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That feeling that comes from the depths of you and that dyes your life an insipid gray, that turns you off, exhausts you, distresses you, knots your stomach and compresses your chest, turns you into an automaton. That feeling that you only manage to call "empty". Why is that. An emotional void that takes over your day to day. And by chance you come across this article from Psychology-Online "emotional void: definition, symptoms and how to fill it" that seems to promise to teach you how to get out of the emotional void. Well, read on to find out what you're dealing with, understand it, and find some tips to heal the emotional void.
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- Frustration, anxiety, boredom, fatigue
- Incoherence between our values, beliefs or principles and what we do or say. We live in a time when it is impossible to be consistent with absolutely all of our principles or values. We are in an unjust, disproportionate world, full of poverty, hunger, precariousness and social injustices, framed within capitalism from which it is practically impossible to escape. For this reason, being fully coherent becomes a very difficult task to perform, and awareness of this reality can lead to an existential void.
- Fears: of being abandoned, of loneliness, of disappointing others and ourselves, of living without meaning, etc. Fears so deep that they can take over us and that, to combat them, the only defense mechanism is found in apathy and disinterest in everything, turning that emptiness into the emotional state by default.
- Emotional dependence. Emotional dependence, caused by multiple factors, including low self-esteem and family models, can lead to feeling that emotional emptiness when, due to the loss of a partner or other situations, we find that affective lack with which we have so much trouble living.
- Face the void. To overcome the emotional emptiness, it is necessary to embrace it, feel it in all its intensity to fill it with self-acceptance. This is the first step. A step that many are so afraid of that before facing the void by looking inside, they seek to fill it with external things. There is the danger of falling into a possible addiction, since some turn to alcohol, food, shopping, drugs, sex, etc. And what it is about is to become fully aware, to allow yourself to feel all the negative emotions that emptiness brings to learn how to deal with them. Filling the void is a slow process, full of successes and failures, despair and hope. A path with stops, falls and new beginnings where there are no shortcuts.
- Work on self-esteem. Another important aspect of overcoming emotional emptiness is learning to forgive yourself. Listen carefully to your needs, desires, concerns, and go from caring for others to caring for yourself, without trying to please everyone to win the approval and love of others.
- Face your fears. Don't let yourself get into the loop of being distressed about doing nothing or doing nothing about being distressed. Once you face them and start living, fears lose their reason for being. In the following article you will find how to overcome fears.
- To explore. Everything and everyone. Find things that you like, do things that make sense for you. Meeting new people and appreciating the ones you already have. Establish meaningful relationships for you (but be careful, without falling into dependency!).
- Go to the psychologist. As always, a specialized therapy adapted to your needs directed by a professional psychologist is the best option to accompany you on this path, because as Victor Hugo said: "The heaviest burden is to exist without living."
- Bolmsjö, I., Tengland, P., & Rämgård, M. (2018). Existential loneliness: An attempt at an analysis of the concept and the phenomenon. Nursing Ethics, 26 (5), 1310-1325.
- Norwood, R. (2000). Women who love too much . Madrid: Reading Point Editions
- Plou, PM (2006). Dependency relationships, how to fill an existential void? Journal of Psychotherapy , 17 (68), 66.
- Ranasinghe, P. (2019). Theorizing nothingness: malaise and the indeterminacies of being. Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory.
Emotional emptiness: causes
The causes that can lead us to feel an emotional void can be of a very different nature since its etiology, like its definition, is broad. Even so, the most common causes are usually the following:
How to fill my emotional void
Knowing how to get out of the emotional void is never easy, but here are a series of steps that can help when it comes to healing that void:
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Emotional void: definition, symptoms and how to fill it, we recommend that you enter our category of Personal growth and self-help.
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