_______-Shaped Hole in My Heart

Shapes changing with attention and care

There’s not really a hole – or maybe there is. Perhaps we’re wired for connection, maybe there’s a God gene. Likely we’re not *wired* at all (too much machine metaphor), and genes are less about programming than carrying information. I’m not going to pretend I know or need to know. I’m working with what I’m experiencing. The hole is certainly perceived, with different shapes and intensities at different times.

Sometimes it seems to be shaped like a bottle of wine – as though if I have some wine, the hole will be filled, and then I won’t feel like this! There are so many layers to this; to pick off a few… it’s not actually wine-shaped. If I sit with the feeling for long enough (the time varies, but these days it’s generally a few minutes), the hole is more like “wanting to feel”-shaped in that way of wanting stuck emotions to be able to move. If I sit with that for a while, I often come to notice grief of some sort.

It could be wanting to spend an evening with someone special who lives far away, or a sort of regret about a conversation with one of my kids I didn’t handle well. It could be missing my brothers/family, or lamenting about moments that I seem to have wasted.

And yet… once I recognize and acknowledge those pieces, turn to face them, give them some love, realizing I did/do what I can when I can with what I have, I get some movement. The stuckness dissolves, the emotions can flow, and the perceived hole in my heart feels less like a hole and more like an indicator. And there’s also the layer about *not wanting to feel what I’m feeling* and that resistance tends to dissolve with the slowing down and being with what’s happening.

Ultimately, going through the process of being with the hole as it’s perceived doesn’t mean not engaging with the shape. Sometimes I feel a friend-shaped hole in my heart; the point of the process is not to get to a point where I’m thinking, “Oh, I don’t need anyone, I can do this alone.” The process allows me to reach out from a place of wholeness and love rather than a sort of co-dependent desperation for them to fill me up and fix me.

Going through the process doesn’t mean I don’t ever have wine – it just means I’m attuning to the reasons *why* I’m having the glass, aiming for a relaxed enjoyment rather than a frenzied seeking. Addressing the _____-shaped hole in my heart is what I mentioned in my post called Parking Lot Work. This is all a simplification, as a blog bite. Simple things are not necessarily easy. But they are eased, over time, with practice, and can even be/become beautiful rituals.

What is your experience? Do you have a parallel of something like a hole in your heart?