From the moment we awaken in the morning, we are overwhelmed with emails, texts, Instagram feeds, Facebook posts, news headlines and phone calls, all pulling us out of our dream state and toward a world filled with emptiness, fear and relentless responsibilities. It’s no wonder that many of us want to roll over and hit the snooze button. The world of our dreams offers us a place of refuge from all the overwhelming activity that inhabits our minds during waking hours. This resistance to awaken and this backward glance toward our dream state is a daily push-pull, creating an ongoing feeling of longing and desire to put an end to the unyielding activity of conscious life.
Many of my clients come to me with this deep sense of longing, having the perpetual feeling that something is missing from their lives. Whether that manifests itself in their career or their relationships, the feelings of restlessness, unfulfillment and desire remains. Typically these clients have tried to fill this emptiness with outside sources such as food, alcohol, shopping, drugs, gaming, unhealthy relationships, etc. And what appears to be “healthy” busyness – uncompromising to-do lists, rigorous work schedules, intense exercise programs and diets, over scheduled children, etc. is also a distraction and escape from one’s true self, the part which longs to be acknowledged, understood and honored. As long as we are filling the void with anything other then the stillness and silence of our own inner being, feelings of emptiness and unfulfillment perpetuate and remain.
It isn’t until we stop running from ourselves, stop filling the space with unhealthy choices or mindless busyness that we begin to understand what is required to interrupt this toxic pattern. Once we can sit in stillness and silence and truly identify and share our deepest fears with a trusted practitioner, we can stop running and begin accepting ourselves for who we really are. And in time, the running gradually subsides and the reverence to self and others remains.
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