When You Can’t Feel Your Feelings: Understanding Emotional Numbing After Trauma

When You “Know” What You Feel… but Can’t Actually Feel It

Many clients tell me the same thing: “I know what I’m supposed to feel, but I can’t access it.” They understand their emotions logically, yet inside there’s a quiet emptiness, a sense of being present but not fully connected.

Emotional numbing isn’t apathy. It’s protection.

When emotions were unsafe or overwhelming in childhood, the nervous system learned to turn the volume down. It helped you survive then, but it can make life feel muted now.

Why Emotional Numbing Happens

Numbing develops when feeling becomes too risky. For many, big emotions once led to shame, rejection, conflict, or withdrawal. Your system learned that safety meant staying small, quiet, or “fine.”

So today you might notice:

• Talking calmly about painful things

• Feeling flat even during joyful moments

• Struggling to cry

• Disconnecting during conflict

• Understanding emotions intellectually but not physically

  
  

This isn’t a flaw. It’s a nervous system doing its best to protect you.

Why You Can’t Force Yourself to Feel

Emotional reconnection doesn’t happen through willpower.It happens through safety.

At Mariposa Healing Center, I use EMDR, NARM, and Post Induction Therapy to gently help the system open without overwhelming it:

EMDR reprocesses experiences that taught your body emotions were dangerous.

IFS to find your Self, understand and heal the parts that hold burdens.

NARM reduces shame and strengthens authentic connection.

PIT helps heal early attachment wounds that shaped emotional patterns.

These modalities create enough stability for feelings to return naturally, at a pace your system can hold.

What Reconnection Actually Looks Like

Emotions thaw gradually, not all at once. It often begins with:

• A small wave of sadness instead of numbness

• A laugh that feels unexpectedly real

• Noticing irritation before shutting down

• The first tears in a long time

• Feeling warmth toward someone and staying present

  
  

These are signs your emotional world is waking back up.

Coming Back to Yourself

Emotional numbing isn’t who you are - it’s what protects you.

Healing is about learning to feel safely, not intensely. It’s about making room for emotions that once felt too overwhelming to touch.

At Mariposa Healing Center, I help clients reconnect with their emotional lives gently and steadily, so feelings become sources of clarity and connection instead of fear.

An Invitation

If you’ve been living in emotional quietness, you’re not stuck, your system is asking for support. I’d be honored to walk with you as you reconnect with the parts of yourself that have been waiting.

With understanding,

Susanne Goldstein, LPC, NCC

Mariposa Healing Center