READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.
An Old Hole That’s Never Filled
Got a hole in my soul—don’t you see?
Tryin’ to avoid with everything inside me
tried psychedelics and everything i can imagine to set me free
feel a lot better but I still got that hole inside me—
got born again—no more sin—till I did
got married hopin’ a new leaf would turn with a kid—
But I still got that hole inside of me.
tried a Shaman, sweat lodge and witchcraft too—
Still got that hole no matter what I do—
gotta travel down deep so they say—
Face my demons all alone is the only way
Fire my parents and be my own
face myself—embrace the groan—
can’t erase what’s yesterday—
scream at the memories and let them stay
you never really fill the hole in your soul
gone forever— it’s what someone else stole
sittin’ with self, bruised and battered but bold
clarity comes when you sit with your soul.
Some days I am so busy I don’t even remember what I did. Some people live everyday this way. Our bodies breakdown. Days are like a gym workout with a trainer—push, push, push! So much focus on outcomes, seeking wholeness and satisfaction. Yet, once achieved, there’s emptiness and hollowness inside. I listen to people share this reality every day of my life!
Trying to be more to keep from being less, you compare your insides with someone else’s outsides. Tangible results are the only thing that matter! Money, power, fame and more! The problem is that I can never get enough of what I really don’t want!
If you reject this analysis, it may be that you are still chasing the illusion of more is better. The hamster wheel hasn’t worn you out yet. Or you would like to get off but don’t know how to get off without a total wipe out. You still have a white knuckle grip on needing more to keep from being less. Yet, the roller coaster of today’s world economy impacted by tariffs, can wipe out results that you sweat blood for on any given day with one announcement! It can leave you discouraged, disillusioned and hollow inside. Further, there is always someone who has more, better physically conditioned, or who appears like they have it more together than you do! How do you get off this merry go round? How do you stop this destructive, exhaustive juggernaut?
Listed are a few steps that I have taken that have helped immensely:
1. Embrace the loneliness that invades the corridors of your empty efforts. Trying to be more to keep from being less is like running through the woods with a pack of wolves chasing you. The harder you run the closer the pack of wolves are. It’s an effort with diminishing returns. Not only are you exhausted but you are running out of emotional options to cope with overwhelming loneliness. It’s time to stop, turn around and face the gnashing teeth from the mouths of the wolves. Those who embrace the emptiness and loneliness and learn to sit with it deepen the meaning of life. The question is are you willing to sit with discomfort, not knowing or able to control the outcome?
2. Dare to Be Vulnerable: Facing the gnashing teeth of ravenous wolves requires the courage of vulnerability. Metaphorically, you shove your fist in the mouths of hungry wolves. You get emotionally naked with a community that you choose to open your heart to. Usually, this is not a group of best friends. Rather, it is a community who is desperate to find the things you wish to fulfill. Oftentimes it is a group that you would have no other reason to connect. You begin with your first share being about the last thing you would like others to know about you. You discover through becoming emotionally naked that the fear that vulnerability represented is only paper machete. The truth is that there is nothing to fear once you face what you have been running from. There is no bite to it. On the other side of the paper machete wolf, is open heart connection. This is always true when vulnerably sharing with like-minded people who seek to share in an open-hearted relationship.
3. Sit with the silent places in your life. The tendency is to fill in the gaps with thought and activity. “I may not be productive but I a staying really busy” is a line I witness frequently. Practice sitting in the free fall of nothingness. Grounding and meaningfulness exist in the gap between thought and action. It is the silent places where you transform being alone to becoming AL-ONE with others. It replaces hollowness with meaningfulness and a felt sense of connection with others.
4. Learn to grieve deeply and do it well. Everyone knows the bitter taste of failure. To learn from it you must embrace it. Without embracing it you will not be able to let it go. Results can feel hollow when you cannot detach from the outcome of your effort. Grieving is feeling the entire gamut of emotions that get triggered by your failed effort. Most people engage in avoidance strategies to avoid facing failure and its accompanying feelings of grief. Yet, the only way through the grief of failure is to go through it. When you commit to allowing yourself to grieve, you are able to extract insight from your failure and move forward. Learning to grieve deeply is necessary to transform hollowness into wholeness.
Getting off the treadmill in life does not create wholeness in and of itself. As the poem suggests, there is no filling up the empty holes of your soul. But, there is the hope to make meaningfulness in the maze of the many things you do. The journey to wholeness from hollowness is an inside quest that requires embracing the reality of who you are and detaching from the results of what you have completed or left incomplete.
