The Solution to That Mysterious Sense of Void Within

Please answer the following questions sincerely. “Yes” or “No” suffices.

1. Have you ever felt a sense of emptiness, like a void within you that doesn't seem to go away no matter what you do?
2. Have you felt a nagging sense of helplessness or hopelessness? No hope for a better life?
3. How about a sense of despair, anxiety, or depression? Did you know where it came from?
4. What about a sense of poverty? No matter how much you have and accumulate, it never seems to be enough. Nothing feels quite satisfying and fulfilling?
5. What about an endless cycle of troubled relationships followed by a period of no relationship at all?
6. Oh, what about a profound sense that something is missing from your life, no matter what you have, do or achieve?

Have you felt any of the above? I know I have. I found that these apparently different problems have one common cause; solve the common cause and all the consequences that stem from this common root go away by themselves. 

Oh, and don't worry; I'm not talking about some magical potion, or some type of snake oil that makes it all go away. I'm Dr. Flavio, I wouldn't do that to you.

First, would you agree with me on a name for what we are talking about? If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, could we call that MVS, short for “mysterious void syndrome”? I came across MVS when several clients came to the office telling me that they had everything, yet something was missing from their lives. They felt a “void”; they told me this much. Since they could not tell me what was missing, no matter how I phrased the questions, I called that void a “mysterious void”. Later I added the word “syndrome” because that mysterious void generated all kinds of other feelings and compensatory behaviors that often got them into trouble. That is how MVS came into being.

If you feel MVS, or felt it, I invite you to look back upon your life experience, to retrospect, and ask yourself this question:

How have you dealt with your version of MVS?

Please ask yourself if this applies to you: we alternate between trying to change circumstances outside of ourselves and distracting our minds. We go about trying to change the world outside of ourselves in different ways. Let’s look at some possibilities:

Some people are more nomadic, they move around more, they change jobs very often, they change cars, they move houses, perhaps they change spouses more frequently. They are always trying to change, move. They are going somewhere, they are doing something different every time you see them, they get bored easily. They realize that something is missing from their lives; their unconscious, or attempted solution, is to do something different. If I go somewhere else, they figure, if I get a different job, a different spouse, then things will be okay.

Other people are more of a settler; they stick around a bit more. Settlers don't really try to change themselves; they try to change everyone else around them. They are always working on a problem; they're always trying to change someone or something. There's always something that needs to be fixed around them for them to feel better.

Other people are more of a warrior type. There's always an enemy to be defeated; the idea being that this sense of emptiness that we feel has to do with this enemy. The enemy is making my life impossible; if I can just defeat the enemy, if I can just overcome this problem that I have with this person, this institution, the police, the government, The Matrix, or even God… If I can solve that problem, if I can defeat that enemy, everything will be okay and I will be fulfilled.

Can you relate to any of this?

Okay, let’s recap. We have been experiencing this mysterious sense of void and emptiness within ourselves, so we developed a strategy to fix that problem, to heal the sensation of pain the MVS causes.

The strategy is to change the world outside of us in order to feel a sense of fulfillment within us.

We all do that to varying degrees, but we do it in slightly different ways, herein called the nomad, the settler, and the warrior. This last idea, which I love, by the way, I learned from Terrence Watts, a hypnotist from England.

“When put it like that… it does feel a little insane” A Course in Miracles talks about the strategies of ego as being insane.  People tell me that they see how insane the strategy we have been using to eliminate the pain is, when I explain why we continue hurting despite such hard work to change for the better.

But there is one more thing. Working to change the world outside of us in order to feel something on the inside, and never getting the intended result, is exhausting. As a result, the more we try to change the world outside of us, the more depleted we feel, and the more rest, relaxation, and entertainment we need.

Rest, relaxation, and entertainment take one of two forms: total idle time, such as excess sleep, or some form of addiction which numbs the mind and creates massive distractions from our sense of purpose in life.

There is nothing wrong with working on the outer world to change it. Doing it in order to get an inner feeling, however, is what causes this exhaustion and MVS. It is awesome to work on the external world for the sake of the external world, only. When we do it like that, we feel a sense a complete and, most important, moderation.

The inner world is different; a different kind of substance can fill the mysterious void and create a sense of true fulfillment. The very word we use to describe a state opposite to depleted is “fulfilled”, right? That word indicates that we are filled to capacity, until full. But, filled with what?

The key is in another word, a word that we would use in the same context we would use the word “fulfilled”. This word is “inspired”. The Latin root of that word suggests that we are “filled with the Spirit” when we feel inspired. Yes, this is dense, but it is so simple. MVS is simply a, to put it in medical terms, a spirit deficiency. Get more “spirit” in and the MVS goes away, just as getting more vitamin C in makes scurvy go away.  

My life's work has been to help people overcome this mysterious sense of void and emptiness, perhaps because I felt the very same way most of my life until I understood what I just told you. I don't want you to suffer any longer, particularly because the solution to the problem is quite simple once you see it. One way to begin on this journey is to practice some simple guided meditations, such as the ones you can find HERE.

Blessings,

Flavio