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Writer's pictureSarah Laverty

Feeling numb doesn’t mean you’re broken


Silhouette of a person looking out towards a sunrise over a lake
Photo by IvanBE pratama on Unsplash

“I don’t know what I’m feeling…” 


When I ask someone to drop into their body and explore their internal felt senses for the first time, this is the most common response I receive. Usually, saying this out loud brings up a lot for the other person. They may feel frustrated with themselves, worried that they’re 'broken' or are wasting my time, or annoyed that "this embodiment thing just doesn’t work". 


They often react like they have failed some kind of test, and are worried that I’m going to stop our coaching session right then. 


Let me reassure you that none of this could be further from the truth! 


What “I don’t know” really means 


If you’re unable to understand what you’re feeling inside your body at any given moment, usually one of two things is happening. 


  1. You’re experiencing sensations but you aren’t able to comprehend what they mean on a deeper level. For example, you may be feeling some tingling in your chest, but you aren’t sure whether this is a little bubble of joy or a sign of nervousness. 

  2. You’re numb and can’t feel anything at all. 


Both of these experiences are completely normal, especially in the context of the society that many of us have grown up in. They are not a sign that “you can’t do embodiment” (not that it’s something we ‘do’ anyway), or that your mind and body doesn’t work properly. 


As a coach, I approach this sense of “I don’t know” with all the sensitivity and compassion that it deserves. Because deepening your relationship with your own body isn’t some kind of test that you can pass or fail, it’s an exploration which takes courage and a willingness to sit with our own discomfort and fears. 


The first scenario is generally quite easy to move through. Even though I’ve been deepening my connection with my body for years now, my most common reaction to any internal sensation is “hmmm I wonder what that’s about”. The goal with embodiment isn’t to produce a clear, rational explanation for everything we’re feeling, but rather it’s to learn to allow ourselves to actually feel. And when we do that the deeper insights arise naturally. 


When you're feeling confused...


There’s lots of ways to simply explore the sensation you’ve noticed, even if you don’t really know what it means. 


  • Let yourself breathe while just noticing the existence of the sensation in your body, allowing your mind to let go of its attempt to analyse it.

  • Invite your body to move as the sensation. 

  • Explore what sound this sensation would make if it could express itself vocally. 

  • Ask the sensation if it has a message for you. If it doesn’t, that’s okay! But there’s no harm in asking. 


Often, after some time, the sensation may grow in potency and disappear on its own. It may leave behind some clarity of insight, or it may not. Learning how to just be with yourself while you experience sensations is an important step in deepening the connection to your body and in time this will lead to beautiful insights and a stronger capacity to experience your emotions. 


When you're feeling numb...


It’s the second scenario that people often worry about the most. 


Numbness often describes the absence of sensation. When we feel into our body, or into a particular area of our body we may have a sense that nothing is there. There’s no gently pulsating life force, no heat and perhaps even a feeling that this body part doesn’t belong to us at all.


Many of us go through life for years with a degree of numbness which we barely notice. But when we start to approach our body with a desire to know ourselves more, this numbness can be alarming, disheartening, frustrating and even a little frightening.


If we don’t understand that encountering numbness is a normal part of the journey back to ourselves we may be tempted to give up completely. 


Our bodies really are magnificent. They are deeply intelligent and our millions of cells are conspiring all day long to keep us as safe as they can. 


When we feel pain, discomfort and overwhelming sensations, our body is skilled at only allowing us to feel as much as we can bear. Our capacity to hold our emotions and sensations is dependent on a vast and complex range of factors, such as our age, our current stress levels, or the level of safety available to us in our external environment. 


When we have an experience which is too much for our system to hold, our body can instigate a safety mechanism to disconnect us from the sensation. It’s designed to protect us and allow us to continue to function in the world without becoming overpowered by our internal felt senses. 


The best way to understand this is to think of a slightly more extreme scenario which you have experienced yourself or witnessed in someone close to you. Often when someone close to us dies, we receive bad news or have a serious physical injury, it’s quite common to feel numb in the immediate aftermath.


It can take days for it to really “hit us” that someone we love has passed away. It may not be until after a serious surgery that we really experience the emotions of the illness that we faced. And it’s not unusual for someone who has had a serious physical injury to report feeling no or little pain despite the deep trauma that has been impacted on them - their body has disconnected them from the pain, which can be life-saving if it allows them to seek help for their injuries. 


Our body protects us from the swell of pain, sorrow and fear by temporarily disconnecting from it. This allows us to process it later when we are feeling safer, and to move through it at our own pace. 


“Well this is all very well Sarah, but I haven’t had any massive incident occur to me lately - I just don’t feel anything!” 


More often than not the numbness in our body hasn’t come from a singular major incident.


Rather it has been a gradual accumulation of discomfort and pain which we have disconnected from, and never found a safe and supportive space to reconnect with.


A society of disconnection  


I believe that those of us in the Western world live in a society which is built on systems which encourage and support this disconnection - and these systems are in turn driven and supported by our numbness. 


Capitalism requires us to move at a machine-level pace, ignoring our bodies’ calls for rest, nourishment, pleasure and emotional connection in favour of keeping up with a high level of productivity. People are expected to grieve close family members in just a few days’ compassionate level; we are encouraged to “leave our personal life at the door”; and given little free time to rest and connect with our loved ones (a vital component of moving through difficult emotions). 


White supremacy and all the systems of oppression which fall under it, such as racism, sexism and homophobia also enforce this numbness as a daily survival mechanism. Those who are victims of oppression are expected to tolerate levels of abuse and restriction of their freedom without respite which leaves the body with little option but to become numb to these experiences as a coping mechanism. And we are all harmed by a system which separates humanity into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and encourages us to accept the suffering and repression of our fellow humans. 


Not only are we exposed to painful daily experiences which create the conditions for overwhelm, but our numbness is then reinforced even more by the ‘solutions’ our society proposes. We are encouraged to turn outward to seek momentary pleasures through food,  sex, drugs or alcohol, social media, entertainment and shopping. 


Let me clarify that none of these things are inherently bad, and most can play a healthy role in our lives. But when we use them to avoid feeling our uncomfortable feelings they can become a means of regulating ourselves which stops us from ever returning to the internal root of our problem - this is how addiction starts.


Given that most of us were never modelled or taught the tools for how to move through difficult emotions, it’s unsurprising that many of us end up relying on these external forms of stimulation to cope with our day to day stressors.   


From this perspective, is it any wonder that when you start reconnecting with your body for the first time, the first thing you’ll run up against is a thick layer of numbness that has been quietly protecting you for all these years?


Your numbness is not an enemy. It’s a friend which has held you through the experiences you were unable to hold alone. Now that you’re ready to face it, let me reassure you that it is not permanent. But it will not leave you until it knows you are safe - just like a good friend wouldn’t either. 


Your body is truly remarkable


To recap, numbness is a protection mechanism implemented by our bodies when we are faced with experiences which are too overwhelming for us to fully process in the moment.


While this numbness can feel frightening or disheartening to encounter, it is also evidence of your capacity to survive difficult circumstances, and your body’s ability to keep you safe.  


Many of us walk around in a state of semi-numbness for most of our lives. I most certainly did (and to a certain extent I still do - the layers are deep!). But there comes a point where an individual may become aware that this state of being isn’t the entirety of who they are. 


Why does this happen?


Sometimes the external stimulus like social media, food and sex stops providing the sustenance we relied on, and we are left asking whether there isn’t a more fulfilling source within us.


Sometimes the relentless pace our society demands from our working lives, family structures and lack of community pushes our body to the point where our inner ‘NO!’ is louder than the shield of numbness.


Sometimes something shifts within us and for just a moment we get a glimpse of the aliveness which exists beneath all the layers, and we are gripped with an insatiable pull into our depth. 


Aliveness is your birthright


I believe that we become aware of our numbness because it is a natural process that, try as it might, our society can’t destroy. 


We witness this in the wild. When a deer becomes frightened and aware of a predator it may go into a freeze response. Its body will become highly still and alert, its muscles tense and its stillness offering a possibility of protection. Once the threat passes and they are no longer at risk, the deer will usually shake vigorously as it leaves this state of freeze and returns to a calmer regulation. Being in a freeze response takes enormous energy to maintain, so the deer must expel and shift this energy through its shakes before subsequently returning to regulation.  


While numbness is a highly effective protection mechanism, it takes a lot of energy for our body to hold us in this way, and it isn’t designed to be a long-term state of being. Our nature is to move through this holding energy and return to a state of calm.


It is just as natural and healthy for us to move out of numbness once we are in a place of safety, as it is for us to become numb when faced with a threat. 


The aliveness that we crave which exists under the layers of numbness could more accurately be described as the energy which has been holding us in that numbness in the first place, now released and able to be used for purposes other than protection. 


A roadmap for meeting your numbness


 So how do we go about meeting our numbness and beginning to move through it? 


Disclaimer: If you experience high levels of numbness or have had significant trauma in your life it may be extremely valuable to work with a professional therapist who is trained in trauma as you begin this work. Please note that some medical conditions can also cause emotional and physical numbness in the body, so if you have concerns do speak to your doctor. 


Create safety 


This is the first, most important step and it’s going to look different for everyone. Your body has created this disconnection from your inner sensations in order to keep you safe. Once you are ready to begin the process of reconnecting to them you need to create other anchors of safety in order for the numbness to begin to shift. 


This can take many, many different forms. On a somatic level it may involve learning to anchor yourself to your seat and feel your rootedness to the Earth. It could include exploring nervous system regulation and gradually introducing habits which support your body in lessening its heightened stress response. 


You may need to take steps to create physical safety in your life. This could be as extreme as leaving an unhealthy relationship, to as simple as carving out some alone time to be with yourself. 


Creating safety also means developing an accepting, non-judgmental space in which you can meet whatever arises as you begin to spend time with your numbness and what lies beneath it. This includes internal relational safety, like practising self compassion and self acceptance, speaking to yourself kindly and offering yourself patience with your process.


And it might involve external relational safety, like working with a therapist, a coach or a trusted friend or family member who is able to receive you with compassion and non-judgement.  


Express and sensitise 


When I say ‘be with the numbness’ you may wonder what I actually mean by that. It’s the experience of allowing yourself to sense what the numbness feels like in your body and, rather than escaping to your mind to analyse or intellectualise it, or turning your focus outward to distract yourself from it, simply letting yourself stay with the experience of being numb. 


This is so counterintuitive to how many of us have been taught to handle our emotions that initially it can seem like a waste of time. Or, like me, you might find yourself thinking “it can’t be this simple…”! But this is how we begin to re-sensitise ourselves to our body’s somatic reality. 


As you begin to feel and sense the experience of numbness in your body you can start experimenting with expressing it in various ways.


  • If my numbness made a sound what would it be? 

  • What shape does this numbness take in my body? 

  • In my mind’s eye what I can see or what colour expresses my numbness? 

  • What in nature represents this numbness. 


You can let yourself move, sigh, shout, dance, paint, draw or sing your numbness. Anything that brings it more deeply into your physical reality. 


As you do this, over time you may start to notice that the thick layer of numbness gradually begins to shift, and become something else entirely. 


Move slowly 


You don’t undo a lifetime of numbness in a day. Thank god, the shock would be unbearable. 


There are some guides and processes out there which urge us to “crack ourselves open” and promise quick results. The type of embodiment I practice does the exact opposite.


I recently worked with a somatic practitioner who described this approach beautifully as a “river of honey” - it moves slowly but sticks.


Underneath our numbness often lies many uncomfortable emotions and sensations: fear, anger, rage, pain, grief. We may even be uncomfortable with the pleasure and joy that resides there too. Only when we move as the ‘river of honey’ do we give ourselves the chance to truly integrate all the experiences we have been keeping ourselves away from. 


I have also found that moving slowly is an important practice in recognising that we are already whole and complete as we are, and learning to care for ourselves without prerequisite. Although you are now desiring to reconnect more deeply with yourself, you are no better or worse than you ever have been. Your more connected or embodied self is not ‘better’ than your more disconnected or disembodied self. This is not a hierarchy. 


You will never reach a stage in life where you are more worthy of love than you are right now - because you are already as worthy as you possibly can be. 


Develop discernment 


Once you begin to move through some layers of numbness it is tempting to start to view yourself as a video game and try to “complete” every level! But you’re not a video game with a clear start and end. You are an extremely complex and intelligent ecosystem, which numbness is a completely normal and healthy part of. 


Our goal isn’t to rid your body of all numbness, rather it’s to learn to discern which parts of you are now ready to return to a state of connectedness and move in their direction. 


This part takes time and as your intuition and self-trust grows you’ll start to do this naturally.

 

Meeting our numbness can change the world. 


I truly believe that learning to meet our numbness is the key to addressing so many of the challenges that we face in our personal lives and our collective. 


Imagine if we developed the capacity (through personal and community care) to face the numbness that we hold towards climate collapse and biodiversity loss. We would finally be able to feel the depth of our grief over the pain of our world, and the love that lies beneath that grief. This would be the burning fuel for healing our relationship with our planet. 


Imagine if we were no longer numb to the pain that capitalism causes our bodies and psyches. If we felt the true impact of over working, doing unstimulating or high-stress work for the majority of our week and spending so much time away from our families and communities. It would be unbearable, and when something is truly unbearable we say ‘enough is enough’. Imagine this happening on a collective level. Imagine what we could create in its place if we now valued how our daily lives really made us feel. 


If you are starting to approach the numb and desensitised places within you, you have my utmost respect. 


It is not a simple or straightforward journey. But I believe it is one worth taking.



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