What is the next step if you find emptiness inside? Read on…
A Reader writes:
When I was Focusing, I found an “absence,” an empty space inside. Like a hole. Or emptiness. That threw me off, I didn’t know how to work with something that wasn’t there. How do I do Focusing with a hole?
Dear Reader:
Focusing is about being with what is.
So of course it’s disconcerting when, rather than finding something that is, you find a place where something isn’t!
But really, even absence is something… because it’s something that you feel. A hole is something you are aware of. If that is what is here, then that is what you need to be with.
First, you offer the words “absence,” and “hole,” to the feeling. You sense if they fit well, or if one fits better, or if there is another description that’s even better.
Now what? Now, you sit with what you are feeling with friendly curiosity, open to sensing its qualities.
Can absence have a quality? Can emptiness have a feeling tone? Well, yes! Just today I was hearing someone describe her inner sense as “deliciously empty.” Someone else might say, “achingly empty.” Yours is probably something other than either of those. You can tell by taking time to sense it, just as it is.
You never know what will come next from what you are feeling. Over my many years of doing Focusing, I have learned to trust that next steps always come. They come more easily if I am open about the outcome, and patient enough to allow the time needed. And then… amazing new life steps can emerge!
