The Power of Empty

Hey everyone!


So I have recently returned to NoFap to combat my masturbation habit once again! Today marks 2 weeks since my last fap. Yay me

I wanted to post this to talk about a valuable lesson I’ve learned along the way, one that I feel can help a lot of people in this forum.

If you’re like me, the urge to masturbate stems from loneliness— but I’m not just talking about the absence of people in your life. It could very well be an absence of something else, whether it be meaningful work, direction in your professional life, or sense of purpose and spiritual connection. If you’re like me, your mind fixates on what you don’t have rather than what you do have. Perhaps you’re easily envious of the accomplishments of people around you. If you’re like me, you frequently experience moments in which you feel... lack. You feel that emptiness inside of you, and you live in a world where emptiness is discouraged— where all the empty spaces need to be filled— and it fucking HURTS.

If you’re like me, that’s why you masturbate. Because no way can you live with those empty spaces. No way can you be still with those thoughts of lack that threaten to hurt you. If only for a moment, you slam the door on those unwanted feelings, and that’s what masturbation does.

But what are the consequences of consistently invalidating yourself and your feelings? You become stuck in a life that, however comfortable, is nevertheless lackluster, uneventful, damaging to the soul and nowhere near the life you dream of living.

And that is the bad side of masturbation. I’m not talking about morally wrong or against religion, you hear that all the time, and while I myself am Catholic, I’m not going to stress those reasons for why masturbation is bad.
What I’m saying is that masturbation— HABITUAL masturbation— can act as a blindfold that keeps you from a better life. You falter from reaching for that better life because it’s scary (and believe me, I know it is, I’m just as scared and just as hesitant), and so you imprison yourself in comfort that inevitably collapses right on top of you, and you’re left staring face to face with those unwanted feelings, that emptiness, that loneliness... that LACK.
However powerful masturbation is in the moment, the key thing to remember is that it is, in fact, momentary. Once that moment is over, you ultimately return to the place from which you were trying to escape. So when you think about it, masturbation does not provide lasting good for you, it just delays the inevitable.

So here’s what I learned from all this, because everything I just described has been my own journey, and hopefully you see bits and pieces of yours too. I learned that allowing yourself to sink into emptiness is just as powerful as masturbating those feelings away. Let me give you my own example:

I used to always masturbate right before bed. It helped me fall asleep quicker. I remember this one night I was ready for bed and thought about masturbating. But the thing was, I wasn’t really in the mood. I wasn’t horny or anything, yet a part of me felt a need to masturbate, like I couldn’t NOT masturbate if I wanted to. Initially I laughed at this thought. “It’s not that I can’t fight masturbation,” I said to myself, “it’s just that right now, I don’t want to. Maybe another time.”
I got into bed, and my mind was even more divided over masturbating. Until I quickly decided you know what, I won’t masturbate tonight. I can do it. Shouldn’t be a problem at all...
Except that it WAS. The emptiness flooded in fast, and with it came those feelings— feelings I didn’t even know I was holding on to. Loneliness. Dissatisfaction with my social life. And most powerful feeling of all, I felt a longing for love. Not sexual, just general love.

another thing to know about me, I’ve always been a people pleaser. I give give give to my peers, always performing for the world, keeping the most interesting, likable version of me on the surface while burying everything else.
Well on that night, that “everything else” came rising out of the grave and caught me off guard. I was an empty mess on my bed... because as hard as I tried to give to people, I myself am just as human and just as needing of receiving. I couldn’t do it all alone. I needed love. Oh but why am I so desperate!!?? I screamed. You can’t let people see how desperate you are!! Why can’t you just keep it all in??? Why can’t— why.....?

I turned to God in tears. I needed Him. I needed him wrap me up in warmth, because alone I was cold, and I needed Him to fill me up with... something, I didn’t know what. I just needed to let myself fall into my brokenness and hurt, because that surface-level version of me I let people see was inauthentic, and a person can only put up an act for so long before he gasps for air and he himself needs to return to the surface.

When you choose to fall into that emptiness, most likely you’re going to feel like shit. It’s an uncomfortable experience, but I can promise you that it’s just as momentary as the act of masturbation. The difference is that once the moment is over, you won’t be left with nothing like after you masturbate. You’ll be left with THE REAL YOU, which is so much more powerful than any sexual pleasure you could conjure— because this is REAL and this is LASTING. You’ll find something in the depths of that emptiness that you can use to climb out of that hole. You’ll ascend higher than you ever thought you could, and the rewards will be greater than you ever believed you deserved.

I realize that this is all very vague, and I do this on purpose. Not everyone is going to have the same journey or find the same thing when they experience emptiness. What matters is recognizing that emptiness, however painful it may be in the moment, is extremely powerful and may very well be containing that one thing you need to rid yourself of the lack once and for all.