Feel Something Is Missing From Your Life? Maybe It’s You?

“If you think something is missing in your life, it’s probably you.” — Robert Holden

Do you often get the feeling that something is missing from your life—that no matter what you create, acquire or achieve, it’s never enough? 

You never feel satisfied for long.

Do you feel you’re on a perpetual quest for more— more possessions, more excitement, more self-improvement, more thrills, more holidays, more ways to keep yourself entertained— always trying to fill up the hole you feel inside?

You’re not alone. The feeling that something is missing is pretty much universal. It’s part of the human condition and something that almost everyone can relate to.

And, when we don’t understand the true cause of this empty and restless inner feeling, it’s natural that we look outside for solutions, for ways to fill ourselves up. 

But it doesn’t work. It’s a bottomless void.

As long as we are looking for answers outside ourselves, we will inevitably live in a perpetual state of “OK, Now what?” We’ll never come to an inner place of rest.

Each of us, in our own time, eventually comes to the realisation that no matter what we do, no matter what we acquire, no matter what we achieve in the world, it will never be enough to satisfy us.

At best, we can experience temporary respite from feeling empty inside.

If you’ve lost your keys in the house, you’re never going to find them in the garden, no matter how hard you look.

To find the solution, we need to know where to look.

 

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Something Is Missing—The Human Condition

For years, my days used to go something like this. Maybe you can relate?

You’re sitting at the breakfast table munching your cornflakes and slurping down your coffee.

Deep in thought about your to-do list for the day — go to the bank, stop at the drugstore, check the oil in the car . Lost 9n thinking, you’re oblivious to the taste and texture of the food in your mouth (cornflakes taste amazing when eaten consciously) and totally unaware of the sun streaming into the room or the songbird singing beautifully outside the window.

The next thing you know, you’re looking down at the empty bowl in front of you, with no recollection of having eaten the contents.

Then your body is driving the car to work. I say your body because you’re not there. 

You are a million miles away — planning what you’re going to say at the work meeting later that morning, or replaying a conversation you had with a friend the night before.

The sky is beautiful. The colours of the trees are glorious. The warm breeze is amazing. But the splendour of the present moment goes unnoticed. There’s nobody there to notice.

Next thing you know, you’re pulling into the car park at work but you can’t remember the drive. 

Then, the body is sitting at the desk but you’re somewhere else — counting the days till your next holiday, wondering whether to take the blue tent or the green one for the camping trip at the weekend.

And this is how we live. We spend our days lost in thinking.

All around us, in every moment, the miracle of life is happening but we miss it because we’re not here.

Rather than experiencing the vibrant aliveness of life right here, right now, as children do, we spend our days running mind movies in our heads which, based in past and future, are dead and devoid of life.

 

 

Life is happening here and now but we miss it through living in the not here and the not now.

As long as we spend our days hanging out in the mind, there will be no end to the story that there’s something missing. 

And here’s the question… and the solution.

When you are fully present in the moment—in other words, not engaged in thinking—is there anything missing?

Or is the notion that something is missing no more than a thought — a thought that, when believed, creates misery in your life?

As long as you believe there’s something missing, “What next?” will always be your mantra.

You’ll always be looking for a better moment than this restless one that you find yourself in.

You’ll never find resolution on the level of thinking because the mind is restless by nature.

So, what is the answer.

Here’s an exercise I often do with my coaching clients called The Noticing Exercise.

You may want to try it?

I usually begin by inviting them to think of a problem or an issue in their life—something current that they spend a lot of time thinking about. 

Now, take a couple of deep, conscious breaths, breathing out any stress, any tension on the out breath.

Bring your full attention to this moment and follow these simple instructions, spending a few seconds on each. Fully arrive in each moment before moving on to the next.

Notice:

• The physical sensation of your body coming into contact with the chair.
• The sensation of the soles of your feet touching the floor.
• The skin surrounding the feet. The inside of the feet. Perhaps, if you’re really attentive, you can feel a tingling, a sense of the life energy pulsating inside the feet?
• The back of your head
• Any sounds around you. Nearby sounds? Distant sounds?
• The physical sensations of the breath flowing in and out of the body.
• The ribs expanding and contracting. The belly rising and falling.
• The simple sense of being here, of being alive.

And now, a couple of questions:

What happened to the problem you were thinking about?

Was it still there while you were doing the exercise? 

Or did you perhaps forget about it while your attention was fixed on the here and now?

And the second question.

When you are fully present in the moment, i.e. not idly thinking about anything, is there any sense that something is missing?

Or is the notion that something is missing no more than a thought — a thought that, when believed, creates misery in your life?

Life is happening here and now. When we live in our heads—in the not here, not now— we miss it.

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