# On Feeling Emptiness and Difficult Emotions



## David Baxter PhD (Jul 29, 2018)

*On Feeling Emptiness and Difficult Emotions*
by Therese Borchard
July 29, 2018

In his book _Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart_,  psychiatrist Mark Epstein tells the story of his first roommate in  college, a guy named Steve, who signed up for the five hardest courses  at Harvard and became obsessed with being the perfect student. He  stopped playing his guitar, going out with friends, even stopped  bathing. Every waking moment went to studying. On his way to his first  final exam, Steve fell down several flights of stairs, had amnesia for  the rest of the semester, and was forced to take the rest of the year  off.

 As a result, he fell apart.

 Epstein uses that story to introduce the topic of embracing emptiness  — how we can fall apart in a such way that we keep our integrity and  move toward a place of self-awareness and inner peace. His book  discusses how psychotherapy and Buddhist wisdom can be used together to  process difficult emotions. The combination of Eastern and Western  thought provided several key insights for me since I’ve been wrestling  myself with feelings of emptiness.

*Exhale underwater*
 Many of us are like Steve. We tightly clutch the helm of life,  steering it with deliberation. We try our best to have some control over  the persons, places, things, situations, and events that are part of  our days. Until we can’t. Life throws us a curveball that we didn’t  anticipate, and we become unhinged. Afraid to let go of our grip, we try  to fix the situation, obsess about solutions, and apply different  psychological patches to the holes, only to feel more despondent.

 “Often we are afraid of falling apart, but the problem is that we  have not learned how to give up control of ourselves,” writes Epstein.  “We are looking for a way to feel more real, but we do not realize that  to feel more real we have to push ourselves further into the unknown.”

 Epstein talks about his initial fear of swimming and the process of  learning to exhale underwater. It’s counterintuitive to open your mouth  in a bunch of liquid that could fill your lungs and kill you. But in  order to swim, you have to do just that. Even floating requires that you  relax, trust the process, give up some of control. Let fear take over  and you’ll sink.

 Our emotions, like water, are not our enemy but our backdrop. Instead  of avoiding them, tensing up when they surface, we would do better to  relax into them, to exhale underwater.

*Just feel it*
 When hit with difficult emotions, my first inclination is always to  analyze them: Where did you come from? Childhood baggage? Faulty brain  wiring? Low self-esteem? I treat them like a 500-piece puzzle that needs  to be assembled in the next half-hour. By finding their origin, I am  positive that I can pluck out their roots and eliminate them for good.  This method has yet to work.

 “Our aversion to emptiness is such that we have become experts at  explaining it away, distancing ourselves from it, or assigning blame for  its existence on the past or on the fault of others,” writes Epstein.  “We contaminate it with our personal histories and expect that it will  disappear when we have resolved our personal problems.”

 His first medication instructors told him, “Stop trying to understand  what you are feeling and just feel…. Just pay attention to everything  exactly as it appears and do not judge.”

*Tolerate, don’t eliminate*
 Uncovering our difficult emotions won’t make them go away. They’re  still bloody painful. However, by sitting with them in awareness, we can  get better at tolerating them, just like I’ve adapted to the odor of  teenage boy socks in my house. By touching the truth of our emptiness,  we discover ourselves in a new way, and this can lead to transformation.  The trick is to relax into that truth and stop fighting the feelings,  resisting the urge to want to change them.

 “Only then can we have access to the still, silent center of our own  awareness that has been hiding, unbeknownst to our caretaker selves,  behind our own embarrassment and shame,” explains Epstein. “When we tap  in to this secret storehouse, we begin to appreciate the two-faced  nature of emptiness – it fills us with dissatisfaction as it opens us to  our own mystery.”

 Relief isn’t found outside of ourselves. Our strategies to fix and  patch will only lead to more disappointment. We must “touch the ground  of our own emptiness” to feel whole again.

*Embrace impermanence*
 According to the Buddhist tradition, much of our suffering is born in  clinging to relationships and material items in our lives, attaching  ourselves to their permanent status. If we can get comfortable with the  idea that everything in life is transient, we free ourselves to  experience people, places, and things more fully and spare ourselves the  pain associated with attachment.

 According to Epstein, intimacy puts us in touch with fragility and  the acceptance of fragility opens us to intimacy. To love means to  appreciate the fleetingness of a relationship, to be able to embrace  impermanence. Per Epstein, “When we take loved objects into our egos  with the hope or expectation of having them forever, we are deluding  ourselves and postponing an inevitable grief. The solution is not to  deny attachment but to become less controlling in how we love.”

*Gaze outward*
 There is a well-known parable in the Buddhist tradition about a young  woman who lost her only child to illness. She begged the Buddha for  medicine to revive him. He agreed to her request, but said that she  would need to bring him a handful of mustard seeds from a house where no  child, husband, parent, or servant has died. She visited each house in  her village and inquired, but realized death had touched everyone, that  pain is a universal experience.

 I experienced the wisdom of this parable the other day. I had been up  all night with painful ruminations. By four in the morning, the  obsessions had turned to panic and I could hardly breathe. I reached out  to the members of Group Beyond Blue,  an online depression support group I started a few years ago. Within  two hours, I received over 50 supportive comments chock full of wise,  practical suggestions on how to quiet ruminations. Suddenly I wasn’t  alone with my uncooperative brain. There was a group of warriors  surrounding me, reminding me that what I was experiencing was hardly  unique, that emptiness is a universal experience.

*Don’t be Steve*
 Emptiness isn’t supposed to feel good. But it doesn’t have to disable  us either. By resisting the urge to address difficult emotions like a  tantrumming toddler — analyzing them, changing them, escaping them — we  can use our experience of emptiness as a teacher of truth, guiding us to  a place of inner peace and transformation. Then if we fall down the  stairs on the way to our exams – or the equivalent in our lives – we can  go to pieces without falling apart.


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## forgetmenot (Jul 30, 2018)

Trying to make sense of all this.  The only way i know to survive was and is to shut down all emotions (" we can use our experience of emptiness as a teacher of truth, guiding us to a place of inner peace and transformation. ")

 I am in a place of being like in daze just walking and existing 

Emotions have always been wrong as emotions showed vulnerability .

  I wish somehow i could let everything surface but not able to nor wanting to feel.    Just counting the days until i see therapist.

  At the difficult times of the day i shut down and try hard to just sleep.  Escaping everything.   Therapist is able to get emotions out and then able to return me to a state i am not overwhelmed 

 I do not understand how feeling the sadness and pain can help anyone.  Emotions are the enemy no control when emotions are present .  That all being said i wish all this turmoil inside would go away  in time i hope in time.

To go into this frozen state  helps me to not be parallelized if that makes sense.  If tears appear i stop them i refuse to let them show 

I had told my therapist when the inevitable happened mother leaving i would probably have to be hospitalized but i not feeling and going into a frozen state keeps me safe for now keeps me safe does that also makes sense i don know. 

 I do not want to go a place where they lock people up for not being well so instead i will lock myself up in a frozen cell of not feeling.   uggggggggg now i am not making myself clear i know.  

 Hard because i want to explain but so not wanting to upset anyone either. 

as i write this tears are pushing through but i have stopped it  i need to get busy  but that is hard now to as energy evades me .

 Just want  a way out but there is no way out  not without harming others left behind.  

So much inside that is better left inside.  Just my  mind the way it thinks and i don't know if i am going to win this one but i am trying hard so hard to not lose.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 30, 2018)

forgetmenot said:


> Trying to make sense of all this.  The only way i know to survive was and is to shut down all emotions (" we can use our experience of emptiness as a teacher of truth, guiding us to a place of inner peace and transformation. ")
> 
> I am in a place of being like in daze just walking and existing
> 
> ...



Because until you can allow them to surface and process those feelings, nothing happens. They stay there waiting until you do let them surface. That's how the process of grief works.

When my mother died (years ago), my daughter was only 3, my first son was less than a month away from his due date, I had just moved to a new city, bought a house, and started a new job a week earlier. No sick leave yet. I needed to take care of everyone and I couldn't take time off work yet. I was in Canada; my mother was in England. I couldn't even go to the funeral. I went for a walk by myself and then came home and stuffed it down so I could function.

It took 7 years before I was able to let go and think about her loss. And when the feelings came, they came with full intensity, just as if she had only died yesterday. It all waited until I could deal with bit but it all waited.

How long before you can see your therapist, @*forgetmenot*?


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## forgetmenot (Jul 30, 2018)

I don't see my therapist until August the 9th he knows i went to see him just after mother died  i told him i have not grieved Mother death.
I am sorry you could not be there at your Mothers funeral how alone you must have felt.

I too have to push down everything so i can help the others so i can get things done  i don't want to feel it scares me. The hardest part of the day is when i am suppose to be with mother but she is no longer there.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 30, 2018)

I understand. You can do this, forgetmenot. As hard as it is, you can get through this time.


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## Jesse910 (Jul 31, 2018)

How do you allow feelings to surface when you do not know how much of a backlog there is?  I feel like FMN.  I am afraid to feel. My new therapist knows that I am holding back.  I agree with FMN, tears are symptoms of weakness and can only be shed in private or with my cat. How is the cycle broken?


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## forgetmenot (Jul 31, 2018)

I am hoping with therapist help the emotions can be released slowly so i do not fall apart and need to go in anywhere.  I do not trust hospital  

 The thing is i have gotten this far by learning certain ways to keep me from getting harmed  so do i want the cycle to be broken i don't know Jesse.


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## Jesse910 (Jul 31, 2018)

FMN, we are similar in our habits and fears.  What I want for both of us is the courage to trust those who help us cope the best. I do not want you in the hospital either. If you have the courage to talk to your therapist, I need to work through my stuff as well.


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## forgetmenot (Jul 31, 2018)

I guess that is a place to start is with therapist  for us both then.

 Emotions for me can be very dangerous so yes need to trust my therapist 
I need him to help me to release omg i can't keep holding everything inside because i do not want all of it to explode in a public place or at someone i care about.

  I do hope you can trust your new therapist to help you work through your pain Jesse.  

I think we both tend to fight things alone emotions scare me because they push me to a point where i want to leave and i really do not want to harm others by doing that.

It will be harder for you because you have not built up a trust perhaps with new therapist 

 i have built a trust in my own way with my therapist yet something always makes me want to hold back i don't know why just a way i guess to protect myself .

I don't want to feel period  stated of being  without emotion is a safe place for me.  What emotion scares me most is anger  because anger is not me  it is not me.


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## GaryQ (Jul 31, 2018)

forgetmenot said:


> I need him to help me to release omg i can't keep holding everything inside because i do not want all of it to explode



A good analogy for this is :
Our bodies and minds are one big pressure cooker. As long as the pressure is able to find a normal escape path everything inside is stable. When we prevent the pressure from escaping the pressure cooker by blocking it sooner or later the pressure will build up and it will literally explode. Anyone in it's direct path (including itself) is in extreme danger! Same thing with us when we try and block or emotions; Sooner or later it has to escape, and it will, no matter how hard we try. Best not to block the little hole on the pressure cooker or in our minds.

FMN, when you get dark thoughts (you know what I mean) first think of your family that loves you and needs you (like your daughter) then maybe have a little thought about me. You've been encouraging me to keep "keeping on" so keep keeping on for them and for me too. I know it sounds a wee bit selfish but you've been a sweet, kind  encouragement for me (and many others) and I want and need you around for a long time


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## forgetmenot (Jul 31, 2018)

I hear you i do.  i  have to think of the others  i always have. 

 I am doing my best to stay present and not feel  and if it comes to a point where i can no longer be in control i will reach out somehow to my therapist or a crisis line  and if it takes me to a place i fear  i will have to go then i will go.

  This place allows me to release some of the sadness and the thoughts i thank you all for putting up with that. 

 You hold on  GaryQ ok and i will do my best to hold on too.  yes we will both hold on ok


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## GaryQ (Jul 31, 2018)

forgetmenot said:


> I hear you i do.  i  have to think of the others  i always have.



That's just a suggestion for when you forget to think about YOU! (Whatever works to keep you around)



> This place allows me to release some of the sadness and the thoughts i thank you all for putting up with that.




Isn't that what we are here for? Listening and supporting each other. I know you much prefer being on the giving end of help. ​


> You hold on  GaryQ ok and i will do my best to hold on too.  yes we will both hold on ok



:thanks: That's what :friends:are for!


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## Jesse910 (Jul 31, 2018)

This conversation came at the right time.  I am more comfortable taking care of others because I can sense what they are going through.  Also, if I help others, there's less pressure on me.

While my therapist is new to me in this capacity, I have known him as a marriage counselor. And, I was able to hide a lot of whom I was because of my husband and my issues.  Now, I am in the hot seat. I am still struggling with grief.  FMN, thank you for speaking up.  Please hang in there friend.


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## forgetmenot (Aug 13, 2018)

Hi Jesse910 thanks for support and GaryQ too.  I hope both of you are able to hold on with support of people around you to help you.

  i continue to shield myself from the sadness i guess.  Hard when mail comes with ma name on it and nrsg home sends invitation to celebrate life of those passed.
I will not go to that no.


Things like that just sets me off some .  i have been keeping busy trying to keep my self moving

  Saw my therapist which allowed some emotions to be released.  

I did just sort of explode the other day pressures uggggg but i will be getting outside today have to keep moving or the thoughts come. 

i do know i cannot let those thoughts take over i have to think about the ones that still need me here.  I am concentrating on getting my one brother into a better living situation and keeping my daughter safe.  i don't have much energy so i will not be there for the others i will try to take more time to protect me too as i know now if i don't i will not be able to keep stable somewhat.   This being alone is so hard  i had ma to go too everyday and every night i was being someone ugggggg omg no i cannot do this .

So ya just laying low a bit until i figure out what next to do.  thanks everyone again for sharing your experiences and letting me know i am not alone thanks.


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## GaryQ (Aug 13, 2018)

Thanks for updating us on how you are doing FMN. Hang in there!


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## Jesse910 (Aug 13, 2018)

Hi FMN:  The therapy saga continues.  This guy has been very upfront with what he can and cannot do as a therapist.  He definitely is not my go to person in a real crisis.  And, I am thinking about how much I can say about myself to him.  For now, he's the coach who can hopefully get me out of the chute when the starter gun goes off.  Thank you for checking in.  I was worried about you.  Please continue to give yourself the privilege to move forward.


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