Are you Comfortably Numb?

Having recently requested the song ‘Comfortably Numb’ by Pink Floyd at a sing along I attended, I have been wondering how many people go through life numb because it’s comfortable.

It can take some sort of wake up call to realize we’re even caught up in this. Life can slip by when we’re busy in it… with work, with children, with life… and then one day we wake up and realize we’re getting a bit older, our children might have left home, our parents are suddenly looking old or may have even passed on, our relationship might not be going well or have fallen apart… and we realize life isn’t as much fun as it used to be. We notice we rarely get excited about anything; life has a boring quality to it. We might try out a new hobby or buy something we’ve always wanted… and it gives us a flicker of excitement… but it doesn’t last. We might start to feel sad about what our life has become, but we quickly push down these feelings by throwing ourselves into our work or a hobby or anything so we don’t have to feel the pain of it… we are comfortably numb.

It takes courage to face pain. To unpack it (even if it’s slow and gentle) and gradually feel all the emotions that arise. Once we’re a bit older we’ve accumulated a fair bit of pain from the various traumas of life – events that may have occurred a day ago, weeks ago or even years ago can have an enormous impact without even touching on childhood stuff. Many of these events have similar components - they are triggers or echoes of the past that present to us later as another opportunity to heal. It’s not so much about the actual event, as about working through the emotions that arise from the event – unsticking and moving them, as well as examining any beliefs that have us stuck in the past that might be leading us into situations where we create the same issue over and over again. This is essentially trauma work – an ‘undigested’ experience of any sort that has us stuck. It doesn’t have to be big ‘T’ major trauma or even the big life events described earlier, it could be something smaller that was repeated often that left us feeling a certain way that we weren’t willing (or able) to feel at that point in time. When we felt the need to remain comfortably numb – and this is okay as a temporary solution – but eventually that pain comes back and over time as it accumulates, it has a bigger and bigger impact on our quality of life…

So why would we want to do this work?

I’m going to answer this as a question to you…’how does it feel to be numb?’…to go through life in such a numb state ‘what is it you miss when you are numb? Can you be happy and numb at the same time?... I mean really happy.

The comfortably numb version of myself before I did all this work was a shadow of who I am now. Nothing much felt good – except maybe the odd drawn out holiday or the adrenaline rush of a wild tramping (=hiking for those not from NZ) expedition. Everything felt gray and definitely boring. Life was mundane and each day felt like ‘groundhog day’.

So how do we begin this work?

Firstly we need to feel a little bit more comfortable about un-numbing ourselves. While cognitively we might understand the ‘why’ we’d want to do the work, we need to develop an internal feeling of safety within ourselves. Developing a ‘safe container’ within the body is what all my students and clients first learn in both my group program and in 1:1 therapy. It is a crucial first step in processing the pain from our past.

So what is it like to do this work?

Here’s my experience…

When I began this work of facing my own pain:

It was painful

It did hurt

I did cry… a lot

I did get angry

I was scared

BUT

I learned to find a sense of safety deep within my core (NB: this is something I prioritize first with all my clients and students)

I learned to slowly release that pain and gradually it got less and less

I learned that it was okay to cry (even weirdly ‘pleasant’ because it brought relief)

I learned that it was okay to be angry as long as I didn’t project it on others or turn it on myself.

I learned it was okay and normal to be scared and that when it got too much I could bring myself back to my sense of safety within.

And through it all I began to literally ‘lighten up’

I began to see beauty in life again - even in the small things

I began to connect authentically with others

I began to feel joy again

…and that is so incredibly beautiful.

I know I will still face challenges (I am currently now)

But I have the tools:

To cope with the challenge

To feel the pain as it arises

To process the feelings that come with the pain

And I know the challenge will eventually recede, as well the pain.

This is why I do the work I do. I’ve been there. I know what it takes. I’m prepared to go on the journey with you because I know the true wonder and worth of being on the other side of it all, and I want this for you too. So if you’d like to join me for 1:1 therapy (note that this is only available to 18+ year old NZ, Australian and Canadian residents)… just drop me a line or book in a free half hour session with me so we can chat about it further by clicking here. Or if you think you might have the pattern of the ‘good girl’ (read this blog here or attend my next live one hour workshop here) and consider joining my group program ‘Free to Be Me’ (read more here).

As always… wishing you well in this crazy world.

 x Joanne