Numbness is a form of self protection

So often clients share highly traumatic content without flinching or shedding a tear.

This is common for those of us who have gone through a lot in our lives.
On the outside we seem cool and collected. On the inside we are disconnected and dissociated.

This is one of the signs that your nervous system is overwhelmed. So in this case it doesn’t mean you don’t feel anything. It just mean your nervous system has been in survival mode for way too long. It has learnt to numb out to keep coping with life.

Any extra push will make you crash later, that’s why more rules and more mental processes to follow fails after a short period of success.

True healing can only start to happen once we start to embody a felt sense of safety. Everything else will eventually fail if we don’t “work” on safety through the body first.

With resources, co-regulation and proper titration a sense of aliveness will return and you will finally be able to feel again. Those around you will feel your regulated state too. And if you are a parent, your children will naturally notice the difference and their nervous system will respond accordingly.

Disconnection and numbness are not in and of themselves bad, as they are unconscious self protection mechanisms. But if left unresolved it will hinder your ability to feel joy, to express and feel love.