Learning to sit with the quiet void that seeks not panic, but presence.
There are mornings when I wake up with no particular ache,
no looming crisis,
no storm in the distance.
And yet, a stillness lingers—
like a room emptied after the guests have gone,
like a canvas waiting, not pleading, to be painted.
This space—uncomfortable, unfamiliar—is not sorrow.
It is not despair.
It is something else.
Something quieter.
A certain emptiness
that asks to be met, not medicated.
For the longest time, I mistook this feeling as a warning.
I reached for noise—music, messages, meaning.
I filled it with work, with words, with worry.
Because I feared what would emerge if I didn’t.
We live in a world, quick to diagnose the quiet.
The absence of excitement is branded as boredom.
The lull between accomplishments as stagnation.
The hollow silence within is too easily called depression.
But not all emptiness is brokenness.
Sometimes, it is simply space.
Space we’ve long denied ourselves.
Space between identities,
between roles,
between the person we were
and the one still becoming.
Emptiness, in its truest form,
can be an invitation—
not a symptom.
What if the void isn’t a failure,
but a fertile ground waiting for new roots?
What if the pause isn’t a problem,
but a threshold we keep overlooking?
It is in this quiet space
that we begin to ask better questions:
What have I outgrown?
What parts of me are shedding, not dying?
What desires are shifting?
And what no longer defines me?
This is the challenge of the modern mind—
we are not trained to dwell in inner silence.
But healing, reimagining, clarity—
they all come when we stop running.
Here’s what I’ve slowly learned:
- Name the Emptiness Without Judgment
“I feel hollow” doesn’t mean “I am broken.”
It could simply mean I am no longer operating from compulsion. - Resist the Reflex to Fill
Let the inbox wait. Let the scroll pass.
Let the discomfort speak. It may carry wisdom. - Hold the Space Like a Friend Would
Sit with it gently, like you would with someone grieving,
or someone about to be reborn. - Trust the Season
Like winter before spring, emptiness often precedes growth.
The soil looks barren before the seed sprouts.
Emptiness, I’ve come to see,
is not a void to be feared,
but a vessel preparing to receive.
It is the body saying,
“Something is leaving you.”
It is the soul saying,
“Something deeper is coming.”
Not every quiet is a crisis.
Not every hollow is despair.
Sometimes, it is simply you
coming home to your inner stillness—
the only place where new truths are born.
Letters for the Inner Journey by Pushkar
Whisper back, if the letter spoke to you.