What are you Feeding your Hungry Ghosts?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Hungry Ghosts. I’ve been witnessing this aspect rising in the people around me, and it’s showing up enough that it feels time to name it, face it, and ask: What is it that haunts us? What are we trying to feed that can never be full?

There are many religious and philosophical takes on this archetype/aspect, but they all circle one core truth - a deep, abiding hunger that cannot be satisfied.

Think back to a time when you ate all day but never really felt full. Or when you longed for someone's attention or appreciation, but it just wasn’t there. Or maybe you went to a concert expecting a rush of joy, and the band was off, it didn’t land, it didn’t lift you.

These are small ways the Hungry Ghost begins to show itself. But the roots always run deeper...

The Hungry Ghost whispers through our cravings and can tie directly into addiction, obsession, and compulsion. Whatever we’re obsessed with ends up owning us - it pulls at us, drains us, and keeps us from the deeper peace we truly long for. It can show up as neediness, desperation, the urge to pull attention, or even playing the victim to try to get our needs "met".

In essence, it’s anytime we disempower ourselves by trying to make someone or something else fill the void within.

The Hungry Ghost reveals where we’ve dulled our light, shrunk ourselves into roles, identities, or habits that don’t serve us. It shows us the places we try to “fix” ourselves with things that are far too small, too low in vibration to truly feed our Soul.

And here’s the truth - you cannot banish a Hungry Ghost by feeding it.

To free yourself, you have to stop trying to fill the emptiness with what will never satisfy. See beyond the illusion. Feeding the ghost only feeds the fear, the toxicity, the pain.

The path to healing is a choice - one you make over and over again. The choice to nourish yourself, body, mind, heart, Soul. When we consistently choose what is truly nourishing and aligned, we begin to feel full, supported, cared for. The things we once grasped for outside ourselves begin to reveal themselves within.

And in that shift, we stop making others responsible for doing what they were never meant to do. We release them, and in doing so, we reclaim ourselves.

So over the next few days, I invite you to meditate with these questions:

• What do I crave most that I cannot seem to get? Love, support, freedom? How might I be denying myself these very things?

• What habits have I fallen into to try to serve this craving - habits that actually perpetuate more harm? What am I consuming (food, media, conversations) that hurts me most?

• When do I feel most hungry, lost, disconnected, alone? And what can I choose instead to remind me of what’s real, loving, and supportive?

• Who can I release today from the obligation of being something they cannot be? And how can I nourish myself instead?

When we release our Hungry Ghosts, we make space for new ways of living, loving, and relating. We become more trustworthy, no longer trying to manipulate or control others into giving what they cannot give. When we nurture ourselves, we begin to live with integrity. And that integrity frees everyone we meet to be who they are - without the weight of our unspoken expectations.

You liberate all when you liberate yourself.

Sending each of you blessings for liberation, for you, and the world!

-Jennifer