This feeling...

[Psychonaut]

For the past months I have been hunted by this feeling. It comes back over and over. I would describe it as an existential despair/pain.

It feels like I am in a free fall down a deep ravine. I know the ravine leads nowhere. When I hit the bottom my flame will be blown out.

I try to grasp at the wall, try to slow down my fall by holding onto anything including people. Anything I hold onto eventually falls away. There is no way out, there is no special person, no event, there is nothing that will make it go away. Even if there was anything/anyone as soon as that one/thing is less available or closes down the pain is back, instantly.

However the emptiness doesn't always feel empty. Sometimes it is very full, calming, soothing and just there. In a way it is pure consciousness. It is just there. Present, observing and in fact impersonal. It can feel like I am dead though. I usually don't fight the feeling, I just sit it out and eventually I forget about it.

Though I was wondering if there are any techniques to breathe more life into me when I feel empty. I have found that breathing energy down the front while inhaling helps a little. 

[Anton Rogachevski]

The reason for emptiness is lack of love, the cure is abundance of love. 

[Zigzag Idiot]

22 hours ago, Psychonaut said:

 

For the past months I have been hunted by this feeling. It comes back over and over. I would describe it as an existential despair/pain.

 

The way in which you worded your off and on situation is very similar to what I have experienced on my path.

A.H. Almaas' Diamond Approach Inquiry has helped me work through a lot of this. His Glossary is just kick ass. I'll leave some excerpts and a link to his Glossary in case it resonates.

Deficient Emptiness of Holes 

For each lost aspect of Being, a different form of deficient emptiness results. These different forms can be seen as the various holes in one's being or in one's personality. Each hole is a deficient emptiness in which the feeling of the deficiency manifests as an affect of the lack of a specific quality... We see that the experience of deficient emptiness -- which is the interface of space and mental content -- is of paramount importance, not only for understanding mental disorders, but for the process of unfolding of human potential. 

The Void, pg. 138

Genesis of Deficient Emptiness

We propose the following hypothesis ......:
* At birth the human infant has no sense of self.
* He is Being. He is his being without knowledge or self-consciousness. There is no mental functioning yet.
* Slowly, through experiences of pleasure and pain, memory traces are retained, forming the first self-impressions (self-representations).
* As the infant starts taking himself to be this or that (this or that self-image) he separates from his sense of Being, because any image is not his being.
* As the ego-identity and sense of self develop and become stable, the contact with Being in its various aspects and qualities is mostly lost. The extent of the loss also depends on the adequacy of the environment and the infant’s relation to it.
* The process of loss of contact with Being leaves a sense of deficiency, a state of deficient emptiness, as if the Being is left with many holes in it. The deficient emptiness is the state of the absence of contact with or awareness of Being.
* Space, which is the open dimension of Being, is lost in the formation of the self-image. This self-image includes the unconscious body-image of having a genital hole.
* For the normal individual, the development of the personality happens relatively smoothly. The self is highly integrated and stays stable throughout most of one’s life.
* In those with mental disorders, for reasons already known in depth psychology, the development of the personality and its sense of self is incomplete, or happens with various distortions, malformations, or inadequacies.

The Void, pg. 127

The State of No Self

The narcissistic emptiness sheds its deficiency and reveals its truth, as an emptiness that has no sense of self, but is spacious and peaceful. The deficient emptiness is actually nothing but this inner spaciousness, experienced through the judgment of deficiency. The state of no self is actually a pure manifestation of inner spacious reality, Being in its openness, we experience it as empty space, immaculate and pure, light and clean, empty of everything structured by the mind. However, the self reacts to the sense of no self in many ways—as a loss, as a deficiency, and so on, plus the associations, memories, and feelings that go with these interpretations. All this psychic content pervades the inner spaciousness so that we lose sight of its lightness, purity, immaculateness, and freedom. Instead, we feel it as deficient emptiness, dull and flat, heavy and dark. Only when we allow this emptiness to be, without judgment or rejection, without reaction or opinion, does it shed its obscurations and reveal its inherent truth: the state of no self, the freedom and openness of our Being. We experience ourselves then as a luminous night sky, transparent and pure, light and happy, cool and virginal, deep and peaceful. An emptiness, yes, but a stillness, a silence, where we recognize the absence of the familiar identity as the absence of agitation. This is black space, an inner spaciousness that manifests naturally when we accept the absence of self with no reaction at all. It arises when the self is free from identifying itself through representations. We experience freedom from the familiar identity and its structure. We experience ourselves without any structure, as openness, spaciousness, as boundless and infinite space.

The Point of Existence, pg. 337

from https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/deficient-emptiness

You are already doing most of what his method instructs which is just sitting with and being open to whatever arises,,,,

[Zigzag Idiot]

As I watch more and more of Leo's videos I plan to reference his specific videos rather than other people's work such as Almaas.

In that spirit, I paste this video link which applies,,, I think

I appreciate more and more his ability for explaining and tying things together,,,

 

[Psychonaut]

On 1/14/2019 at 7:42 PM, Zigzag Idiot said:

Deficient Emptiness

This is probably what describes the feeling the best. A sharp pain, as if a thorn is being pulled out.

Thanks for this, I have noticed that the feeling only arises when I feel as if something is missing. I wonder if I need to read anything or just continue sitting with it.

Leo's video was helpful too.