That missing something is a void in our lives that many of us, whether privy to or not, spend much of our energy trying to fill. I know I spent years of my energy trying everything I could think of to fill this void.
In a previous post, Photos from Black Recovery, I briefly describe my material search to find that missing something in life. Along my search, my life’s experience allowed me to both fulfill and surpass my material, social, and academic goals. To my bewilderment, shortly after achieving these goals I found myself right back where I started – my void had not been filled, just as is described in the quote below.
“Many of us have wondered, lackadaisically or desperately, why, having all the material comforts we could ever have hoped for – or even more – ‘Why are our lives so empty? Why aren’t all of these things more satisfying? What is it that’s missing? Why am I so blah or even miserable so often or all the time?’”
– The Twelve Steps for Everyone
When I first set out to achieve these goals, I thought social and financial success were going to be the solution. But close to two decades of a successful career in fashion gaining the social recognition and financial freedom I sought proved to me that material success, along with everything else on “The List” described in my memoir Black Recovery, did not equate to the true freedom I sought. Any relief I enjoyed along the way was fleeting. My ego-driven way of living took me on a relentless outward search to find all that was supposed to make me happy.
The childhood I suffered through and the alcoholic bottom that my life eventually fell to, along with all that comes with, also enabled me to relate to the other side of the material search as depicted in the quote below.
Others have wondered just as desperately, ‘Why have we been so poor materially? Why have we not been as fortunate as those wealthier than we? Why haven’t we had the breaks that others have had?’”
– The Twelve Steps for Everyone
This desperate search that I spent my life on to find that missing something led me to a truly hopeless state of mind and being.
After I had tried, tested, and accomplished it all, I learned the life I lived, the choices I made, and the mind behind my years of list-making and goal-accomplishing stemmed from a foundation that sought to please my ego with material wealth, recognition, and security. Which is why it never worked to fill the void. So what did work? Experiencing a 12-Step Spiritual Recovery program with Dr. Gloria Montgomery and the Hollywood and Vine Recovery Center. This was a program unlike any other I had experienced after years spent in AA along my search to find that missing something.
“All we need to make use of our own internal powers is a gentle guide and the proper atmosphere. The way we have found makes use of the basic principles of psychology and psychiatry as well as all the fundamental principles of major world religions from Hinduism and Buddhism to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. These basic principles are so simple and so encompassing that we do not need professionals to interpret them for us. They are all simply summarized for us in twelve simple steps.”
– The Twelve Steps for Everyone
To read more about my journey to find that missing something click the photo of my memoir, Black Recovery, below
“So many, like myself, spend their lives looking outward to find answers to fill the emptiness, the void, and ease the pain or discomfort of living life on life’s unprecedented terms. This is something we are all powerless over controlling and maintaining, but that did not stop me from looking in the wrong place, outside of myself, to determine my desires and fulfill my needs.”
– Black Recovery