Running On Empty

 

Tonight, I Feel Empty, A Poem by Huda Fatima

Sitting on my bed

Staring at my image

In the mirror in front

I wonder – how can I be this unhappy?

How could my heart feel this heavy?

There’s this nothingness sitting over me

Which I want to escape

I feel lost in a cage

I need something to keep me going

Because I’ve lost my own sense

And I’m left with nothing else

Even tears, tonight, have left my chest

I FEEL EMPTY

I have nothing much to say

Except that I’m scared

Scared of losing me once again

I feel small and weak

And physically falling sick

I wanna scream and run to some place HAPPY

I wanna feel something which is not COLD and EMPTY

So Darling Me – Please Calm Down

And stay with Me tonight

I don’t want to feel lonely.

Occasionally, this poem describes the way I’m feeling to a T. As a partial melancholic, I experience bouts of low lows that could be triggered by a variety of causes some ‘valid’ others ‘trivial.’

Some days, a song on repeat, a podcast episode, a nap, cat videos, a chocolate mug cake is enough to get me over the crest of the wave. Other days, nothing will engage the breaks despite the fact that I can see the valley coming and feel myself flowing deeper into it.

It is for those seasons of the valley of the shadow that I have developed habits that keep me grounded and remind me of who I am and what values I hold, despite the ruling emotions of the season. Also remembering that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”(Jeremiah 17:9 ESV), I don’t always take my heart’s word for truth.

I recently came across The Miracle Morning, a book by Hal Elrod that talks about developing a morning routine that includes silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and scribing (S.A.V.E.R.S). The routine can take as much as an hour or two, or as little as six minutes. Whatever time you give it, you get to grow incrementally in your spiritual, mental, emotional and physical beings. I’m enjoying spending time in this practice at a time when the world is still asleep and all is silent.

For those days that my feelings say I’m running on fumes, I can refute them knowing full well that for every miracle morning I have practiced, I have been saving reserves for a rainy day. And especially on those days when I can hardly summon the courage to face the world, I have reserves I can tap into to not only fill me, but get me up and running again. Nature may have bestowed me with a melancholic personality, but I have collected a toolkit that can conquer my emotions because life happens to kings and paupers alike.

“To fake it is to stand guard over emptiness.” ~ Arthur Herzog

Find Huda’s poem and others here

Find information about Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning here

Comments

  1. BTOJuly 11, 2021 at 10:20 AM

    That Miracle Morning was worth the read. New habits, new direction.

    ReplyDelete

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