Emotional Vacuum: The Hole I Don't Believe I Can Fill

This feeling may be a wake-up call telling you that you need to change. This is a sign that may be warning you that you need to continue with your personal development.

It’s likely that the sensation of an emotional vacuum is familiar to you. Sometimes, you feel that nothing fills your voids, you lose all emotion, and you’re overwhelmed by discouragement.

Sometimes, an emotional vacuum has a lot to do with the feeling of loneliness. As we’re social beings, creatures destined to live in society, we need contact with others, become inspired by them, and establish bonds.

Other times, the feeling of emptiness is rooted in nonconformity. You look to the future trying to take care of everything and don’t value you have right now. Everything around you seems boring and you lose interest. According to this study conducted by the Autonomous University of Mexico State, one of the main causes of this in young people is low frustration tolerance.

However, you do nothing to change your situation because you’re reluctant.

The never-ending search to fill the emotional vacuum

Existential emptiness leads to dissatisfaction, unhappiness, frustration, and triviality. Many times, in the long term, it can lead to a loss of self-esteem or depression. Sometimes, you may end up trying to fill that inner hole with banal things, which is why it always comes back.

On the other hand, sometimes we make expectations as a result of the way we’ve been raised. The belief that you must find your Prince Charming has made people feel like they need someone else to be complete.

This belief only feeds your emotional dependence, terrible discomfort, and an incessant search for that “significant other” that will never fill your void.

Emotional dependence, as stated in this study conducted by the University of Oviedo in Spain, affects “emotionally vulnerable people who manifest a blindness towards others, which could be explained by the conjunction of hopes and/or attributions, hedonism, and false expectations”.

People always seek what they believe they’re missing outside themselves. This is quite ironic, because relying on others to fill your gaps makes you need them to feel good and happy.

However, not everything is negative. This feeling may be a wake-up call telling you that you need to change. This is a sign that may be warning you that you need to continue with your personal development because you’re stuck.

How to fill your emotional hole

Other people aren’t always right.

Whenever you feel overwhelmed because you feel different and alone, stop trying to fit in. Stop expecting your life to be how others tell you it should be.

Sometimes, people should start questioning certain beliefs that others consider to be true. After all, in reality, there are many other ways of seeing and experiencing things. Trying to live in the same way as everyone else can be really exhausting and frustrating.

It’s not necessary to have a partner or children in order to feel fulfilled and complete. This is a belief that tries to make those who strayed from “the path you should follow” feel unhappy.

Love yourself and treat yourself well

The very concept of believing you need another half encourages you to stop putting yourself first in order to prioritize another person that will make you feel complete.

However, this will achieve nothing more than making that hole even bigger, by filling it with people, loving words, demonstrations of affection, and love you don’t even give to yourself.

People are unaware that if they want this emotional vacuum to disappear, they need to love themselves. They need to treat themselves well and put themselves first before getting involved in a relationship and displaying a love that they don’t even give to themselves.

According to this study conducted by the Costa Rican Institute for Research and Education, self-esteem is a fundamental key to being happy; something that should be fostered and taken care of from an early age, through the educational process as well.

Thus, if a relationship doesn’t work, this hole that caused them so much suffering won’t reappear. And they won’t need anyone to fill it because all of what they would need is to focus on themselves. 

Don’t let yourself continue believing that everything you hear around you is the only truth. Learn to question everything. After all, many beliefs are feeding your emotional vacuum without you even realizing it.

Learn every day

Take advantage every day to learn something new and foster your curiosity. Know yourself thoroughly to know how to detect your needs. To do this, take each day as a new opportunity to test yourself, know your limits, and take risks that will undoubtedly make you feel that it’s been worth taking them.

Life is an experience! Take full advantage of it whenever you can.