How to Write in the Void: Feel Your Feelings

As a teen, I regularly got lost in our hometown mall. A hit to my right temporal lobe during a car crash when I was ten permanently rattled my internal compass, making it difficult to navigate any place with complex turns or distracting information. The mall had too many stores, too many mysterious nooks, and too many people for me to properly orient myself. So I relied on those directories with the yellow sign that read “You Are Here” to figure out where I was and where I needed to go. I’ve spent the past week doing a spiritual form of orienteering to reground myself so I can figure out what’s next.

As I did this work, I discovered we are currently in the void—a liminal space of not knowing that at times feels like a thrilling (or terrifying) openness, deadly free-fall, and looking up from a quicksand pit as it sucks you into its abyss. In this space, we are cracked-open vessels of human feeling without a sense of direction because there are no walls and nothing to hold on to.

In this void, you have one job: feel your feelings.

In this week’s The Marginalian, Maria Popova shared this quote from Camus, which perfectly describes the challenges of living in the void: “There is no love of life without despair of life.” She goes on to write:

“The transmutation of despair into love is what we call meaning. It is an active, searching process — a creative act. Paradoxically, we make meaning most readily, most urgently, in times of confusion and despair, when life as we know it has ceased to make sense and we must derive for ourselves not only what makes it livable but what makes it worth living. Those are clarifying times, sanctifying times, when the simulacra of meaning we have consciously and unconsciously borrowed from our culture — God and money, the family unit and perfect teeth — fall away to reveal the naked soul of being, to hone the spirit on the mortal bone.”

Many of us are experiencing what it’s like to be that naked soul of being with all its messiness. We grieve, rage, despair, rally, and fear what’s next for ourselves and those we know and love. Some of our current feelings relate to present realities, while others are anticipatory as the brain tries to prepare for potential dark times ahead.

There is no right way to feel. Do what you must, but as you work with your feelings, ask yourself one question: Is what I’m doing allowing my emotions to move through me, or am I denying or suppressing them?

Earlier in life, my emotions fell into three categories: the elusive pleasant emotions I wanted more of, the familiar yet uncomfortable emotions I’d rather get rid of, and the ones I wanted to go away. (Hello, anger, I’m talking to you.) I tried to suppress the uncomfortable and deny the unwanted, hoping that looking happy was the same as inviting happiness in.

Emotions are simply energy with a message. Anger signals crossed boundaries. Fear warns us of danger. Sadness and grief connect us to what is precious and dear. Denying these emotions causes them to take up residence in our bodies, which keeps them—and us—stuck.

This doesn’t mean you can’t numb out. Denial keeps us from feeling too much at once, which is incredibly adaptive. Just remember that denial is a tool, not an end goal. At some point, in some way, you must allow those emotions to move through you or prepare to experience them as physical symptoms.

If you don’t know how to help your emotions move through you, here are some strategies:

Hold a snot bubble cry dance party. In the wild, animals shake off trauma to reset their nervous systems. Expressive movement allows your emotions to move through you.
Do some vigorous exercise: run, swim laps, take the stairs at work, go for a bike ride, dig holes, or weed your garden. Take that hard yoga or barre class you’ve been afraid to do.
Smash it away: Go to Goodwill, buy a bunch of one-dollar dishes, and smash them against the ground. If funds are low, gather some branches and beat them against a tree.
Scream it out: Hike into the woods, drive somewhere remote, bury your head in a pillow, or warn your neighbors, then scream until you feel emotionally emptied out.

The point here is to keep from spiritually or culturally bypassing yourself by pretending your emotions don’t exist. Instead, let them out in a gloriously messy display of what it means to be fully human.

As you do this, permit your mind to wander where it pleases. While it might sound counterintuitive, exploring doomsday scenarios can empower you provided you don’t get too caught up in them. That’s because choices are the antidote to apathy and despair.

During a call last week with author Tosha Silver, she said, “Give your feelings to a higher purpose.” For some of you, that might mean giving them to a higher power or whatever aligns with your spiritual framework. For others, it might mean connecting with your communities and allowing yourself to be supported.

You can also give your feelings to your writing projects.

If you’re already working on something, identify parts of your manuscript that resonate with your current feelings and use that energy to sharpen the emotional intensity of a bland scene, create a metaphor accessible only from this state of mind, or sift through the glittering depths of language, and hook the precise word or phrase that describes what’s happening.

If you haven’t started something yet, list the scenes you could write, then label the feelings associated with them. Afterward, write what feels most alive for you.

If you’re creatively spent, try the following exercise:

Write a “fuck you” letter to whatever stirs your rage.
Walk in nature, find an object that catches your eye, and describe it.
Listen to a conversation, transcribe it, and see where it takes you.
Try the exercise Kirby Moore and I completed during his podcast interview.

When in doubt, let the potency of your present feelings connect you to past challenges—a place you can bring to life, find meaning in, and, as you do, connect with your agency—the ingredient you’ll need to chart a clear path forward.

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