“I feel that I am missing something essential from my life.” If this resonates with you, this exercise may be valuable to you.
Self-Observation on my feeling of missing something from my life
- I am missing something but I cannot say what.
- I feel sad.
- I blame other people and the world around me for not giving me what I want. It is their fault.
- It is not worth doing things.
- This thought makes me nervous and panicky.
- I don’t know what to do about it, how to get out of it.
- I cannot breathe normally. I keep my breath back.
- I feel as if this is my main belief about my life. How I am.
Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper
- I am sad because I have this image that ‘I did not get the things I wanted. The things that I deserved.’
- I know that I have been feeling like this since I can remember.
- Then I start to think that I am selfish and spoiled to think such things. But it does not help.
- Then I start to think that it is not that bad. It is better but I still have the pain in the back of my mind. I know it is just a matter of time that it comes back.
- Then I sort of realize that I am trying to convince myself that my feeling of missing something is not real. This is how I protect myself.
- Then I realize that I am right. I did not get the things I wanted and thought that I deserved. It doesn’t hurt that much now that I could be honest with myself. It is a bit better now, there has been a small shift.
- I see that my honesty helped me to let go of my protection a little bit. I call it honesty, it may be something else.
The above self-observation exercise is just one possible flow of associations. It is meant to stimulate you and by no means it is implied that it is about you.
(If you are new to the concept of self-observation or looking for some practical guidance then maybe read this article: How Self-Observation Works)
