Emptiness can be a very scary thing.  For many of us, the thought of being “without” certain things in our life can cause anxiety and fear.  There are other times where we fill our lives with things that serve as place holders for other things, or we settle for less than what we know we deserve so that we can “feel” sustained or complete.  The act of hitting bottom, or coming to a place where things are taken from us, where we take some sort of control and purge elements from our life is an action of entering “the void”.

There are a couple of different ways at viewing emptiness.  We can sit in the darkness and be in dread of moving forward, or we can look at it as the gift of now being able to fill ourselves with “new everything”.  Loss takes us into a process of learning to have to move through attachment, emotions of fear, and we begin to take account of all that we have in our lives. Loss is powerful.  Losing anything that we’ve held onto, or has held onto us for a period of time creates a rift when it is no longer there.  An example that I will use to illustrate this is relationships.   Often times I see clients that are transitioning out of relationships that have gone on for many years.  When the relationship ends, we realize habits, patters, emotions that come to the surface that we might not have been aware of.  A tool for moving through this stage of transition quickly is to write down and become aware of those patterns, emotions, and feelings as they come up.  When we are able to sit with those in a tangible way, it allows us the freedom to examine them fully, and when we want to.  If we leave them in our mind we quickly can distract ourselves away from coming face to face with elements of the self and the parts we play in manifesting transition or loss.

The more important thing that I want us to take a look at is how to transition to a place where we look at loss as a gift rather than a burden.  When we go to a place where we lose, or chose to give up the things that bind us we regain a sense of power over our direction.   Rather than the cup being half full or half empty–pick the cup up, pour it out, and fill it up with anything your heart desires.  Sometimes a half full cup will sit too long, and we become attached to waiting for “something, or someone” to come along and fill it the rest of the way.  Finding power in emptiness is about regaining control of everything in your life.  Pick up your experience and fill it with something.

The first question I ask my of my clients that are in a place of emptiness is:  If you could do one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?  Often times the answer is “I don’t know”.  One of the reasons we don’t know is because we have never been given the chance to “be” or “do” anything we’ve ever wanted.  Another reason is that we’ve often surrendered our ability to “be” or “do” to others either through sacrifice or control.  The idea is to start small.  If you are coming out of a relationship where a former partner controlled every action even simple things as choosing which movie to watch or which restaurant to eat at can be difficult.  Having choice  can create fear when we’ve never been able to go to that place freely.

One simple tool that anyone can do is to create a dream list.   What things can you add to your life that will bring you overflowing joy and abundance?  To not limit the list.  Pick one or two small things that you can do right away.  Some small and simple things can be:  play with play dough, sing a song at the top of your lungs, go for a walk, bake a cake.  More complex things can be:  learn to oil paint, write a book, change careers,  start a new hobby, open a business.  Be creative and free of judgement.  There is nothing you cannot do and everything you do adds ripples to the endless stream of your life.  Somethings you might take on brand new and they will be permanent fixtures in your life, others will simply be momentary bursts of joy and connection.  We have to allow give ourselves permission to go into the darkness, but we cannot give ourselves permission to stay there.  Being in the dark only means that its time to turn on the light, even if it’s just a nightlight, we must shine.

Start today and shine.  Not everyone is going through loss, but these are steps we can take now to make transition easy if we are faced with it.  We can have speed bumps or mountains in our path.  How quickly we move through them will determine on the work we do before we get there.

Mahayogi Das CFT CSN MAT PAT

http://www.michaelbrazell.com

michael@michaelbrazell.com