by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The Void: Why Do So Many Men Feel Empty?
There’s a gnawing emptiness that a lot of men feel but rarely talk about – a kind of Void that they seem to be constantly outrunning. It eats into their sense of presence and makes them suspect that there must be ‘more’ to life. Much more.
(Not that they ever know what this might be…they just know it must be ‘there’ somewhere).
The more that they try to ignore this sense that something is missing, the more the blackhole of the Void seems to consume them. It’s an endless itch that can’t be scratched, a bottomless pit that can’t quite be filled, and – no matter how much ‘success’, money, sex, or validation they chase (even if these things do give a little release here-and-there that soon fades away like a fine mist) – it never goes away, no matter how much they try to ‘think’ themselves out of it.
This is because they’re trying to fill the Void with things that don’t fit:
The Void isn’t just loneliness, boredom, or even existential dread and angst – it’s something much much deeper: a disconnection from truth.
When I say “Truth” here I mean the unfashionable, ‘absolute’ truth of wholeness – in other words, the real deal. Not just “my truth” or “your truth” – which are both really just interpretations – but “THE TRUTH”.
This isn’t just about conceptual facts and ideas but the unshakable core of who you are beneath all the layers of conditioning, labels, ego, and avoidance:
When a man is disconnected from this truth, he falls into shame, and shame opens up the Shadow Dance – the internal battle between the Ego (the mask he wears) and the Shadow Self (who he really is when he takes the mask off and integrates whatever he was hiding from himself).
Keeping this dance going – in an attempt to ‘protect’ the Void-identity/Ego that he has become identified with and attached to – is what keeps him stuck and keeps the Void having power over him.
The only way out is to face the truth about yourself, the world, and reality again:
You don’t escape the Void by numbing yourself to it or by trying to fill it with external things; you ‘fill’ it by becoming it – because it’s just a signal that your relationship with yourself and life is distorted – and by returning to reality, to purpose, and to a sense of something bigger than just ‘yourself’.
This article will put you on the path to becoming the Void and returning home – but, first, let’s look at why so many men fall into it in the first place:
The Common (But Failing) Strategies Men Use to Fill the Void
When a man feels the emptiness of the Void inside himself, his first instinct is usually to reach for something external to fill the gap.
Unfortunately, external ‘solutions’ don’t actually work – they just provide temporary relief from the tension that’s been caused by being unreal with oneself. This temporary release of tension may seem helpful at first, but all it ends up doing is creating dependencies and compulsions because we think we ‘need’ these things to get a taste of being real (when we don’t because what’s real is always real).
Here are some of the most common ways men try (and fail) to solve their own emptiness:
1. Addiction (Drugs, Alcohol, Porn, Food, Work, etc.)
Addiction isn’t just about substance abuse – it’s about anything that gives the illusion that you can escape from yourself and then becoming dependent on this illusion to keep hiding (though the truth always comes out in the end).
It could be drinking to ‘relax’ (when really you know it’s to escape), vegging out in front of Netflix to avoid thinking about whatever you’re facing, or endlessly scrolling social media to avoid confronting real life. The problem is, these things don’t solve the emptiness. They just silence it for a while – until it comes back louder than before because it grew in the shadows whilst your attention was on something else.
2. Distraction (Mindless Entertainment, Video Games, Over-Socialising)
Distraction is the close cousin of addiction and is just about using unreal things or relationships to avoid facing the real things that need staring down in your life:
Instead of facing reality head one (which may suck in the short-term if you’ve been away from it for a while), many men fill every second with empty stimulation – background noise, social media, gaming, or mindless socialising.
The Void isn’t being filled in these cases – it’s just being ignored as you try to fill the emptiness with more emptiness (when it can only be filled with something and that means finding your own REALNESS).
Ignoring the Void doesn’t make it go away – it makes it worse.
3. Seeking External Validation (Women, Status, Achievement, Approval)
Some men try to fill the Void by chasing women, money, or status:
They tell themselves things like, “If I just had more women, more money, more respect, then I’d feel whole” -but this can and never will work because the only solution is the TRUTH and all of these external things are being treated as a substitute for the truth.
Many of these things can be ‘good’ and maybe even fulfilling, but ‘good’ doesn’t mean the ‘best’ and -when it comes to filling the Void – the only best thing is the truth.
It’s the only medicine for the malady of the Void – all these other medicines will eventually just become poison because you’re using them in an unreal way.
Start on a foundation of truth and then bring these things into your life. Not the other way round.
4. Over-Intellectualising (Philosophy, Self-Help Overload, Analysis Paralysis)
Some men don’t turn to addiction or distraction; they turn to thinking their way out of the problem:
They read every book, listen to every podcast, and theorise about life endlessly – but they never act. Why?
Because deep down, they know action requires confronting themselves, and that’s terrifying so they stay stuck in the loop of consuming information without ever integrating it.
This kind of information consumption is really just a form of worrying: it feels like you’re doing something to solve the problem but all you’re really doing is playing with ideas and concepts and not touching reality with anything that you DO (and that’s the only way back to the truth and away from the Void).
The Shadow Dance: Why You Can’t Think Your Way Out of the Void
The real reason men struggle to escape this emptiness is because of what I call the Shadow Dance – the constant push-pull between the Ego and the Shadow Self.
- The Ego is the mask. The version of yourself that you present to the world, shaped by what you think will get you approval and success. You wear this mask because of shame – some unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ you picked up that made you fear the truth of who you actually are.
- The Shadow is everything you reject, suppress, or disown about yourself. Your fears, weaknesses, and unhealed wounds along with some of the ‘good’ things that we’re acceptable to your ego like your joy or your love or your real purpose (again, because these things got shamed and so you sent them into hiding).
The Shadow Dance causes problems in our lives because of a simple fact of life as a human being:
Unconscious intentions always triumph over conscious desires.
If your unconscious mind (where your Shadow ‘lives’) believes that real growth will expose you to pain, rejection, or failure, it will sabotage your conscious efforts every time.
This is why many men stay stuck in cycles of self-sabotage and never get out of the Void and back into realness – they’re fighting themselves without even realising it.
No matter how you identify on the surface-level and no matter what you ‘tell’ yourself with your conscious mind, the hidden ‘stuff’ will always win.
You can reverse engineer what’s going on in your life to see what your intentions really are – check out this post to learn more: Hacking the Unconscious Mind: A Psychological Hack for REALNESS
Awareness, Acceptance, and Action: The Path to Wholeness
To truly move beyond the Void, you must engage in a three-step process (this is the process I use with my coaching clients – book a call if you want to go deeper): Awareness, Acceptance, and Action.
This is the framework for real transformation (no matter who you are or where you’re trying to get to):
1. Awareness: See the Void for What It Is
The first step is recognising that the emptiness you feel isn’t random or unfixable -it’s always a symptom of disconnection from the truth about yourself (and identification with the Ego which is just a character we play within the dreamworld of the Void).
Start digging deeper into your relationship with yourself to see where you’re fragmented instead of whole:
- Where am I living inauthentically instead of being real?
- What emotions, fears, or truths am I avoiding?
- What patterns keep repeating in my life and what does this say about my unconscious intentions?
Self-reflection and radical honesty are key here because until you see the problem, you can’t fix it – you’ll just be forever running around in the Void and rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic whilst it sinks.
2. Acceptance: Stop Resisting the Truth
Most men fight against reality even though real always works and reality always has something to teach them:
They suppress and resist emotions, deny their past wounds, and cling to false identities (ego) but healing always requires acceptance of your past, your emotions, and even your failures (because acceptance can only ever lead back to the truth and solve the problem of disconnection).
Start facing some of the facts:
- Accept that the Void exists for a reason (you have lost touch with you’re realness).
- Accept that suppressing emotions only keeps you ‘stuck’ (because emotions are e-motion, energy in motion and the only thing that stops them naturally being integrated and becoming whole is the mental blocks of ego and void-identity).
- Accept that change is possible, but it starts with facing reality (so you’re building on something solid and not just empty ideas in the sky).
3. Action: Align with Truth and Purpose
Awareness and Acceptance mean nothing without real Action:
Action in this sense means moving towards what is real and away from false distractions.
You can change your life by:
- Pursuing a purpose that aligns with the truth in relation to you and your life (after raising awareness and acceptance of what this is)
- Practicing emotional integration instead of suppression (by acting on the real things that are calling for expression from your Shadow Self).
- Facing fears head-on rather than avoiding them (because then you’ll see that most fear was actually just F.E.A.R: False Evidence Appearing Real).
- Building relationships rooted in honesty, not validation (by understanding that the truth is the greatest foundation of all, not the things or people you try to fill the Void with).
- Learning to regulate your nervous system so that you have the energy and presence to face life in a real way (without seeing threats where there are opportunities etc.) – check out this article for more on this: Nervous System Regulation for Realness: Finding Your Natural Rhythm
When you take consistent, real action, the Void begins to dissolve – not because you’re ‘filling’ it with distractions, but because you’re removing the layers of fragmentation that created it in the first place and becoming who you were meant to be.
Conclusion: The Path Back to Wholeness
The Void isn’t some mysterious curse that you have to live with – it’s just the consequence of living a life that is out of alignment with truth.
When you stop avoiding yourself, stop numbing yourself, and start becoming yourself, the emptiness fades because – at your core – you were never ’empty’ to begin with…you were just buried beneath layers of fragmentation, fear, and false identities (and thought this filter was the truth).
The world will tell you that you need more things to be happy but what you really need is more realness and this means LETTING GO of a lot of the unreal things you have been chasing.
When you can trust and let go like this then you’ll find more truth, more integration, more purpose.
Because – as the old Chinese proverb says – “Tension is who you think you should be but release is who you are.”
Stay real out there,
If you’d like some guidance on becoming the Void in your own life and you might be interested in coaching then book a free video call with me.
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