after the completion of a major project), their place remained vacant.
The acute period will be survived. But now inside you hear a frightening echo of emptiness.
What's next?
Really, what? NOTHING. A terrible word, which in our case can mean indifference, melancholy, apathy, depression. All the “delights” that can make life look hopeless like a straight line of a heartbeat on a monitor. If nothing is done, everything can turn out to be much more unpleasant consequences than just lack of mood.
A person not only ceases to be interested in what is happening around him, but also to take care of himself, communicate normally with loved ones, and withdraws. Due to desolation in the soul, desolation in the house also increases, sloppiness and chaos arise. Indifference and lack of interest can alienate friends.
In order to prevent such a development of the situation, it is important to understand that scorched grass in a spiritual vacuum is nothing more than past experiences that seem to have already dried up, but cover the soil of the soul very tightly, preventing seeds from the outside from reaching the fertile layer. And even the most persistent seeds cannot germinate through a thick layer of withered grass.
Correcting the situation: digging up the field
What to do? The answer is obvious: empty – fill it in! – Fill it out... It’s easy to say, but difficult to do. – You will object with the usual indifference. And you will be absolutely right. But, like almost everything in the world, it is doable if there is a desire.
“You forgot, I haven’t had any desires for a long time,” you wearily continue the debate.
No, I haven't forgotten. That's why we'll start with desire. From the desire to change existence to a spiritually fulfilling life.
Answer, what is better: to remain in the same state of a soulless robot or to rejoice, be nervous, love, suffer and be happy from this living movement of the soul? Hint: because for some reason you decided to read these lines, it means that not everything is hopeless. If the desire has not yet arisen, just force yourself, overpower your personality or what’s left of it. Finally, get angry: how could a multifaceted person have an empty tank inside?
A few first steps to help begin the “rehabilitation” process:
Complain. Have a good cry into someone's vest. Yes, yes, many people think that complaining is bad. But fading away while gritting your teeth is even worse.
Trust. Don't be afraid to ask your loved ones for help. Do not doubt, they love you and therefore will understand, listen, and console you.
Understand the reasons. Take a break. Leave. You need to be alone with your inner loneliness. Before you sow something and wait for fresh sprouts, you need to dig up the soil, remove weeds and dry turf. Get rid of scorched grass.
Shake up frozen emotions. For some, extreme sports and adrenaline will help. For some, heart-warming films and books. For some, contemplation of Niagara Falls or the sunrise over Lake Baikal. And for some - new love.
Have you prepared the ground? Now - sow!
Sowing for the soul: a few simple tips
Emptiness affects all aspects of life. Fill your soul with a variety of seeds and food, create a healthy, tasty and balanced “diet” for it.
Personal life and the world of feelings. Love, tenderness, passion... How long do you keep all this on the surface of your “dead lake”? Now that the water is becoming alive, it’s time to measure the depth. Give your loved one the opportunity to warm you up; he has long tolerated your detachment. If there is no such person, you need to open your soul wider and look around. In fact, it exists, you were just so detached from everything that fate decided to save an important meeting until better times.
Relationships with loved ones. Urgently go to your grandmother for tea with jam, in an atmosphere of unconditional adoration. And then - to the parents. How long has it been since you had a heart-to-heart talk? These are people who selflessly love you. Your only aunt hasn’t been able to reach you for a year now, you promise and don’t call back? Are your friends tired of trying to get you going? Meet everyone and dream about the future together.
Job. Look at your work from a different perspective. Perhaps some responsibilities can be approached more creatively, which will also increase motivation. Or calculate the options for changing it, but don’t cut off all the ends at once, otherwise you risk lying on the sofa for an indefinite period of time, which will worsen the condition. Finally, get to know your colleagues better: among them there are interesting people who are ready to support your creative impulses.
Hobbies. Force yourself to agree to all offers to attend various events: something will definitely catch your attention. Find an activity that is completely different from what you have done before. This will help you get out of the usual framework, run “beyond the flags.” And new acquaintances will definitely give you fresh, unexpected emotions.
To fill the emptiness in your soul and grow a blooming garden again, you just need, oddly enough, to just start filling it and enjoy the process. Then your world will shine with feelings and interesting colors, and your soul with harmony.
Olesya, Blagoveshchensk
How to deal with this feeling
Whatever the emptiness inside, and what caused it, there are always ways to rehabilitate. This condition can easily go away from where it came from. It is a mistake that during a “broken” period, people turn to alcohol and other addictions.
The opinion that temporary pleasure will free you from the state of emptiness is extremely erroneous. This will not give confidence, but, on the contrary, will accustom you to other addictions. In order not to pull yourself out of a larger quagmire of problems later, it is better to listen to these recommendations:
Be able to trust
When it’s like cats are fighting inside, and you feel helpless, you should turn to those closest to you. You shouldn’t isolate yourself, but it’s better to ask for support from those who will always understand. It's important to find someone you really trust. Sincere relationships allow you to find understanding, consolation, love.
Take your mind off the negativity
Has everything piled up and doesn’t allow you to breathe out freely? The moral emptiness will gradually go away if you pause. Why not go to the mountains from this noisy metropolis, from this bustle? In nature you can feel the inner harmony that has been missing all this time. Inner loneliness is often healed by solitude surrounded by nature, a new environment. If you have been wanting to go on a trip for a long time, now is the time to buy tickets and let adventure into your life. For starters, it wouldn’t hurt to at least go to the cinema, sing karaoke, make homemade sushi and invite guests!
Bring feelings into life
I can no longer be alone with myself, I lack feelings. The mood to create a personal life is a natural desire. How long can you live in the cold, be detached, look back at the touching dates of your friends and go on your way? If you've been saving yourself for better times, then it's probably time to become alive and attract attention to your side.
Give an emotional shock
When life feels like a dry field of weeds, it is important to renew it and sow a new crop. Feelings and emotional shock go hand in hand. You can also shake up frozen emotions. You can’t always be an idol, walk headlong and not feel emotions. There are times when you are in the mood to cry, sing your favorite songs with a guitar, go to a club to dance, jump with a parachute, or sign up for martial arts. This will turn on your real mode and bring new breath into life.
Pay attention to development
Emptiness can rob a person of any opportunity to get on his feet in order to achieve success. You can't let circumstances get the best of you. Do you dream of being an entrepreneur? It is important to communicate with successful people, attend trainings on personal growth, and read a lot of literature. Do you have a secret desire to try yourself in acting or perform on stage? You shouldn’t deny yourself the idea of expressing yourself.
Why not get a special education, watch educational videos, find useful contacts. It is important to make your way to a better future and assert yourself. Then emptiness will have no place in your life.
Find your own interests
Work-home-work-bar-home-cafe and so on in a circle. Routine not only erases the boundaries of reality, it kills all interest in you in another type of activity. On weekends, you can go out of town to pick mushrooms or visit the swimming pool. Hobbies break up the ordinary days, which force you to be responsible, to do responsibilities, perhaps to pretend. A hobby is a way to regain freedom and a taste for creativity.
If the emptiness inside does not give you peace, apply these tips and you will feel the result. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, try to take control of the situation and begin the path of your own liberation. It may be difficult at first, but very soon this terrible feeling of devastation will leave you. Don't let every little thing negatively affect you, but strive to remain neutral - this will preserve your condition and give you a sense of confidence.
Emptyness is an internal feeling of losing something very significant. An individual who is deprived of internal strength and has exhausted his mental resources is called devastated. You can often hear the following sayings: “for some reason it’s empty inside...”, “something is missing...”. This condition has happened to everyone. And it seems that the circumstances have not changed and everything is as usual, but something is not right. I don’t want anything and it’s not nice, my soul is filled with green melancholy. In psychology, this state is called emptiness.
Psychologist's comment:
A feeling of emptiness in the soul that lasts for many days, or even weeks, months is a difficult and even dangerous condition, which is often one of the symptoms of depression. The author of the letter above, Olesya, describes interesting ways to cope with this unpleasant state of emptiness and apathy, but if you have already tried to use them, and it was not enough, then it’s time to do something different.
note
This is important: if the state of emptiness, apathy, fatigue and loss of strength - physical or mental - continues for 2-4 weeks or more, then I would recommend consulting a psychotherapist in person. If you come to such a specialist at the PND at your place of residence, it will be free, and you can be sure of the specialist’s good qualifications.
The psychotherapist will carefully talk with you, collect the necessary information and, based on the results of the consultation, give comprehensive recommendations on what you should do next: in some cases it may be necessary to take medications, and in others the doctor may consider it more appropriate to recommend that you see a psychologist.
Why do you need a psychologist?
The author of the letter gives recommendations on how to cope with unpleasant feelings of spiritual emptiness.
But it is no less important to understand the reasons why they arose: what psychological characteristics of your personality contributed to their appearance? It is very important to know such things about yourself - first of all, in order to learn how to get out of difficult life situations with the least losses in the future. A psychologist can help you get to know yourself better and learn to cope more effectively with such difficult situations.
If you contact such a specialist privately, look on his website for certificates indicating that he has completed a long-term (at least 2 years) training program in one of the main methods of psychotherapy (psychoanalysis, gestalt therapy, cognitive-behavioral, body-based, family psychotherapy and so on). It is also important that the psychologist conducts consultations with you, and in his office, where nothing distracts from work.
And finally, the third important point when looking for a psychologist is that you must establish a trusting relationship. It is important that during the work you get the feeling that the specialist is favorable towards you, that he is sincerely trying to find contact with you, and that you, as far as possible, feel comfortable with him. If such feelings do not arise, this does not mean that there is something wrong with the psychologist - perhaps this is just not your psychologist, and you should turn to another - this is normal.
Getting rid of emptiness
The emptiness in your soul needs to be filled. This is not as complicated a process as it might seem at first glance. Do you want to enjoy life or still remain in an amorphous state? You need to pull yourself together and act to create your own bright and beautiful world.
Stage one
Don't be shy about complaining about what's happening. You have people who are ready to support you. Don't be afraid to take advantage of this. Tell them about your condition. Listen to what they tell you. Release the emotions that have accumulated in you.
Stage two
Trusting relationship. It's time to understand that this is why they are close people, that they are ready to help you unselfishly. They value you and are always ready to help.
Stage three
Find the reason for this condition. Try changing your location for a while. Perhaps you need to be alone, reflect on life, rest and relax. Don't ask yourself: why should you do this? Just go out into nature and breathe some fresh air. Have a little picnic and relax from the daily hustle and bustle. Such events will help you cleanse your mental and emotional state, bringing them back to normal.
Stage four
Try to improve your emotional state. Add some adrenaline to your life. Attend a sports training or fighting competition. Watch a heartbreaking movie. Fall in love, watch the sunset and sunrise. You need to bring new colors into your life.
A few final words
I would like to comment a little more on what was written above. Olesya advises “to shake up frozen emotions.” I would not recommend doing this on your own: if emotions “froze,” there were certain reasons for this. Without knowing them, introducing adrenaline into your life, as the author advises, may be unsafe and not useful.
And if you should try to shake something up, then it will be much more useful and effective to pay attention to your body. It has long been known that activities related to the body - exercise in the gym, sports, dancing - have a beneficial effect on the senses and soul.
Select - perhaps after discussing this with a psychologist - the type of physical activity that attracts you most - and get to work! The combination of such useful and interesting bodily activity and work with a psychologist will soon bear fruit.
Evgeny Makhlin, psychotherapist, family psychologist
Why is my soul empty?
The feeling of oppressive devastation inside a person arises as a result of a long or excessive struggle with something .
On the one hand, this is an effective way of mental self-defense. The human psyche begins to slow down its activity in order to maintain its integrity.
Such cases arise in various serious problems and situations :
- Loss of loved ones.
- Severing relationships with loved ones.
- Quarreling with friends.
- Betrayal of loved ones.
- Professional collapse.
- Personal disappointment in something.
All these points are united by the final point of emotional distress in the form of emotional burnout.
At a certain stage, a person can no longer fight the situation and the overwhelming experiences and emotions.
Then the endless torment is replaced by peace and emptiness , which seems something frightening, but as a temporary measure can protect the psyche from collapse.
If such a state drags on, then spiritual emptiness becomes a constant companion of a person.
In this case, the reason for the appearance of such a condition often lies in the weakness of the individual’s character, when she does not know how or is not used to dealing with difficulties .
Then this is no longer a defense mechanism, but a way of avoiding - denying existing difficulties.
Mental emptiness can be a consequence of the limitations of the individual , both the initial point and the final point of development. That is, a person does not want to fill his soul, expand his horizon, learn to feel. Or he can’t and gives up all attempts.
Such people are referred to as “soulless,” meaning their indifference to everything. But deep down, such individuals harbor a deep desire to satisfy their needs, masking this desire as emptiness within.
Such deception of others and often of oneself does not lead to positive results and does not allow a person to realize these very desires .
