Today I want to talk about emotional numbness and how it’s related to anxiety. But not before I give you the tea on my dating updates (wahoo!). Spoiler alert: I just read off break up texts and vent about how dating rn is hard. But maybe I’m just projecting my own stuff who even knows anymore.
* Break up updates and my thoughts on ghosting vs. texting
* Emotional numbness, anxiety and my journey to “feeling my feelings”
Anyways, back to our favorite culprit to blame, society! (does anyone actually know what we’re referencing when we say society??) As a society, we tend to fear our emotions, hiding them around corners, making complicated thought loops and stories just to avoid coming to terms with them. How do I know this? Well because I do this LOL. I’ve gone to extremes to not feel and to no fault of my own. Obviously, I once did feel, a lot. In fact, a stellar image of my childhood consisted of me sprinting up the stairs in tears slamming the door. I mean, if you didn’t do that, did you even have a childhood?
SO I’ve been trying to channel this manic childhood version of myself with no success.
Nowadays it seems hard for me to process truly anything. Sometimes bad stuff will happen, things I know I should be sad about and I truly feel, well, numb. It’s almost as if SO much has happened that my body has given up on processing anything and has just defaulted to the easiest state, anxiety. And if it’s really bad everything will just start to feel pointless.
I never fully linked anxiety and feelings until the past couple weeks where I noticed that if I process my feelings, the anxiety fades away.
My friend pointed out an interesting thought about our culture going through a massive change, almost similar to the 60s (am I getting this right?), where we might come out of this a lot more aware of our troublesome mental issues and maybe do something about it. I am intrigued in where that could lead because it does seem that a lot of people are struggling. But what stops people from going back to their old patterns of consumption, arguably the easiest way to run away from any emotion? It’s almost as if we all need a massive course edition on emotions. Who knows.
To end on a slightly hopeful note, I have included some ways I have tried to feel my feelings and their success rates:
* Dancing in my room
Success rate: 70%, the hardest part is getting myself to do it
* Dancing in my room with my eyes closed
Success rate: 70% if I can get myself to do it
* Laying in bed and trying to feel my feelings in my heart space
Success rate: 40%, I keep falling asleep lol
* Listening to sad music
Success rate: 50%, I think I’ve numbed out sad songs too
* Journaling
Success rate: 60% sometimes I’ll go into thought loops that I don’t feel like going down
* Rage journaling
Success rate: A little bit better because at least I’m not trying as hard so the emotions come out
* Meditation
Success rate: 85%, I feel the emotions during the meditation but then afterwards I just feel numb again? So idk should I keep doing the meditation? Unclear
* Calling a friend
Success rate: 85% unless they give you unsolicited advice then -10%
* Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender by David R. Hawkins
So this is the reason I sound so philosophical today lol. I’ve been reading this book and I posted about it on Instagram. He nails it on the head that we are all trying to find the “answer” (unless we have created such illusions for ourselves that we can’t even see the problem but hey I don’t fall into that category so don’t worry). Will keep you all updated on if this book “saves” me lol.
I KNOW I KNOW I’m super late to this train but hey, I got 7 day cinemax trial and I am not messing around.
I have been attempting to consume content that isn’t personal growth lately which has been, um, difficult, but I have landed on watching movies because for the life of me I cannot pick up my fiction book right now.
Although I can tell I am hiding from my emotions, I will say it’s given me a blissful moment, a happy distraction that doesn’t make me feel worse afterwards and maybe more equipped to handle things.
Questions I’ll be asking my therapist and hopefully looping you all in Wednesday.
* Should you go through the motions of life even if you don’t feel up for it? (i.e. walking, hanging out with people, making coffee, etc) I wanted to ask her this because we’ve been working on doing things based off of intuition but sometimes I don’t even know what my intuition is telling me.
* How do I process emotions and avoid distracting myself?
Ending you all with some writing I’ve been working on lately :)
