Facing the Void

We generally regard feelings of emptiness and loneliness as distinct from ourselves and cling to the illusion that our inner void could be eradicated, avoided, or filled. We can spend our lives trying to do so, perpetuating endless internal conflict and can lead to addiction.

Eventually, we discover that we cannot run or hide from ourselves or our feelings. Whether we have existential emptiness or psychological emptiness, change begins with the realization that our inner emptiness is both inescapable and unfillable from the outside. Schopenhauer referred to it as the “bottomless abyss of its heart;” no worldly satisfaction could fill its infinite cravings [35].

Twelve-Step Programs are founded on the premise that cravings and inner emptiness cannot be filled through addictive behavior, and that relief is spiritual. Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous wrote to psychoanalyst Carl Jung [36], who replied explaining that alcoholism was a spiritual problem―“a spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God,” which he believed to be the answer [36].

The sage Krishnamurti [37] disagrees. He maintains that even God can’t fill our emptiness: “Psychologically, the man who runs away from himself, from his own emptiness, whose escape is his search for God, is on the same level as the drunkard (pp. 55, 109).”

According to Krishnamurti, when we identify with the ego as an individual “me,” it creates isolation, but this loneliness is merely consciousness of the self without activity (p. 46). He believed that emptiness and loneliness are inherent in being and cannot be escaped through activity, relationships, knowledge, experience, beauty, love, pleasure, or meditation. Our emptiness and the craving to fill it are the same and can neither be avoided nor redirect-ed. We can thirst for different things, “from drink to ideation,” but craving itself is based on illusion (p. 56). This is because what we seek to escape is within us, part of our own nature.

In AA, the potential for change is when an alcoholic hits bottom. Jung agreed that nadir of our despair is in fact the turning point. When we abandon all hope and accept our fate, transformation occurs―in us, but not by us―we are the object, not the subject [38]. By abandoning hope and not trying to escape our despair, we derive a humbling powerlessness that enables us to face the void formerly filled by altered moods, mental obsession, and compulsive behavior involved with addiction and codependency.

Abstinence and the surrender of control also require courage — courage to face our emptiness and hopelessness. Feelings of anxiety, anger, grief, shame, depression, and emptiness that were previously masked are now revealed. We can feel like nothing [39].

Paradoxically, however, this “forces a person to get something from himself,” claims family therapist Thomas Fogarty, adding, “the less he tries to get from outside himself, the more he gets . . . From this despair, in a strange way, comes a sense of self-esteem and self-respect” [40]. It initiates a major shift in consciousness back to us and self-responsibility. By embracing rather than avoiding our pain, “We evoke divinity itself. And in doing so, we can hold emptiness, old hurts, fear in our cupped hands and behold our missing hearts” [40].

This is the sixth of several articles in “Becoming You” that examine perspectives on emptiness. Next up is the final installment, “The Way Home,” for strategies to deal with emptiness. Check footnote references and read the entire original article.

© 2019 Darlene Lancer