Almost all of us at some point in our lives have experienced or will experience a sometimes difficult to explain feeling that we commonly describe as existential emptiness. But what is existential emptiness? It’s like a kind of anguish that we feel constantly and for no apparent reason. Other people also describe it as if they had a lump in their throat or an uncomfortable sensation somewhere in their body. When we feel that something is missing in our life it is because we suffer from that existential void that does not allow us to live in peace and prevents us from achieving our emotional well-being. But why does this happen?, Why do I feel like I’m missing something in my life? There are many reasons why people can experience this deep and intense sensation. In this Psychology-Online article, we are going to analyze in detail what are the main reasons why we sometimes feel an existential void and what we can do to find an emotional balance.
Reasons why I feel like I’m missing something in my life
There are actually many reasons why people can experience that we are missing something, which vary depending on the situation in which each person finds themselves. Some of these reasons are the following:
Loss of a loved one
It is one of the most difficult and tough situations in life that can happen to us. This situation brings with it the performance of a duel which aims to overcome that loss and all the pain it causes us. Grief is a process that usually lasts approximately 1 year, although this does not mean that after that year we will feel happy all the time and we will forget about the person who has passed away, rather it means that we can continue with our life normally despite the pain caused by the loss. Finding ourselves in the grieving process or finding ourselves stuck in it can generate this feeling of constant existential emptiness caused by the deep sadness that not being with that person who is gone causes us.
Periods of change and transition
When we find ourselves immersed in important and constant changes in our lives, we can also experience this feeling of emptiness or the feeling that we are missing something in life. This is due to the uncertainty of not knowing what awaits us later, for example, when we change jobs, we obviously do not know what the new colleagues will be like, how we are going to feel there, among many other things or when we We move to live in another country or city and we do not know how it will go, among other types of situations where uncertainty is present. In the following article, we give some.
Do things we don’t want
Sometimes we tend to do things that we really don’t want to, simply to meet the expectations of othersHowever, inside we do not feel comfortable with what we do. For example, a person who studies a career chosen by their parents, but that they don’t like that much, or doing things for their partner that we don’t really want and, therefore, don’t fulfill us.
Act on “autopilot”
It is not at all strange that people, on many occasions, act as if we were on autopilot all the time. This means that sometimes we tend do things “to do” without any specific purpose, simply because we know that we “have to” do them and because we have become accustomed to it. Have you ever asked yourself for what purpose you do things? Are you fully aware of everything you do?
Little self-knowledge
How well do you really know yourself? The lack of introspection or self-knowledge It causes the things we do and the people we relate to to have no real meaning for us. When we do not know what we want and we even do not know what we feel, it is most likely that this feeling of existential emptiness appears in us or that something is missing in our life.
How to combat this feeling that something is missing in my life?
To stop experiencing this annoying and exhausting feeling, it is necessary to take certain measures that will help us eradicate it. Some guidelines that we need to take into account to combat the feeling of existential emptiness are the following:
Identify the possible cause
Sometimes, you may say to yourself “I’m missing something and I don’t know what it is”, and it can be difficult to find the exact cause that generates this existential void, since we usually identify the discomfort, but to know where it comes from you can require us to make a deeper internal analysis. It is necessary that we make an effort and try to identify at least the possible causes why it has appeared. To help us identify them, we can ask ourselves the following questions: since when did I start to feel this way? What was happening at that moment or at that stage of my life? In what areas of my life do I feel dissatisfied and why? What? What are the things I would change in my life right now? Once we have identified the possible cause, it is necessary that we begin to take measures to find a solution to that situation.
Meditation or mindfulness
Meditation or mindfulness is a technique that, one of them is that it allows us to focus more on ourselves and listen to our mind and our body, It greatly favors introspection. Meditation also helps us calm those daily thoughts that we have in our minds and that do not allow us to act as we wish, therefore, it is a great ally to get closer to our deepest being.
Do things you are passionate about
Doing things that we are passionate about is a great antidote to overcome that draining feeling of existential emptiness. Doing what we like is a privilege that all people should have, since they fill us with inspiration and vitality In day to day. A person who does what they love so much will feel better about themselves and others.
Stop doing things for others
The worst thing we can do is do things solely to satisfy others and meet their expectations. Sometimes, we act this way even without realizing it and leave aside what we really want until we reach the point of not knowing it. An exercise that is very helpful to realize if we do things because we want to or for other people is make a list of all the things we do and analyze in detail one by one how much we enjoy doing it or not and why we are doing it.
Accept uncertainty
We have to learn to value uncertainty more positively. We must be aware that all the changes we experience in life are good, since even if sometimes things do not happen as we wish, at least we will get new learning of that situation that will allow us to continue growing as people. If we want to improve in any area, it is necessary to take risks and often accept uncertainty, since if we do not do so we run the risk of stagnating.
Psychological therapy in case of emotional emptiness
When the feeling that we are missing something in life or of existential emptiness is so intense that it is affecting us in more than one area of our life and we have been feeling it for a long time, it is necessary to receive help from a professional.
In this case, it is recommended attend psychological therapy, which is intended to help us identify the main causes why we have been feeling this way and from there establish the most appropriate treatment to combat this feeling. The psychologist will be in charge of accompanying us and supporting us throughout the process in which we will work and analyze in detail each area of our life that is affected to reestablish it and achieve a balance between what we feel and what we do. So if you constantly ask yourself “why do I feel like I’m missing something in my life” and you haven’t found an answer on your own that convinces you, you can always go to a professional who will help you do it.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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