Feeling Nothing? How to Get Back in Touch With Your Emotions

Are you feeling empty or emotionally numb? Having trouble knowing what you want, or finding things that interest you? Many people experience a chronic sense of emotional detachment, which can hold them back in life.

So why aren’t you feeling anything?

Feeling emotionally numb can be caused by various factors, but is often a result of chronic stress or trauma. This emotional state can lead to a lack of motivation, difficulty making decisions, and an overall sense of apathy.

I distinctly remember the first time I realized I felt empty inside. In my early 20’s, I was sitting at the edge of a lake in France watching my then-boyfriend windsurf. I admired how much he loved surfing – and many other things in life. It dawned on me that I didn’t really feel passionate about anything. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I feel the same excitement for things as he did?

This continued to be a theme in my life until I finally discovered why: I wasn’t connected to my emotions. It explained why I often felt disconnected from life, living on autopilot.

Through therapy, coaching, and self-care, I was able to start understanding and addressing my emotional detachment. Slowly but surely, I started to get in touch with my feelings again. And as it turns out, I am passionate about many things! I just wasn’t able to access those feelings before.

If my story resonates with you, I hope this article will help you understand why you feel a lack of emotion and how to reconnect with your feelings.

Why do I feel nothing?

There are many reasons why you could be feeling emotionally numb, but it's often the result of chronic stress or trauma. High-stress situations can tax our emotions and exhaust the physical body, causing us to feel drained and disconnected. Emotional numbness can also be a coping mechanism to prevent us from feeling more pain, especially after a traumatic event. Without being consciously aware, we can become really good at shutting our feelings down.

Many people also deal with some level of emotional numbness because we live in a society where being emotional is not valued. Most of us are taught that vulnerability is weakness and we are encouraged to suppress, ignore, and hide our feelings. How many times have you been told to “stop crying” as a child, or to “suck it up” or “keep it together”?

What Happens When You Avoid Your Emotions

We are designed to release our emotions as they come up naturally. For example, crying helps us release stress and emotional pain.

So what happens when we don’t feel our emotions?

Suppressing our feelings doesn’t make all that emotional energy go away, it just gets stored in our bodies until we can release it (fun fact: the word emotion comes from the Latin word emovere, which literally means “to move out or away”). But many of us never do, and so these emotions slowly start to weigh us down. Research has linked emotional repression to stress, anxiety, depression, and a decreased immune system function.

We also end up in a vicious cycle: the more we repress our emotions, the more difficult it becomes to face them. We fear that once we open the floodgates, we’ll be too overwhelmed. But, if we keep avoiding our emotions long enough, it can result in an emotional breakdown.

Aside from causing health issues, not acknowledging our feelings means we’re unable to fully enjoy life. Because when we disconnect from uncomfortable emotions, we also can’t feel the positive ones – like love and joy. We start to feel like we’re just going through the motions, but not really living.

Our feelings also communicate our deepest desires, needs, and goals. When we don’t listen to them, we risk leaving our needs and dreams unmet. And then we wonder why we feel empty and unhappy.

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Signs You Are Disconnected From Your Feelings

It took me a long time to recognize that a lot of issues I had in life were caused by my inability to connect to my feelings. Being out of touch with your emotions can result in a variety of symptoms, but here is a list of common signs:

Feeling emotionally numb or flat
Overanalyzing emotions instead of experiencing them
Difficulty making decisions
Difficulty accessing or identifying your emotions
Using unhealthy addictions to avoid emotions
Feeling a lack of motivation
Avoiding situations that might trigger strong emotions
Inability to feel passionate about anything
Difficulty expressing your feelings
Constantly distracting yourself with activities or technology
Struggling to connect with other people or have intimate relationships
Feeling overwhelmed by emotions

3 Steps to Get Back in Touch With Your Emotions

I know how frustrating it can be to feel emotionally numb and detached from life. The good news is, it’s something you can change. Just know it can be a slow process, so be patient and kind to yourself. Therapy or coaching can be really helpful to assist you with this. Here are 3 steps to get back in touch with your feelings:

1. Practice Self-Awareness

When you are feeling detached from your emotions, often it means you are disconnected from your body – and therefore your feelings. By becoming more aware of the sensations in your body, you can get back in touch with your emotions.

The best way to reconnect with the feelings in your body is to do a body scan meditation. Either seated or lying down, close your eyes and bring awareness to each part of your body: start at your feet and slowly move up to the top of the head. Along the way, notice any sensations you are feeling. Do they feel pleasant or uncomfortable? Do they feel light or heavy? Try to be curious about what you are encountering, without criticism or judgment.

Try to do a mindfulness meditation regularly so that you can make it a habit to listen to your body and become more aware of all the physical sensations you feel on a daily basis.

2. Learn to identify your feelings

According to the authors of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 only 36 percent of people are able to accurately identify their own emotions as they happen. So if you’re having trouble knowing what you are feeling most of the time, you are not alone.

Being more aware of the sensations in your body can help you identify your emotions. For example, tension in your shoulders might indicate you are feeling overwhelmed. A lump in your throat might mean that you are feeling sad. Or a warmth in your chest could suggest you are feeling happy. Try to name what you are feeling (which btw, can be more than one emotion).

If you’re having a hard time identifying your emotions, it can help to uncover what event or circumstance could be causing these feelings. Maybe you just had an important conversation, or you experienced a challenge at work. Also, what thoughts were you thinking that could’ve influenced your emotions?

While some feelings are more obvious, sometimes we need to dig a little deeper to find the root of the emotion. For example, anger often masks sadness or grief. And anxiety could also be excitement (they tend to be very similar).

3. Express and release your emotions

It’s important to regularly release your emotions so that you don’t end up storing them in your body (with negative consequences such as depression, anxiety, and chronic illness). Expressing your emotions can also help you develop a greater understanding of yourself and your emotional triggers.

Here are some ways you can express or release your emotions:

Journal. Writing about your feelings can help you process and make sense of them.
Talk about it. Practice telling others how you feel. Putting your emotions into words can help you let them go.
Work out. Physical activity can help you release tension and strong feelings (while also boosting your mood). Yoga is especially helpful because it also encourages mindfulness.
Be creative. Engaging in creative activities such as painting, drawing or sculpting can be a powerful way to express and release emotions.
Seek counseling. Talk therapy can help you bridge the gap between your thoughts, actions, and emotions.

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Final Thoughts

Feeling emotionally numb is often the result of stress or trauma. We also live in a culture that encourages us to suppress our emotions. Whatever the reason, not being in tune with our feelings can cause us to feel empty and leave us unable to enjoy life fully.

Luckily, we can learn to get back in touch with our emotions. Mindfulness can help increase our body awareness and reconnect us with our feelings. With practice, we can start to better identify and express our feelings. When we are fully able to feel our feelings, we can start to enjoy life fully.

XO

Annie

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