Sometimes, in quiet moments, when my body is still and I am not distracted by busyness or plans, I notice a tension in my gut, a soft anxiety. Years ago, I would sometimes experience anxiety like a jack-hammer in my solar plexus, a fear that spread to my hands and made it hard to breathe.
Fortunately, I no longer get that intolerable dread, but I am not a stranger to a little anxiety here and there. Especially when I meditate, I can get this squirmy feeling, like everything inside me itches, and I want to jump up and get busy doing something, anything, even cleaning the refrigerator.
Yet if I remain quiet and maybe allow a small smile to settle on my face, I can move through the discomfort. Even the most painful moments pass, and sometimes I find I am filled with a sense of expansiveness and grace. Not always. The next moment might be sad or angry, or maybe a craving for affection will arise.
Those feelings only consume me if I give them power, if I start telling myself I can’t stand it or can’t face it, or if I try to run away. Buddhism encourages us to notice the thoughts and emotions without holding onto what we long for or trying to escape what frightens us. Notice and let go.
I find this practice very helpful.
But there’s another religious and spiritual tradition that suggests the sense of dis-ease, that emptiness or loneliness that grows within us when we do not distract our minds and hearts, is actually a longing in our soul to be reunited with our source, with the holy, with “God.” That belief is probably is the source of the phrase, the “God-shaped hole,” the void within us that can only be filled by the infinite love and grace of the universe.
We try to fill that void with our addictions – substances, food, cleaning, reading, sex, shopping, work, whatever allows us to forget.
And some religious traditions will tell us that this sense of separation is itself an illusion, that we are actually one with everything, all the time, this moment and forever. So when we numb ourselves with drugs and busyness, we not only aren’t filling that hole, but we’re making it worse, because in our haze, we can’t feel God within us.
You don’t have to believe in God to acknowledge that much of what we do in life – drink, take drugs, have sex, eat, watch TV, even laugh – is an attempt to fill that emptiness. Is there nothing that can fill that hole, that can give us a sense of serenity with all that is, that helps us feel connected to the universe?
Well, the first thing to do to ease the ache of that void is to sit still, be quiet, be open. Anxiety, loneliness, frustration, judgment, weariness – every emotion and thought you could possibly have – will arise, as if on purpose to derail you from your task. And yet, if you hold yourself steady through the storm, you may find your “God-shaped hole” is a bit smaller. It may even be filled with serenity.
And yet, most of us don’t retreat to caves to meditate until we die. We live in the world. We think and act and laugh and mutter and break things and, in the rush of our jobs or the trips to the grocery store, we forget who we are and what truly feeds us. What holds us and brings us peace and keeps us sober. In those moments, how do we stay sane?
Perhaps part of the problem is, we think we should stay sane or centered all the time. If we have a spiritual awakening, shouldn’t we be awakened from then on?
Unfortunately, we don’t escape our bodies and our minds. They follow us wherever we go. So we might as well love and accept ourselves and aim to love and accept those around us. And when we learn to do that, to feel compassion for ourselves and others, we may find that “God-shaped hole” fills a little more, and when we open ourselves up to friends and lovers and rivers and pets and trees and butterflies, it will fill even more. Love will heal us, hold us, fill us, and connect us to all that is, to the sacred in one another, and to that source of our being, whether we call it “God” or not.
In faith and fondness,
Rev. Barbara Stevens