Emotionally Numb

Throughout my work with my clients I can very quickly see who is comfortable with feeling emotions and sensations in their body and who has developed avoiding techniques and is emotionally numb.

It’s not a problem either way.

Both is a totally normal reaction for us human beings.

We want to avoid negative emotion. Every instinct in us screams to stay as far away from it as we can. Why in the world would we TRY to FEEL it? We want to run and hide from it or fight it.

One of my favorite exercises I do with my clients is what I call “ getting into your body”. Where we talk about what’s going on in their life and what they are feeling. Then we go directly into the body and tune into how that feeling is manifesting in the body.

Emotions or feelings are a vibration in the body. A physichal response is always triggered after thoughts produce an emotion.

What’s interesting is we train our brain with responses. It is pretty subconscious after years and years and years. A lot of you might be familiar with this idea of fight or flight.

When we feel emotions we can respond with fight, flight or FEEL.

When we feel a negative emotion we respond with wanting to “fight” by reacting to what we believe has caused this negative emotion. It looks like yelling, throwing, fighting, blaming and so on.

Or when we feel a negative emotion we respond with wanting to “flight” or flee. We just want to take our body and leave, run away from the possible lion and hide in the cave. A lot of times my fleeing looks like me running to the pantry to eat chocolate chips. (That’s a story for another day, but basically our brain wants to feel good so it seeks pleasure aka chocolate)

The last option that isn’t talked about as much is FEEL. Yes we don’t have to respond by running or fighting. We can be in the same space and take a moment to check in with our body and allow the emotion to pass through our body. Different emotions manifest in different places throughout our bodies. When you do this you are truly allowing your body to process the emotion.

Processing emotions is absolutely KEY to substantial changes in our lives. Learning to process emotions is the greatest tool I could teach anyone! Adults, teenagers, or children all need to know how their brain and their body work together.

“Fight or Flight” responses have kept our species alive and striving for millions of years. The responses were essential to our survival. But now? It’s wreaking havoc in our lives. When we respond with “fight or flight” it has a net negative effect in our lives.

We either are pointing blame at the people we love, overeating bowls of chips and ice cream, yelling and throwing things, or running away from all of our problems. Mommas we are not actually processing what’s happening. It’s making our life a whole lot harder.

Not “feeling” is why we feel crazy, gain weight, want to explode and are flat broke!

Because we aren’t actually dealing with the real problems here. We aren’t allowing ourselves to actually feel, process and move on.  Things are building up and we don’t have any coping mechanisms to deal.

This. This my friends. This changes everything. When you learn to process emotions you are taking full ownership of your mind, body and soul. I know it sounds a bit corny but stay with me.

We want to point our finger at anyone, anything outside of us. We want to run away. Or face the problem and change things (outside of us) to feel better. That’s why we have to-do lists miles long. We think that we need to “do” to feel better.

You don’t have to “do” anything but be. Just be. Just stop. Just tune into your body. Let your physichal reaction allow to take place in your body. Tune into where in your body you feel the anger, frustration or embarrassment. See what comes up for you?

Where in your body does sadness manifest?

Where in your body does overwhelm show itself?

The more you practice the more you can identify what you’re feeling just by seeing where your body carries it for you.

When you tune in to your body you will notice the emotion starts to dissipate. It’s like the volume get’s turned down on it a bit because your making a vey higher thinking connection that your brains thoughts are triggering a physichal response in your body. It’s fascinating when you start to do it, liberating really.

So mommas the next time you find yourself trying to fight or flee take a moment. Ask yourself what am I feeling? Where am I feeling it? You’ll start to see yourself responding, you’ll start to notice more how your responding, and want to make a change. Fight or flight does nothing more than keep us alive. Being alive is not enough mommas, we want to thrive. We want to be empowered and intentional about how we behave. We want to feel like we have control again and aren’t just a victim to our emotions. Mommas they are yours! Own them! Feel them! Allow them! Be them! What do you have to lose? Besides financial insecurity, weight and your “crazy”!??? Let’s do it!