Dear Luna:

Welcome back to the forums!

You asked for “words of comfort if not some wise insights… Your insights would be most appreciated in how I can overcome the emptiness I feel right now. Your experiences are most welcome” in regard to a friendship that has faded out for some time as the two of you pursued different ways; a friendship that was one-sided in many ways, but you have put a blind eye to the one-sidedness because you needed her. You fought for what the friendship was before fading out, but the more you fought, the emptier you felt. You decided to move on from the friendship, but she hasn’t moved on. You didn’t give her a proper explanation to moving on because you feel it’d be unnecessary at this point.

My response is about my personal experience (some of it may- or not- resonate with you), and it will include words of comfort, best I can.

I know Emptiness. The no-one-is-there-for-me Emptiness. This I-am-all-alone type of emptiness, such that took me into countless going down the rabbit hole mental experiences that further confused me.  I tried so hard and for so long to understand and was not able to understand enough to bring myself up from the rabbit hole.. into the light, so to speak.

There is certain amount of alone-ness that is simply too much to bear. Togetherness (aka love) is a real, non-negotiable human need. Love and Light are synonymous. Acute alone-ness/ loneliness and darkness are synonymous.

How to overcome the emptiness, you asked. My answer: reach out to others, as you have done here, on your thread, but be discerning: some people you reach out to are too preoccupied with their own problems.. or rabbit holes, to have space for you. Some people have agendas that won’t fit you. Some people project into you other people in their lives and react to.. what you didn’t mean to say, etc. Many are angry.

Right above, I tried to reach out to you, to present to you my understanding and see if you share it.. and maybe we can have a meeting of the minds, or better yet, a meeting of the hearts.

Words of comfort: May your emptiness be filled with (chosen) togetherness, a togetherness that will fill your life with light!

anita

Dear Luna:

I am well, thank you and you are welcome, a pleasure to communicate with you.

(I am adding the boldface feature to the quote): “It was really comforting to know that I’m not alone in my experience of emptiness… I wish that yours find peace and joy during these hectic times….  keeping hope and seeing the light in friendships today is inspiring when everyone seems to lose patience and clarity of what really matters: Genuine and healthy human connections“- You express yourself so well.

I believe that it is emptiness, or as I typed it, emptiness with a capital E, that is behind these hectic times we live in, the violence, the wars. If only genuine and healthy human connections were common, beginning inside homes as children grow up, the world would be a different place. Emptiness (lack of genuine and healthy human connections) creates sickness, impatience, confusion..  and wars. Genuine and healthy human connections create patience, clarity and peace.

It reminds me of the 1984 fantasy movie The Never Ending Story. In it, The Nothing is a force that was destroying the magnificent land of Fantasia, a force representing the consuming despair of people who lose their hopes, dreams, and meaning in life.

For me, The Nothing is synonymous with Emptiness.

“I’ve spent the past month reevaluating my relationships and it has gotten to a point where I’m just drained from it. I’m very much aware that I need new energy into my life…  by one sided friendship, I meant that I felt like our friendship was at the bottom of her priorities… I have given her a chance to get together and talk on her own timing but she didn’t show up“-

– genuine and healthy human connections invigorate, energize, revive, rejuvenate or comfort and calm the distressed mind. Too many human connections (between parents and children, between siblings, between husbands and wives.. between coworkers, between strangers on the street and in the supermarket, between people online, etc.) drain, misuse, abuse or create positive expectations that are not followed through.

“With so much love and peace… love and compassion“- may love and compassion in our words and behaviors lead to peace in the hearts and minds of the people we interact with, and in the world as a whole.

anita

Dear Luna:

I am well, thank you.

“we all begin to build our understanding of emptiness, and it is striking to know that the experience of it never really ends either“- amazingly, the experience of Emptiness, on a personal level, did end for me in the last few years and most significantly, in the last year. It happened some time after I moved from a very big city to an agricultural town where everyone seems to know everyone and people are predominantly kind and have treated me kindly, like an equal.

The change in how I feel as a result is.. seems like depression is gone, the despair is gone. I feel more alive, as in looking forward to life, instead of hiding from it. In real life, I reach out to people I never met (ex., people who visit this town from a big city to the south or north) excitedly, like a child eager to connect, without the previous shame and self consciousness.

“I’ve never watched that movie. I’ll have to try“- the technological side to the movie is not evolved, so it’s not as fancy as later movies.. but maybe you will like it because of that. This movie inspired me so much at the time, that I left the country I grew up in, all by myself, on a journey inspired by the journey of Atreyu, a child warrior, a character in the movie.

Here is a quote from the movie (G’mork is the agent of The Nothing):

“Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
– G’mork: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
– Atreyu: But why?
– G’mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control… has the power!”

Isn’t it true.. what G’mork said… ?

anita