Emptiness

[Pegs11]

I am going through a major grieving process right now. I am leaving a huge part of my life behind - real, tangible stuff - real people - but also hopes and dreams that had seemed to be so nearly within my grasp after spending so, so long devoting myself to achieving them, and making many huge physical and emotional sacrifices along the way. All gone.

I am actually pretty cool with the sobbing and wailing part, the catharsis bit. As painful as it is, it is somehow beautiful to me. When I am “outpouring”, I feel completely connected to everything, to myself, to spirit, to the universe. I am privileged that I am able to see such beauty in this stage of grief. I associate outpourings of grief with love and life and meaningfulness. This is the form of grief that can enrich the soul.

But then later, when the outpouring is done... It’s the emptiness, the blankness. This is the bit that I struggle with. The depletion of the feelings. The blank nothingness. It’s grey and lifeless and depressing. I feel unable to connect with myself, to feel my feet on the ground in this world, to fill my head and heart with anything other than a sullen kind of despair-laced void.

Can anyone relate to this? Do you have any thoughts or advice for me? How to use the “empty” time. Do you embrace the emptiness? Do you just sit with it/meditate? Do you find distractions? Do you engage yourself in activities no matter how little you feel like it? What have you found that helps your soul at these times?

Thank you so much.

I saw your post last night and thought it might go under the radar for a lot of people and hence be slow to garner responses.

You're "vague" about what is causing you to feel grief and I'll say a couple of things about that FWIW!

For one - people reading this probably find it easier to connect to your feelings if they picture your situation, perhaps understand some of the context to it and feel able to comment if they can relate to it in some way. I, for instance, can say I have some similar feelings because I gave up my work as a personal tutor - something I've done for 12 years and really enjoyed, something I did not see myself stopping... until COVID prevented me from seeing students face to face... anyway - long story and yes, on-line tutoring was an option but didn't work for me and quite frankly students are sick of it - it does not work for the way I teach and prefer to work; I enjoyed knowing and working with the students and their families and inevitably when you work with one child you often end up working with siblings and you guide them through to uni and remain in touch with some....anyway - I never really saw a time when I would want to stop - I had so many new ideas about teaching and plans to teach an ever expanding range of subjects. I'm sad to walk away after COVID and the fiasco in 2020 regarding estimated grades - as a consequence I have had to "rethink" what I do with my life, time, talents, motivations, etc. Anyway... back to you - I guess the source of your grief is quite different. My mother's death was a relief, my aunts death a surprise, a very close work friends death from a brain tumour has been always been hard to accept, my daughter's hospitalisation for 6 months - I found unexpected gifts and beauty in all of these - and saw new unexpected things grow in their place.

Looking at things through the simplifying lenses of metaphors can be both helpful and unhelpful IMHO - because of their simplicity they can help make complex and things that are hard to define, a lot more understandable. In volcanic eruptions and forest fires the destruction is obvious but they change the landscape, these unpredictable, chaotic, life-changing events change the fabric of the land under your feet, bring new elements to the surface and bring with it new possibilities - this is life, it's an inexorable force that constantly brings change - I think if you can look at where you are now - either think about the wider context or look at the details - I think you'll realise this moment is not as empty as you say, not as empty, perhaps as you want to think - maybe that is where you are ATM - maybe you are only ready to see yourself surrounded by the wreckage of whatever has happened to you - I know from my own experiences that it is just a phase you inevitably go through but - having experienced the things I mentioned with my mother, daughter and friend - I know there were gifts in all of those things - I used to hear this and wince at the cliché - but I feel differently about it now - I now believe it's helpful to believe in the (unknowable in advance) "gifts" and to start looking for them sooner rather than later - they are there - and it's all bound up with hope - that is such an important thing to have. I wrote beautiful songs and poems about my mother, aunt, songs and poems about my daughter, built new unexpected friendships with the family of my friend and with the friends of my aunt and in particular with my daughter - opened much deeper channels of communication - when you have had to have *end of life" conversations (that you never expected to have to have) with your daughter (and internally with yourself and with your partner) - you are forever changed - and for me - it has been for the good.

So - I've highlighted the words "vague" and "rethink" because these are two of many ideas I dwell on that are part of the way I mentally get to grips with the realities of life, with what has or what is happening in the external world and also in my internal world. You seem to have been mulling things over trying to do the same - to put your thoughts and feelings about what has happened to you, what is happening to you now as a consequence and how you feel and you've so far summed it up in the words "grief" and "emptiness" and you started to drill down and refine exactly what this means for you in your first paragraph - I'd encourage you to keep doing that and one way that helps me - has always helped me - particularly since the death of my friend and in particular my daughters illness - is by putting things down in writing and by trying to do something creative with what has happened - the metaphors I used creatively have been helpful but IRL the metaphors we use in everyday conversation can sometimes be unhelpful - they can stop you from getting to the real issues - the real issues are what you need to know about in order to start dealing with them. I've often found that the vague way we are often apt to sum things up - has a more negative impact on us sometimes than the real underlying issue. When people say they are "lost" or "in a dark place" or "at the end of their tether" or "feeling empty" I don't think it helps communicate the real nature of the issue to other people - we will all have our own first thoughts about what those words mean and they can be quite different to what the person saying then actually means - more importantly - I don't think it's that helpful for the person themselves in understanding what it is that is causing them to feel that pain - so I tend to listen out for and pick up on "vagueness" and think these are the words that you need to dig around to find out what is underneath them. You could take that word emptiness and probably write a long bullet point list of what that actually means to you in real terms - I'd say - try it if you are that way inclined - this something I've learned to do - it is the way I start writing about anything that is affecting my feelings and occupying my thoughts - I do it because I have learned to turn many of these thing into some form of art. When I look back on some of these things that have upset me I usually do also think of the songs and poems I made out of these moments - it's something I feel good about.

No idea if this is any help to you but - it's an in sight, perhaps, into the ways someone else has tried to deal with some of life's more troubling events.

@larkstar thank you for taking the time and energy to write me such a thoughtful response.

I acknowledge what you’ve been through yourself and take my hat off to you for getting through it, and for finding and utilising the gifts that were hidden in the pain.

I was only vague in my post because I like to be concise and I wanted to focus on the specifics of the feelings rather than the events that have led me here. But I can see how that might make my post harder to relate to. In any case, I found your reply incredibly helpful, I have just sat here and done a load of writing and it was so, so cathartic and also clarifying for me. Everything is beginning to fall into place… although I accept I have a long road ahead of me.

Thank you. x

My mum died from Parkinsons in May and it was a blessed relief for her(and me) as she had no quality of life and increasing dementia.
She was 88.
I didn't cry and felt very guilty about it.
Last night I found out that a close school friend whom I knew had a terminal illness died yesterday.
I am absolutely rocked by her death as she was relatively young and before diagnosis, no health issues, non smoker and only occasional glass of wine.
I am struggling to understand how I feel but at the moment I'm caught in a kind of frozen shock.
Does anyone relate to this or is it unusual?

I just typed out such a long message that seems to have disappeared! What I was trying to say was I started taking the empty nothingness with me and eventually I'd come home and notice I'd felt something (such as a moment of interest) during my outing. As long as I wasn't in a sobbing despair place I'd make myself go to see places, events and eventually people and in time the void became increasingly partnered by parallel feelings that were good. They co-exist quite well now. Like two rooms in a house, the void further down the corridor than it used to be.

I have lost my Mother & my Partner (of 34 years) in the last 3 months. I feel I've lost huge parts of my own self / my own history with them too. I'm going to try to sleep tonight (I can't stay awake in day, I can't sleep at night) & re-read this tomorrow. Sending out good wishes to all of us on this journey.

@Flittingaboutagain I love your answer, thank you. There seems to be a myth that when something happens that throws your life into turmoil and/or envelops you in grief, you’ll only be able to move forward when you’ve “got over” it. Some things - losses and traumas - you will carry around with you forever. But, they don’t have to weigh you down, and they don’t have to stop you from experiencing joy, finding hope and having positive and meaningful experiences. I love the “two rooms in a house” analogy.

This is such a moving and inspirational thread. Also very helpful to me, thank you.

You're welcome. I also like the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle but some pieces are missing and some pieces have slipped in the box from a different one. You have to throw away the lid and make a new picture. It can still be beautiful but it won't look like the picture on the box.

Thanks flittingabiutagain for that, it’s beautiful. This is a beautiful thread. Thanks op and all.

I take the "when you're going through hell, keep going" approach (the "hell" being the grey void rather than the active waves of grief). Garden, walk, look after the dog, meet up with people or just even go out to a coffee shop to literally see and hear other people. Do stuff, even if it's in tiny, microscopic steps. Keep the mammal that I am fed, watered, exercised, socialised.