Feel empty? How to fill your hunger

Tuesday night, in our group coaching session, we had a conversation on Spiritual Hungers and how they impact your ability to maintain your practice, keep up with your life plans, and play. I want to share some of this with you here.

Spiritual hungers are hungers that all humans have regardless of who you are, where you come from, or how much money you have.

Some examples of Spiritual Hungers are: hunger to love and be loved, to be touched, to matter, to be seen, heard, to feel connected.

Spiritual hungers underlie every emotion.

Think about when a person you know does something to upset you. At other times when they do the same thing, their action hardly makes impact. The difference is that your spiritual hunger tank is emptier in the first case scenario. Which means, while actions do matter, your full-ness matters more, and you’ll want to get full to engage in a way that will take the best loving care of you (and the other person).

When your spiritual hunger tank is full, you’re more likely to meet a person with (1) unconditional acceptance and at the same time (2) hold them accountable, which can strengthen a relationship and make it incredibly fulfilling.

When your tank is empty, you’re in danger of (1) judging harshly and (2) getting punitive, which can undermine a relationship.

So when you notice that your emotions are getting to you, ask yourself, what is the underlying spiritual hunger that’s causing me this grief, anxiety, fear, anger? Then think about how you might fill your spiritual hunger tank.

When you hunger to matter, you might easily feel disregarded by someone who, for instance, cuts you off mid-sentence in a conversation. There are a myriad of ways to deal with that situation, but the situation that matters first is that you don’t feel that you matter. That other person simply made you aware of your empty tank. Two of many ways to mitigate this: (1)  Say “I know that you’re excited to share what’s on your mind (or that you feel rushed), but when I get cut off mid-sentence, I don’t feel like I matter to you, so it makes it really difficult to hear you.” You made yourself matter enough to say it, and you added to you tank. (2) Get your matter tank full when you’re going into conversations with people who you know tend to interrupt because while it’s really not personal, we take things personally when we’re empty.

When you hunger to be loved, you might say yes to things that you’d rather not say yes to in order to feel appreciated and also to make others happy and feel the love. You might recognize this as I don’t like conflict. This simple awareness is often enough to turn this one around. Remember also that people can’t read your mind. The practice is to get creative and start playing with the many different ways to proactively fill your love tank. Be forewarned: when you start doing this, your joy may increase and you might also start feeling seen, heard, and like you matter.

Your spiritual hungers impact your ability to hold sacred your meditation practice and your life plans because when you’re full, you make decisions from a much more neutral, loving, playful, and attractive space. PLAY, by the way, is something that we often overlook, and it’s a powerful life hack that overflows the tank like nothing else, and swiftly.

If you’re interested in getting to know your Spiritual Hungers and want more examples on how to fill your tank, download Your Spiritual Hungers pdf for free.

Love, Savitree