In a world where many are emotionally numb, this conversation dives into how to truly feel your feelings. It tackles the phenomenon of emotional blunting and the roots in trauma and childhood experiences. Listeners learn about the risks of detachment, especially in a fast-paced society. The discussion includes practical techniques like somatic checks and the 90-second rule to reconnect with emotions. By embracing vulnerability, individuals can deepen their relationships and enhance their overall well-being.
Emotional suppression often stems from childhood experiences that teach individuals to dismiss their feelings, leading to lifelong coping mechanisms.
Reconnecting with emotions can be achieved through practices like somatic check-ins and the 90-second rule, fostering emotional awareness.
Deep dives
Understanding Emotional Numbness
Emotional numbness often manifests as a disconnect from one's feelings, where individuals may recognize emotions but struggle to fully experience them. This detachment can occur due to various factors, including anxiety and the pressure to maintain a certain emotional state. People might find themselves intellectualizing their feelings—overanalyzing situations instead of allowing genuine emotional responses to emerge. This suppression can lead to a cycle where individuals feel increasingly distant from their emotions, failing to recognize the pain or joy that they are inherently capable of experiencing.
The Impact of Childhood on Emotional Expression
Early experiences significantly influence emotional responses in adulthood, as many individuals learn to suppress their feelings in childhood when their emotions were dismissed or scolded. Such reactions can cause a long-lasting impact, leading to automatic suppression of emotions as a coping mechanism. As a result, individuals may grow up believing that strong emotions are undesirable, forming an unconscious barrier that limits their emotional expression. This pattern of emotional suppression can create a sense of invisibility and disconnect, making it difficult to engage with oneself and others meaningfully.
The Dangers of Emotional Avoidance
Avoiding emotions through strategies like overworking, substance use, or even compulsive social media engagement can provide temporary relief but ultimately leads to deeper issues. These coping mechanisms distract from underlying feelings that need to be acknowledged and processed, resulting in emotional blunting where neither happiness nor sadness is felt intensely. Individuals often resort to these avoidance tactics during stressful periods, which can exacerbate feelings of isolation and disconnection from reality. Recognizing and addressing this avoidance is crucial to re-establishing a healthy connection with one’s emotions, as unresolved feelings can resurface unpredictably.
Strategies for Reconnecting with Emotions
Several strategies can facilitate reconnecting with emotions, starting with the acknowledgment that emotions are a natural part of being human. Engaging in practices such as somatic check-ins—tuning into physical sensations associated with emotions—can help bridge the gap between mind and body. Additionally, the 90-second rule encourages individuals to sit with their emotions for a brief period, allowing feelings to pass without overwhelming them. Emphasizing emotional expression as a personal journey, the use of voice memos or journaling can further aid in exploring and validating feelings, fostering an environment where emotions can be fully experienced and embraced.
In a day and age when 7/10 of us are chronically stressed, living in survival mode, too busy intellectualising our feelings to actually feel them, unsure of whether we will ever feel great happiness again, sometimes we need to return to the basics: how do we actually FEEL our emotions. In this episode we break down:
What emotional blunting really looks like
The root in trauma + stress + childhood
Why we intellectualise our feelings
The consequences + risk of emotional breakdown
How to reconnect to your emotions through the body
The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.