On the surface, everything in her life was fine. She had enough money, friends, and good relationships. Yet she awoke each morning battling fatigue and depression. Besides the exhaustion, the feelings of inner emptiness drove her to overwork, overeat, overspend, and overthink every decision she made in relation to her life. 

Where did she learn to shut down her feelings to avoid the deep pain of unbearable loneliness? She shut down because she was unable to tolerate the loneliness of her mother’s behavior toward her. Her mother would say she loved her, but she never felt her love. Instead, she felt her mother energetically pulling her down her, trying to suck the life out of her. As a very sensitive child, she could not tolerate this confusing experience, so she put her feelings in a box and decided to live out of her head instead of her heart.  

Mother wounds can contribute to deep pain

As an adult she was still shut down from her feelings. She was still afraid of feeling the pain of loneliness – a feeling that is actually an everyday fact of life. Loneliness is present when your heart is closed or another’s heart is closed, or when there is no one with whom to share love. Loneliness is the primary feeling when we want to connect with another and the other is unavailable. If you were completely open to your feelings, you would feel moments of loneliness throughout the day. However, most people never feel this feeling and are completely unaware of it, because the moment there is a twinge of emotional pain, they move instantly to various addictions and addictive behaviors, such as substances, activities, thoughts, shame and blame. Yet when we shut out pain, we also shut out joy and a passionate sense of purpose.

Pain and joy can live together in the same spaces

She could not discover what has meaning for her and what brings her joy while keeping a lid on her feelings. And the very act of keeping a lid on her feelings was creating her depression and inner emptiness.

Imagine that your feelings are a child within. If you ignore this child – by ignoring your feelings – this child feels abandoned. Our refusal to feel and take responsibility for our own pain is an inner abandonment and results in anxiety, depression, and/or inner emptiness.

It is our child within – our feeling self – that has the blueprint for what has meaning for us, for our passion and purpose.

Each of us comes to this planet with a deep purpose to express, and when we don’t express this purpose, we end up feeling empty and depressed. Yet we cannot discover this purpose when we keep a lid on our feelings.

Learning to manage the pain of loneliness is essential to discovering your passion and purpose. There is no way of managing loneliness without a deep and personal connection to a spiritual source of love and wisdom. We cannot manage loneliness from our mind alone. We need God to fill those empty spaces that only He can fill. No human can do that for us.

You will find deep meaning in your life when you decide to open to and learn from your feelings of loneliness rather than continue to shut them down.

And you will open to these feelings only when you do not feel alone inside due to experiencing the love and wisdom of God. Opening your heart to divine love and opening to your feelings will bring you the fullness, joy, passion and purpose that your soul is yearning for.