I’d felt this feeling before. Low energy. Anxious and overwhelmed, yet apathetic and depressed at the same time. I was emotionally numb, cut off from the world, and lost in my thoughts. On the edge of burnout and misplaced at sea.
I wasn’t crying (though I felt like it), and I wasn’t breaking down, but I also wasn’t really feeling anything. Did other people feel this way? What’s wrong with me? How long will I be in this place, Lord?
While numbness is a normal feeling, it often isn’t. We live in a prosperity Gospel world where many Christians fake it till they make it, but is that really what the Gospel calls us to do? Of course not. Because the numbness we’re experiencing isn’t just burnout, exhaustion, or anxiety, though they can all certainly play a role, it’s emotional numbness. A numbness deeper than our flesh, straight to our souls.
What Is Emotional Numbness?
On the surface, many people mistake emotional numbness for depression or apathy. They think it’s severe sadness or a lack of feeling. While each of these factors can contribute to emotional numbness, they aren’t always the root cause. Because emotional numbness isn’t just sorrow, it’s the absence or void of feeling. When we’re overwhelmed, numbness is often our stress response or coping skill for a body that wants to shut down.
Emotional numbness can stem from disconnection, a lack of motivation, or feeling “flat” even in good moments. But overarching each of these symptoms are 5 key culprits:
1. Chronic Stress and Burnout
When our bodies are constantly going, doing, and putting out without proper rest and fun, our nervous system gets overloaded. This leads to living in a state of chronic stress, which ultimately leads to burnout. Chronic stress and burnout have sadly become the norm in our society, but that doesn’t mean we should keep living like this. Remember: Our bodies aren’t machines created to run 24/7.
2. Anxiety and Overthinking
Similar to stress and burnout, emotional suppression is often a coping mechanism for survival. Instead of dealing with our anxiety or anxious thoughts, we push them down, ignore them, or try to numb them. When I first started going to counseling, I didn’t realize how much “baggage” was weighing me down. Over the years, however, I’ve learned that having proper coping mechanisms in place to help me through these tough times is essential to my overall wellness. And that includes taking time to process and pray through what I’m feeling inside.
3. Unprocessed Pain
As with unprocessed emotions comes unprocessed pain. I’ll never forget the day I sat in my first therapy session and handed my counselor the stack of paperwork he had me complete beforehand. The more we talked through his questions, the more at ease I felt. Until he said this: “Amber, you do realize you’ve been through trauma, right?” For decades, I’d lived in denial. My pain was unprocessed, and I was going to keep it that way. But friends, unprocessed pain doesn’t heal; it will later boil over.
4. Depression
While it may not always be the root cause of emotional numbness, depression can certainly play a role. Clinical depression is more than a bad day or a low mood a few days a month. It’s feeling a deep lack and sadness for weeks and months on end. Especially when it’s not clinically addressed, it can only make feelings of numbness and apathy worse.
5. Spiritual Disconnection
As bio-psycho-social-emotional-relational beings, it’s clear that many facets impact our health. Our bodies, minds, and souls have a lot going on inside. But spiritual health and our relationship with God also play a major role. When we feel disconnected from God (for whatever reason), this can deepen our numbness. Many with mental health struggles battle with this because we wonder where God is in our suffering.
Why Numbness Isn’t the Enemy
Instead of seeing numbness as the enemy, I challenge all of us to reframe that point of view. Numbness isn’t a bad habit to eradicate; it’s your brain trying to protect you. It isn’t weakness, it’s overload without relief. Your emotions and everything you feel (or don’t feel) deserve validation, but we must not remain in that place.
If you’re feeling everything or nothing today, here are 5 small steps you can practically take to start feeling again:
1. Start Small- Instead of trying to overhaul your entire life, focus on noticing what’s around you. Your body isn’t a project to “fix” but a person to love. Choose one small step you can take today and let that be enough. It could be reaching out to a friend, scheduling an appointment with a counselor, or taking a walk outside. What matters is that you put one foot in front of the other.
2. Reconnect with Your Body- Instead of sitting in your apathy, choose to move actively. It could be five minutes or an hour, but what matters is that you’re grounding yourself in this moment and choosing to become aware. Try going outside and naming 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
3. Name What You Do Feel- While numbness makes us feel “nothing,” write down what you do feel. Record “nothing” with the date, even if that’s the only thing that comes to mind. Over time, you can look back on these feelings and use them as data for what helps and what doesn’t.
4. Reduce Emotional Noise- I know it sounds silly, and you might roll your eyes, but reduce your time on social media. I also encourage you to put down the phone or laptop and get outside. These things aren’t bad, but they do produce constant output that can quickly overwhelm us.
5. Safe Expression- Instead of bottling up everything inside, take just a few minutes to journal how you feel. If you’re too tired to write, record an audio or voice note as a prayer to God. If you’re really struggling, I encourage you to seek out therapy or help from a trusted friend. Things like counseling, community, and medication don’t indicate a lack of faith; they indicate the faith of someone willing to admit they’re not okay and need help.
You Can Find Hope Again
Right now, you probably feel like hope is eternally beyond reach. And I get it. It’s so easy to feel this way. Your numbness matters. But feeling again is possible. It’s just going to take time and often be a slow, gradual process.
You’re not broken for feeling this way, friend, but you’re buffered. God isn’t waiting for you to feel again to meet you. He’s here, right here, right now, and He loves you regardless of what you’re able to feel.
Today, choose to communicate with Him openly and honestly. Bear your heart! But remember: He loves you as you are, and what you’re feeling matters, but it’s temporary in light of eternity. And some day, you will find hope, even if that day isn’t today. We will hold onto the promise of that hope together.
Photo credit: Getty Images/Inside Creative House
