Numbness isn't power

For most of my life, I lived in a numb state.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I was numb.

At the time, I knew nothing about trauma or the nervous system. I didn’t even know much about emotions. What I did know was how to function, how to protect myself, how to move through life without feeling very much at all. I was deeply shut down and guarded, and because it had always been this way, it felt normal.

When our nervous systems shut down very young, numbness becomes familiar. We forget what it feels like to be connected. We forget what it feels like to be deeply relaxed, open, and present inside our own bodies. I didn’t know there was another way of being. I had forgotten.

I didn’t feel tense. I didn’t feel anxious. And yet my nervous system was so chronically activated that at one point in my life, it had no option but to collapse into a deeply shut-down, numb state for protection.

In this state, life doesn’t feel good. Emotions don’t feel good. Even moments that are supposed to feel pleasurable carry a muted quality to them, as if a local anesthesia has been applied to the experience of being alive. Joy is dulled. Love is distant. Meaning feels thin.

I didn’t come here to be numb, and neither did you.

This isn’t a spiritual opinion, it’s how the nervous system functions. When we feel safe, we live in states of creativity, curiosity, and play. When safety is compromised, the system shifts into fight or flight. And when that becomes too overwhelming or prolonged, the body does the only thing it can: it shuts down. Numbness is not failure; it is deep protection.

I remember the moment my creativity and play disappeared. At the time, I believed I had simply grown up. Looking back, I can see that my nervous system had learned it was no longer safe to feel.

As you begin to awaken to the realization that your life is anything but fulfilling, that it is anything but nourishing, you may also notice how disconnected you feel from yourself. Love may seem elusive. Pleasure may feel distant. Something essential feels missing, yet difficult to name.

At the same time, you may find yourself afraid of feeling again, consciously or unconsciously. Because to feel means attempting to light up a circuit that has been broken, frayed, and overused. A circuit that no longer carries electricity, creative life force, with ease.

When you are no longer in safe communication with yourself, intensity becomes threatening. Any strong emotion is unconsciously interpreted as danger. Something to avoid. Something to protect against.

When I work with clients, we begin by gently reopening the nervous system and the emotional body. There is often significant resistance at first. Feeling has not been safe for a long time. But what becomes clear through the process is that feeling itself is not the problem. Over time, feeling becomes nourishing. All feelings. All experiences.

What was once feared begins to feel supportive. Even painful emotions can be experienced with a sense of care, containment, and love.

You don’t have to fight my love. You don’t have to shut down. You don’t have to escape. You don’t have to fear feeling or facing your wounds. And it’s okay if you still do.

As the nervous system heals, the wounds associated with it soften. They don’t disappear, but they stop cutting so deeply. Eventually, you stop recreating them in your life. You stop generating situations that require constant protection. You stop living inside cycles of suffering.

Life can be experienced ecstatically. Lovingly. With deep compassion and presence.

So I’ll ask again: are you numb?

You may not realize it. You may not realize how deeply shut down you are. I didn’t. I didn’t know.

If you are not experiencing life as nourishing, ecstatic, compassionate, and alive, then you are living in trauma — a traumatized state of existence.

And you don’t have to be.