The Hollow Hunger: Why You Feel Empty Even When Your Life Is Full

In this post:

• Why you can feel empty even when your life is full
• What the Norse goddess Hel reveals about modern life in Midgard
• The two-faced truth beneath what we show the world
• What happens when you stop shopping and find the silence underneath
• How a medicine wheel becomes a doorway when nature is far away

Empty.

This is how I have been feeling. Like a cup that is full but my lips stay dry when I drink from it.

Why do I feel empty when my life is good? I am reminded of what the world of Hel, the Norse goddess of the underworld, is like. There is plenty of food and drink on the tables in her hall, but none are filling. All leaves you hungry and wanting.

When we look around, we find that her halls have extended themselves into present day Midgard. We fill ourselves daily with food that does not nourish and inspiration that does not feed us. Endless time on screens leaves us feeling more empty than they found us, and yet we are so full we cannot think, cannot hear our own thoughts, cannot create anything in our original voice, for we have none without a quiet place for it to find itself.

Hel.

One side of her face is beautiful and alive, the other is dead and rotting, hollow in the place where an eye should be. This is the meaning of Hel in Norse mythology, not punishment, but the truth of what cannot be fed by surfaces alone.

Is that not what we are? What we share for the world to see is but a veneer, and underneath it our eyes have forgotten to see.

I made a promise last full moon, to stop shopping and to stop spending time on figuring out what to buy unless there was something necessary. I found I did not know what to do at first with all the extra time I had.

At first I thought I would watch movies, remembering times as a teenager when what I saw on the screen awakened worlds upon worlds within me. Now I struggle to find something inspiring in all the streaming services, something that tickles my need to see something unexpected, something artful and true, but these are far and few between all the formulas that create beautiful content void of a voice that matters.

Living in the city I find it hard to think. Even when the days are endless and I am with my children enjoying the beauty of each moment, my mind must stay alert, for there is too much that can happen at every crossing, at every turn. Both the children and I point and want, a smoothie, a French cheese from Provence, a new sticker pack, a used bike, a sandwich at the museum cafe, and I find myself wondering about the promise I made to only buy what I need. Where does need begin?

Instead of nature I have a handmade leather medicine wheel. I lay it upon the floor and place upon it three symbols of that which I hold most dear in my practice, that which connects me to God, the Wyrd, Sila, the Goddess. I do not know what to call that which is naught but the spirit in all things, the great body of which we are a cell or atom, that knows as little and as much as we do.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

And if you are reading this in your own hollow moment, you are welcome to breathe with me.

If this piece found you, you are likely standing in your own version of Hel's hall. If you want a witness while you find your way out, I offer a free fifteen-minute Compass Call. We sit together and look at where you are. Nothing more. Just that.

Book your Compass Call