“Our anxiety does not come
from thinking about the future,
but from wanting to control it.” 
Kahlil Gibran

We all go through them. They can happen in the workplace, in relationships, or in our spiritual life. Moments of emptiness are real; and more common, perhaps, than we’d like to admit. In a world dominated by social media, it might be difficult for us to recognize that we’re not the only ones who experience such challenging times. Comparing our ordinary humdrum existence with the highlight reels others post on their Facebook page can feed the discontentment we’re already experiencing in our own life. We find ourselves overcome with a sense of inadequacy, stress, and often emptiness.

It is critical that we acknowledge that this painful phenomenon is common to us all. In a recent interview published in Germany’s Die Zeit weekly newspaper, even Pope Francis talked about moments of his own personal emptiness. He said, “I, too, know moments of emptiness… One cannot grow without crises…” The pope was speaking about the challenge of faith, but his comments are equally applicable to many other aspects of life.

Those familiar with this feeling know all too well that moments of emptiness can be a source of significant crisis in our life. For awhile, things go along quite nicely. We are content with life as we’re experiencing it. Family life is good. Work is going well. We are enjoying excellent health. And finances seem to be taking care of themselves. Then,… Whack! We get blindsided by something that rocks us to the core. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t so much a Whack! as it was a slow, steady decline in the quality of one or more aspects of our life. Whichever the case, we can find ourselves out of balance, trying to regain some degree of stability. The feeling can be overwhelming, frightening, and it can create a genuine crisis in our life.

Then, just when we think life couldn’t possibly get any worse, we become aware of a coworker, a friend, a neighbor, or a friend of a friend whose situation is far more devastating than our own. Such a realization doesn’t necessarily make us feel better about our own crisis, but it certainly helps us to put it in perspective. At times such as these, it’s helpful to recall that in the Chinese language, the word “crisis” requires two characters which, together, mean “crisis” as we understand it in English. Individually, however, each of the two characters has a stand-alone meaning: one means “danger.” The other means “opportunity.”

Such a profound change in perspective provides us with the opportunity to look at our own life in a different way — through the lens of gratitude. Yes, we can continue to focus on what’s not going well in our life, but we also have the option to make a conscientious effort to focus on what is going well for us at the moment. A focus on gratitude enables us to do this quite effectively. Our situation may not change, but how we view it most certainly can, and this can be liberating.

Coping effectively with stress in our life may also require a self-imposed “Time Out!” For some, it may suffice to take a mental health day or two off work. For some, it might require a spa day, a bit of retail therapy, or a weekend retreat. For others, a few weeks on a Caribbean island might be what they need. What’s important is that we prioritize our health and well-being over the situation causing the stress. This may not be easy, but it’s well worth the cost, time, and effort.

Self-care is not selfish.