“I don’t feel anything”: how to regain yourself

Psychologies: Overexertion, fatigue, anxiety… Why can’t we keep up with the pace of life?

Olga Armasova, coach: Our “I” has three components: physical – body, mental – mind, emotional – feelings. Often in modern man there is no connection between these links. We grow and develop in an environment where we are taught to identify with a goal-oriented mind. Keeping in mind a large number of tasks, often associated with material, external values ​​- to earn, to succeed, to be in time for everything – we experience mental overload.

We simply do not have enough resources, and we do not know where to look for them, how to replenish energy. As a result, the psyche cannot cope, the body signals problems, and there is no time left for inner life. And so we are in a state of internal disunity, disunity. It’s not for nothing that when we’re stressed, we feel like we’ve been taken to pieces. But we do not think at all about how to become whole again.

Why do we want to sleep when we are very tired? This is a defense mechanism of our psyche, a signal that everything is enough, there is no more strength, we need to urgently recover. And if we do not hear these body signals and do not take action, then exhaustion begins. It is expressed in irritability, apathy, depression, migraines, insomnia. Sooner or later, a breakdown will come, which will have serious or even irreversible consequences.

What does it mean to identify yourself with your mind?

A modern working woman is faced with the task of making a career, achieving success, and earning a lot. She must look good, and therefore, take care of herself, since the conformity of her appearance to accepted standards affects her possibilities of self-realization. And if she has a family and children, she must take care of them, pay attention to them. All these tasks are lined up in a long queue in her head, require XNUMX% concentration and take up all of her time.

If you try to turn her into a sensual side, ask her what she feels now, she will say: “I feel that I should do this and that,” or “I don’t feel anything.” She thinks that she is experiencing emotions, in fact, remaining at the level of the mind.

In the same way, it is often difficult for her to connect with the body side, to determine where and what she feels in the body, since she perceives the body only as an outer shell. Meanwhile, the body serves as an instrument with which we live and accumulate in ourselves those emotions that have been suppressed, repressed, not realized, which is reflected in the physical state. So the “I” of a modern woman is basically what is in her head.

But why do we lose contact with our feelings?

Parents, teachers, society as a whole broadcast social norms to children, according to which the expression of feelings is not encouraged: you can’t cry, scream, laugh loudly. To fulfill the wishes of adults, we forbid ourselves to feel. We do not live, but we displace emotions, “package” and store them somewhere in the depths until a more serious stressful situation. Or until the complete depletion of resources, when suppressed emotions splash out and we express and live them in an acute form.

It is important for us what others think of us or what we think of ourselves, because often our strictest censor is ourselves. He constantly evaluates: here I can afford something, but here I can’t, I deserve this, but I don’t. We want to look good, to appear strong, and therefore we do not show our true emotional state to others, or even to ourselves. And as a result, we are increasingly disconnected from our sensual side.

How can this be avoided?

Satisfy your most basic needs – security, peace, silence, sleep. A great practice, for example, is to set aside at least half an hour a day to be alone with yourself. You can get up early for this or, conversely, retire in the evening when the children are sleeping. Being with yourself does not mean sitting on the Internet or on social networks. On the contrary, both gadgets and the TV should be turned off and left in silence. This is the time to look into yourself, to scan your state. If you are worried about something, listen to yourself, understand the situation and think about how to deal with it.

“What I feel?” is a question that will help you live emotions in the present without crowding them out, thereby giving yourself the opportunity to be yourself. If, for example, I am angry with a colleague, then, after coming home from work, I can tell my relatives that I am upset and want to be alone. Admit to yourself: yes, I’m angry. When I acknowledge my emotion and connect with it right now, it can move into something else. In any transformation, the first step is awareness, the second is acceptance. Acceptance of oneself and what is happening around is the key to inner harmony.

How does this help us to master ourselves and manage our lives?

We waste a lot of resources if we try to contain our feelings, and this leads to tension. When we give ourselves the opportunity to live our feelings, we let go of this tension. These half an hour alone with ourselves are needed in order for us to move into the position of an observer and see from the outside what is happening to us.

Of course, it is not enough to be only an observer and do nothing at the same time. But after such practice, we will no longer be so dependent on a stressful situation. After all, when we see what we have to do, we do not worry in the now moment. We can relax because we have clarity: where we are, how we feel, what we want, and what we will do to realize our desires.

I can say from my own experience that such a daily practice is a good prevention of stress, it makes it possible to maintain internal balance.

Where else can we draw strength, replenish our resources?

There are many effective practices. Meditation, for example, helps turn off the flow of thoughts. After all, our brain, like FM radio, “broadcasts” 24 hours a day. And in order to calm the mind, we need to move from the usual beta state of brain activity to the alpha or theta state, corresponding to relaxation and lack of control. It gives us emotional stability.

For us, direct contact with the earth is important as a source of life force, but a resident of a metropolis rarely walks on the earth – except that he runs from home to the subway or to the car. If we find time to take a walk outside the city or in the park, we immediately feel a surge of strength. You can listen to the music you like. And if we also sing along or dance, then we find ourselves in a stream of creative energy, which also helps us connect with ourselves.