Emotional Regulation & Nervous System • December 22, 2019
SUMMARY
There’s a particular shape to the things that are missing from a life — not a general emptiness, but something specific, with edges. The woman who filled a mandolin-shaped hole. The person who finally named what had been absent. This post is an invitation to look at your own life and ask: what shape is the missing thing? Because naming it is the beginning of finding it.
Depth therapy is a form of counseling that moves beyond surface-level problems to explore the hidden feelings, unconscious patterns, and soul-longings beneath your everyday experience. It is not quick-fix advice or simple problem-solving; it’s a courageous dive into the parts of yourself that have been pushed aside or ignored. This matters to you because the ‘shape-shaped’ gaps you feel aren’t always clear or logical—they live in the subtle, often unspoken parts of your inner world. Depth therapy offers a way to sit with your complexity, to listen to what your soul is trying to say, and to find a language for your missing pieces that feels real and true. It’s an invitation to engage fully with your whole self, not just the parts that function well on the outside.
You may be carrying a subtle but persistent sense of something missing in your life, a ‘shape-shaped’ absence—like a mandolin-shaped hole—that no achievement or external success has quite filled.
That missing shape often points to deeper relational trauma or unmet soul needs that show up as creative, bodily, or relational voids, signaling what your inner self truly longs for but hasn’t yet been named.
Understanding and healing these gaps comes through depth therapy, where you explore your grief and longings with curiosity and compassion, allowing you to discover and integrate the soul’s missing pieces into your daily life.
There’s a woman I know who once told me, “It turns out I had a mandolin-shaped hole missing in my life.”
SUMMARY
Many driven women are extraordinarily good at building lives that are full by every external measure—and still carry an awareness of something missing, a shape-shaped gap they haven’t quite been able to name. This post offers a contemplative invitation to get curious about what’s actually absent from your life, whether that’s a creative practice, a quality of relationship, a way of being in your body, or something harder to name—and what that absence might be trying to tell you.
A few years ago, after some very tough times, she turned to the mandolin after flirting with the idea of playing it for some time.
She bought this beautiful instrument, attended music lessons, went to music camps. And brought the mandolin very fully into her everyday life.
She fell in love with the music and really, more than fell in love. It became an integral part of her life, part of her soul medicine, part of her daily joy.
She had a mandolin-shaped hole missing from her life, and she filled it.
DEFINITION THERAPY
Psychotherapy is a collaborative process between a trained clinician and a client aimed at understanding and transforming the patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that cause suffering. Effective therapy provides not just insight but a corrective relational experience, a new template for what it feels like to be truly seen, heard, and held.
Definition
Grief & Longing: Grief is not limited to death. In therapeutic practice, grief encompasses the mourning of unmet needs, lost time, roads not taken, and the childhood one deserved but did not have. Naming and feeling grief — rather than bypassing it — is a prerequisite for genuine healing.
I share this with you because, with only 10 days left in the calendar year and in this decade of the 2010’s, I’ve been reflecting on her and her mandolin, on the joy she now has from having filled that particular hole in her life, and what this may mean for me, for my loved ones, and for my clients.
I wonder what it would feel like if, in 2020, we got more curious about the shape of things missing from our lives and made movements toward them and what the impact on our souls might be.
If you’d like to join me in being curious about the shape of things missing from your own life, what your soul is longing for, please join me in today’s post where I elaborate on this and provide some gentle prompts to help you inquire about this alongside me.
What’s the shape of missing things in your life?
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“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” – Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD
Let me ask you: what’s the shape of missing things in your life?
Is it a mandolin-shaped hole? A potluck-around-the-kitchen-table shaped hole? A passport-shaped hole?
It is a missing piece the size of a cozy cottage to call home?
Is it the exact dimensions of a rising and falling chest on the other half of the bed?
Is it one big hole? Or several little holes?
Or – and this is important – are there pieces, perhaps, to be removed? Ways in which you need to actually make more holes in your life.
Does the shape of the missing thing from your life resemble peace, safety, rest?
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And if it does, what other proverbial puzzle pieces might need to be removed to help you have that other thing?
Would it look like removing contact with someone or someones?
Might it look like leaving a lucrative but soul-deadening career?
Could it, would it, possibly look like leaving old parts of you behind – the part that’s so concerned with what other people think, the part of you that always thought you would be a lawyer?
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Bear in mind that sometimes bringing the shape of missing things into our lives means a letting go of other pieces that are taking up that precious space.
Also, when I invite you to notice what the shape of missing things in your life might be, I want to be clear that I don’t necessarily mean physical objects, though the shape of something missing from your life may include something physical like the mandolin did for one woman.
And if it does, I want you to consider that the physical object may represent something bigger, it may be a conduit to something more powerful and archetypal.
For instance, the mandolin was a conduit to creativity, to growth and mastery for that woman I mentioned.
And perhaps that potluck-around-the-kitchen-table-shaped hole might be representative of a desire to feel more connected to others, to feel like part of a community in your urban jungle.
Consider that the tangible objects you feel compelled to bring into your life may be a conduit to something so much bigger.
And one more idea I want you to consider: sometimes the shape of a missing thing in our life is already there; we just need to bring it forth and forward, more centered and prominent into the puzzle of our life.
I’ll tell you: I have a passport-shaped hole in my life. And a toddler-Buddha-belly-shaped hole.
Meaning, I have both of these things already in my life, but I want more time with them.
More time losing myself in kissing the sweet plump swell of my daughter’s toddler Buddha belly, of planning and embarking on international trips and feeling the thrill of being a stranger in a strange land.
I’ll be making more room for both of these things in 2020 because I know that’s what my soul is most longing for in the new year.
Why paying attention to our soul is so very important.
“aw-pull-quote”
“I’ll tell you right now, the doors to the world of the wild self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door; if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much that you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
So as the year and decade end, as the new one begins, instead of resolutions, I want to invite noticing.
Noticing around the shape of missing things in your life.
Which also means noticing around your longings, around what your soul is craving.
So often (if not always in some environments) we leave soul out of daily conversation.
It’s too California-woo, it’s too soft, it’s not empirical, data-backed or able to be measured by neuroimaging (at least not yet).
As a mother and as a therapist, this makes me so sad to contemplate.
What does soul have to do with rising suicide rates among our young people?
What does soul have to do with escalations of school shootings, domestic violence charges, increased rates of anxiety and depression?
It’s too simplistic to say that soul has everything to do with these tragedies when destructive, deeply entrenched systemic social structures and forces co-create the circumstances in which these things have the opportunity to occur.
But I do think that soul has something to do with the rise in mental health-related tragedies we see unfolding before us.
If we continue to leave soul out of the conversation about mental health, if we continue to focus only on prescribing medication without tending to the parts of us that are crying out for more – more connection, more creativity, more nourishment in various forms – we’re having half of the conversation. We’re solving half of the problem.
This is why, when I invite you to notice the shape of things missing from your life, I want to invite the question, too, of what your soul is most deeply longing for in order to feel nourished and good in this coming year and decade.
It may not solve everything to feed your soul; but it can likely help you at some level.
In my personal and professional lives, I’ve never once seen a prioritizing of soul nourishment be detrimental to someone’s mental health.
On the contrary, I’ve only ever seen the opposite.
So please, as we slide into the new year, into the new decade, as you fee compelled and possibly pressured by all those sneaky Instagram ads for weight loss coaching programs, better shapewear, the perfect leather loafer, and the critical everyday black work trouser, use each ad or resolution you feel internally driven to make as a kind of mindfulness bell to ask yourself, “will doing this, getting this, going after this, nourish my soul? If not, what will?”
How do we better get in touch with what our soul is longing for?
“Once we get used to listening to our dreams, our whole body responds like a musical instrument.” – Marion Woodman, Ph.D.
Some of my favorite ways to get in touch with what my soul is actually longing for (versus what my mind tells me I should prioritize) is:
Paying attention to where my mind wanders when folding laundry;
Keeping track of the recurrent imaginal scenes that bubble up in my mind;
Reflecting on what my 8, 10, 12 and 16-year old selves really loved;
Asking my husband and friends to reflect back to me what I kept repeating I wanted across the past year;
Seeing what my biggest pain points are – sometimes the root of what my soul is longing for is in that pain;
Paying attention to what feels like it’s pulling me versus what I’m pushing myself towards;
Noticing where and how my body feels best and my heart feels happiest;
Allowing myself to daydream and following the threads of my daydreams.
Discovering Your Soul’s Missing Pieces Through Depth Therapy
When you arrive in therapy feeling inexplicably empty despite checking all life’s boxes, your therapist helps you explore not what you think you should want but what your soul genuinely craves. Together, you investigate the “shape of missing things”—those soul-sized holes that no amount of achievement or acquisition can fill.
Your therapist guides you in distinguishing between mind-driven goals and soul-pulled longings, helping you notice that using your nighttime dreams to help clarify your new year’s goals often reveals desires your conscious mind dismisses as impractical or frivolous. Dreams, recurring imaginal scenes, and childhood passions all contain clues about what your soul needs for genuine nourishment.
This work often reveals that filling what’s missing requires creating space first. Your therapist supports you in recognizing which pieces need removal—the soul-deadening career, the identity that no longer fits, the relationships that drain rather than feed you. This letting go isn’t loss but preparation for what wants to emerge.
Through depth-oriented therapy, you learn that soul longings aren’t “California-woo” but essential data about your psychological wellbeing. When rising rates of anxiety, depression, and despair suggest something fundamental is missing from how we approach mental health, attending to soul becomes not luxury but necessity.
Your therapist helps you track where your mind wanders during mundane tasks, what pulls rather than pushes you, where your body feels most at ease. These become breadcrumbs leading to authentic desire rather than manufactured ambition.
Most importantly, you discover that sometimes what’s missing isn’t absent but merely needs more prominence—more time with your child’s Buddha belly, more creative expression, more moments of being a stranger in a strange land. The work becomes not about acquiring but about prioritizing what already calls to your soul.
All of these can be clues to the shape of things missing from your life.
So tell me, in 2020, what is the shape of things missing from your own life and what might you consider doing to fold those things into your day to day in the new decade?
Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you and to know what you will be doing to nourish your soul.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
“Practice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
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). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. Springer Publishing Company.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (
). Suicide Rising Across the US: More Than a Mental Health Concern. CDC National Center for Health Statistics.Schore, A. N. (
). Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self. W. W. Norton &#
; Company.Pargament, K. I. (
). Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred. Guilford Press.Bolen, J. S. (
). Goddesses in Everywoman: Thirteen Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives. HarperOne.Estés, C. P. (
). Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. Ballantine Books.Woodman, M. (
I keep achieving the next thing and it still doesn’t fill the thing. What is the thing? How do I figure out what’s actually missing?
This feeling often stems from unmet emotional needs in earlier life, creating an internal void that external achievements can’t truly fill. It’s a common experience for high-achievers who’ve learned to seek validation externally rather than nurturing their inner world. Recognizing this pattern is the first step toward genuine fulfillment.
If I’m honest, I don’t know what I actually want — apart from more of what I already have. How do I figure out the real missing piece?
Start by tuning into your emotions and observing recurring patterns of dissatisfaction or longing. Often, what’s missing isn’t a tangible item but rather emotional connection, authentic self-expression, or a sense of belonging. Reflect on moments when you feel most alive or most empty to uncover these deeper needs.
Is it normal to feel a constant sense of longing or incompleteness, even when everything looks perfect from the outside?
Absolutely. This feeling is a powerful signal, often rooted in early experiences of emotional neglect or relational trauma, where essential needs for safety, love, or validation weren’t consistently met. It’s your inner self communicating a need for deeper connection and healing.
What can I do to fill the void I feel inside, without constantly striving for more external achievements?
Focus on cultivating internal resources and authentic connections. This might involve exploring your emotional landscape through therapy, practicing self-compassion, or engaging in activities that bring genuine joy and meaning, rather than just external validation. The goal is to nurture your inner world.
How does my past, like childhood emotional neglect, contribute to this feeling of missing something in my adult life?
Childhood emotional neglect can leave you with a deep-seated belief that your needs aren’t important or won’t be met, creating a perpetual sense of lack. This can manifest as difficulty identifying your own needs, a tendency to people-please, or a constant search for external validation to fill that early void. Healing involves acknowledging and grieving these past experiences.
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As a licensed psychotherapist (LMFT #95719), trauma-informed executive coach, and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, she guides ambitious women — including Silicon Valley leaders, physicians, and entrepreneurs — in repairing the psychological foundations beneath their impressive lives. Annie is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited. A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information. She is currently writing her first book with W.W. Norton.
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Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist, relational trauma specialist, and the founder and successfully exited CEO of a large California trauma-informed therapy center. A W.W. Norton published author, she writes the weekly Substack Strong & Stable and her work and expert opinions have appeared in NPR, NBC, Forbes, Business Insider, The Boston Globe, and The Information.
Notice what feels like it's pulling you versus what you're pushing yourself toward. Soul longings often appear in recurring daydreams, childhood loves that still spark joy, and where your mind naturally wanders during mundane tasks like folding laundry.
Sometimes creating space for soul nourishment requires removing pieces that look good but feel wrong—the lucrative but soul-deadening career, the relationship that provides security but not joy. The removal itself becomes part of filling what's missing.
Absolutely. Rising rates of depression, anxiety, and even suicide suggest that treating only symptoms while ignoring soul nourishment addresses just half the problem. No one's mental health has ever been harmed by prioritizing what genuinely feeds their soul.
Start by tracking your pain points—often what hurts most reveals what's missing. Also notice where your body feels best, what your friends say you keep talking about, and what themes appear in your dreams.
Yes—sometimes the shape of what's missing is already in your life but needs to be more centered. Like needing more time with your child's presence or more experiences using that dusty passport, the piece exists but needs expansion.
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“You can outrun your past with achievement for only so long before it catches up with you. Strong & Stable is the conversation that helps you stop running.”
— Annie Wright, LMFT
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Strong & Stable — Annie Wright, LMFT
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