Between breaths: Why we fear emotional emptiness
There is a moment between the inhale and the exhale - a pause so quiet, it feels like the world has stopped listening.
I used to skip over it.
That soft in-between.
It felt too still.
Too exposed.
Too… empty.
But over time, I’ve come to see this space differently. Not as a void, but as a threshold. A place where emotional clarity doesn’t come from knowing - but from being willing to stay.
This week, I’m writing from that pause. From that small, silent moment between breaths.
What we call emptiness is often just unfelt feeling
When we say we feel empty, what do we mean?
Not numb. Not relaxed. But a kind of hollow ache - like something should be there but isn’t.
In both therapy rooms and creative spaces, I’ve seen how quickly we try to fill that space. With words. With color. With helping others. With anything that makes us forget that we don’t quite know what we’re feeling.
But what if that “emptiness” is just the place where feeling hasn’t found form yet?
Not absence, but arrival.
Not failure, but a beginning.
Artists know this space. So do therapists.
In art, there’s always a moment when the page is still blank. Not because we have nothing to say -
but because something is about to arrive.
Therapists sit in this space, too. The moments before a client speaks. The silences after something raw has been shared. The quiet between tears.
It’s not easy. But it’s necessary. Because clarity doesn’t always shout. Sometimes, it waits in the quietest part of you.
Why we fear the pause
The pause makes us feel like we’ve lost the thread. That we’re disconnected. Uncertain. Vulnerable. But from a neurobiological view, this is exactly when regulation can begin. When we are no longer reacting - just noticing. The nervous system shifts. The prefrontal cortex returns. Insight is possible.
Most times it’s not comfortable. But it’s where healing starts.
A personal practice: Sitting with the space
Here’s something I’ve begun doing in my own studio:
Sit in front of a blank page or canvas.
Close your eyes.
Breathe in for 4. Hold for 4. Exhale for 6.
When the pause between breaths arrives, just notice it.
Place your hand over your heart. Ask:
“What wants to be known in this silence?”
Don’t force a response. Let the next brushstroke, or word, come from there.
The crux of the matter isn’t about making something. It’s about meeting yourself - without needing to fix or fill.
The painting that didn’t want to be made
This week’s paintings took days to begin. I kept walking past them, touching the corners of the paper, and walking away. No image came. No impulse. Just… space.
And then, without reason, a shape emerged. Soft grey, almost cloudlike. A line. A smudge. It looked like the space between one breath and the next.
It didn’t say anything clearly. But somehow, it helped me hear myself.
Clarity doesn’t always come first
We often believe that once we understand our emotions, then we can rest. But what if it’s the other way around?
We rest.
We breathe.
We stay.
And then, clarity comes.
It doesn’t arrive all at once. It comes in fragments - images, sensations, tiny truths that surface in stillness. And that stillness? It often feels like emptiness - until we learn to stay long enough to listen.
A gentle offering
If you’re walking through one of those quiet, uncertain seasons, I’ve made something for you. A small, gentle set of invitations:
5 Art Prompts for Emotional Clarity
They don’t promise solutions. But they do offer a place to land, breathe, and begin again. Alone or with others. In color or in quiet.
Download your free prompts here
You don’t have to fill every space. You don’t have to rush through the pause. You can let it hold you.
Between breaths, you’re still whole.
