“I’m not sure how to explain how I’m feeling.” I’ve heard a variation of this phrase dozens (probably hundreds) of times in my office, predominantly by men. They look down into the well of emotion and all they see is blackness. Others struggle with the ability to identify their emotions beyond angry or happy. Some people feel disconnected or indifferent toward others or in response to events. Emotionally numb people may struggle with expressing outwardly what is felt inwardly.
If you see yourself or a loved one in this description, you might be recognizing emotional numbness.
Emotional numbing is an understandable response to protect ourselves from pain. It can arise from trauma or simple emotional neglect. A home where it wasn’t safe to share negative emotions becomes a place where emotions atrophy and die. Emotional numbness provides a shelter for those who have experienced overwhelming traumatic incidents, physical or emotional abuse, or bullying. Feeling emotionally numb may also be symptomatic of a mental health disorder.
Allow yourself to feel! I’m convinced that one of the most effective tools the Enemy deploys is the numbing of our emotions. The Creator of the universe made you with specific emotions designed for intimacy with others and for oneness with himself. To the degree that your emotions are enlivened is the degree to which you will be able to experience spiritual and relational intimacy. You were created to be known and to be loved. Bringing your emotions back to life is worth the risk. Ask God to show you where unaddressed and unhealed wounds have fallen dormant in your heart. Then lay on the operating table as the Surgeon of heaven cleans out the infectious parts of your past and binds your wounds. Expect this to hurt as that is the only way to complete and permanent healing. In his way and in his time, trust the Healer to makes all things new.
For many of us, we learn the art of deadening our emotions through the teeter totter effect.
When I was eleven years old, I had one of the most embarrassing experiences of my young life. I was up to bat with two outs in the final inning and the tying man on second
base. With two strikes, the pitch bounced in front of home plate and the umpire called strike three. The crowd erupted in anger and I dejectedly walked back to the dugout.
As we left the field, my mom placed her hand on my shoulder and told me how proud she was of how I handled the injustice. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back: in front of dozens of my peers and their families, I burst out in ugly tears, throwing my bag on the ground. I felt humiliated. Not because I struck out, but because I had made a fool of myself by publicly throwing a temper tantrum. I vowed I would never display my emotions like that again.
How would I accomplish such a vow? Through what I call the teeter totter effect. When I slip into numbing myself emotionally, bad emotions start bubbling up, so I push up on the other side of the teeter totter trying to think of good things (“always look on the bright side of life”), or I stuff down the rising negative emotions, convincing myself that it isn’t that bad, or trying to shut down my negative feelings altogether.
We weren’t made to teeter totter our emotions.
The book of Psalms is a master class on how to navigate our emotional life with integrity before God. Lament and distress dominate the content of these prayers. During my dark night of the soul, I read and reread the book of Psalms for months finding it my only place of comfort and understanding. Let’s consider Psalm 35, a Psalm of David. Listen to the raw and vulnerable plea David makes to God:
11 Malicious witnesses rise up;
they ask me of things that I do not know.
12 They repay me evil for good;
my soul is bereft.
13 But I, when they were sick—
I wore sackcloth;
I afflicted myself with fasting;
I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
14 I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;
as one who laments his mother,
I bowed down in mourning.
15 But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered;
they gathered together against me;
wretches whom I did not know
tore at me without ceasing;
16 like profane mockers at a feast,
they gnash at me with their teeth.
17 How long, O Lord, will you look on?
Rescue me from their destruction,
my precious life from the lions!
David looks at his situation vividly describing his feelings of betrayal, anger, pain, and loneliness. When his so-called friends were sick, he prayed and fasted for them. He grieved with them as though for his own mother. But when he stumbled, his so-called friends gossiped about him and took glee in his downfall. They gathered him like lions feasting on a felled gazelle. And look at how he implicates God himself! “How long, O Lord, will you look on?” he asks. How can a loving God allow this to continue?
As happens so often, David beats upon God’s breast as he laments, and then begs God to be his rescue:
26 Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether
who rejoice at my calamity!
Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor
who magnify themselves against me!
27 Let those who delight in my righteousness
shout for joy and be glad
and say evermore,
“Great is the Lord,
who delights in the welfare of his servant!”
28 Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness
and of your praise all the day long.
Without sinning, David asks for God to vindicate him and dishonor his enemies and then he turns and asks that his enemies would be those who turn to praise God and pray for David. David assures God that he will praise God for his righteousness when God responds, and he looks forward to rejoicing in sharing God’s faithfulness to the faithful.
Does this feel foreign to you? How could I possibly speak to God like that?
David does not teeter totter his emotions, he plumbs the depth of the well of his emotions and finds God, the true source at the bottom. The Lord is not afraid of your emotions (in fact, he already knows them), he knows you deeply, he knit you together in your mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13). Nothing is hidden from him. And he longs to meet you in the heights and in the depths of your emotions.
Begin the process of practicing how to name your emotions.
Here is one such tool that might help you begin awakening and naming your emotions:
I would encourage you to pick up the emotions wheel in times of distress, as well as on regular ordinary occasions. For instance, one exercise that I often recommend is using it around the dinner table. Pick an emotion at random and try to name the last time you felt that emotion and the first time you remember feeling that emotion. Over time, this will train your mind and heart to be acquainted with what you’re feeling as you’re feeling it. Consider keeping it in your desk at work and in a drawer at home.
You were made to experience a well of emotions and in that well, God will meet you.
[i] Leadskill.com
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