When Life Feels Full but You Feel Empty
Does life feel noisy on the outside….. and yet silent on the inside?
If so, nothing’s gone wrong. Life might simply be too full right now.
Creativity moves in undeniable cycles: highs and lows, inspiration and nothingness, growth and deconstruction. The trouble starts when we decide that a quiet season means something negative about us - when we make stillness a personal failure instead of a natural rhythm.
All of life is like this. We’re experiencing fall right now in the northern hemisphere. There's a rhythm to creativity that mirrors the seasons- expansion and contraction, light and dark. When we forget that, we start to believe that the silence means something's wrong, that we're behind, that we've lost it. But the truth is every life, no matter your role, moves through phases where the energy feels dormant.
The Urge to Create, Without a Way to Begin
Sometimes there’s a pressure inside, deeply needing to express ourselves – but no clear way for it to come alive. Maybe the need to have impact but not able to execute in the way your mind holds the vision.
When that tension builds, many of us fill the space with busyness – people take on more as a way to move their frustration with the emptiness.
But true, soul-level creativity can’t be forced. Sure, we can produce something, but it’s not the kind that is bursting from within - the kind that is unmistakably you.
Our minds try to think their way out of the numbness, to logic their way back into inspiration. We judge the inner quiet (enter frustration). We make it mean something about our worth or talent. And in that judgment, we bury the very spark we’re trying to ignite.
It’s okay. The timing was just off. Beneath the stillness, something is rearranging. Something better is forming.
“Let numbness be information, not punishment.”
Creativity is cyclical. The pause is sacred, too.
Empty, Then Design
What I’ve come to understand - in guiding others to express their creativity (aka purpose) and reconnecting with my own - is that we have to trust our natural rhythm. Staying present with the low emotions, instead of rushing to cover it, allows for them to become fuel. Those quiet emotions become part of the story, the true uniqueness of you.
I love a clean slate.
A fresh journal. A big whiteboard. A cleared kitchen counter. That kind of empty newness feels energizing - full of possibility.
It’s one of my secret powers with clients, that blank slate style: we start from scratch and build what’s true to their vision. Soul + Strategy in real time - first we empty, then we design.
But when it’s just me, alone in the process trying to create…. I can get lost in the weeds. Sometimes it’s hard to start. I judge the output immediately and unconsciously. When I feel stuck or grey inside, I pull out a blank page and ask:
What’s missing?
What do I actually want to feel?
What am I learning right now?
And then—I let it rest.
Perfectionism and the Spark
I used to hold the process too tightly. (Who am I kidding - sometimes I still do. Hello, shadow.) Control squeezes the spark right out of inspiration.
I remember designing a simple, silly promotion at work years ago. It wasn’t ready, at least not by my standards, but my assistant rolled it out anyway. I was sooo angry!
Underneath the frustration was perfectionism - the belief that creativity shouldn’t be seen until it’s infallible. But that’s not how creativity breeds.
The beauty lives in the mess - the version that’s brave enough to be seen while it’s still becoming.
Trust the Rhythm
Let numbness be information, not punishment.
Release the pressure. Be present. Trust your inner timing.
There’s more coming.
Your work is most magnetic when it is deeply, unmistakably yours.
Reflection Prompts
Where in your life are you trying to force something that might just need space to rest?
How might you treat yourself differently if you trusted that nothing is wasted - not even stillness?
Who are the people who give you permission to be more you?
Which parts of your work feel uniquely yours - and how can you amplify them?
Where are you clawing toward perfect instead of allowing process?
This Week’s Reverb
If you find yourself noticing the tension between the melancholy of waiting and the electricity of possibility, remember this:
Creative energy moves in waves.
You are not meant to be “on” all the time.
You are meant to listen - to your own inner rhythm, to the messages that you will only hear in the quiet.