About Feeling Numb

When we stop pretending, stop pleasing, and start choosing the life that actually belongs to us.

We are born pure, open, sensitive, and connected. Then we grow up conditioned and molded by the world around us, almost like soft clay, shaped by family, school, culture, expectations, and the invisible rules of belonging. We learn what it means to fit into a group, what is acceptable, what is praised, what is rejected, and little by little we begin to forget the natural truth we came here with.

We go to school, then college, and for a moment we think we know everything. We feel young, unstoppable, full of ideas, and ready to conquer life. Then, for the following years, we explore, we experiment, we live with adrenaline, we stay awake too late, we eat poorly, we try to taste freedom in every possible way. We collect experiences, people, places, nights, emotions, sometimes extremes. And then, at some point, that little inner voice says: it is time to be serious and start to think about the future.

So we start to belong again, but this time to another kind of group. The group of the 9 to 5. The group of responsibility. The group of doing what we are supposed to do. We work, and we work, and we work, and life begins to move on and on in a rhythm that looks stable from the outside but slowly starts to feel like death on the inside. And somewhere along the way, we realize that maybe we do not really want that life. The life that was painted for us in so many rose-colored tones. The life we were told would make us happy, complete, safe, successful, and fulfilled.

And then comes the deeper realization: maybe we have been numb since Childhood. Maybe we have been disconnected from ourselves for so long that we did not even know we were disconnected. Inner pain and outer pain were not felt as clearly before, because we had built so many layers around the heart. We had become functional, adapted, capable, accepted, productive, and strong. But not necessarily alive.

Then, as we begin to connect again to our inner light, something starts to shift. We are born again, not in the innocent way we were born the first time, but in a more conscious way. This time, we are born through awareness, through crisis, through truth, through the realization that the life we built may not be the life that truly belongs to us.

They say life starts at 40, and maybe there is something very true about that. By then, many of us have already done what society told us we were supposed to do. We got married, had children, bought a house, maybe two or three, maybe the holiday house in the mountains or the place by the beach. We travelled to the places that felt safe enough to explore. We built the image. We played the role. We followed the map. Some of us even divorced, because at some point the structure that once felt safe started to feel too small for the person we were becoming.

Life starts at 40 because this is often when we begin to care less about what others think of what we do. It is when the crisis comes, and with it, the possibility of truth. We decide to start again from scratch, counting our fingers and toes and wondering how many years we still have to feel young, energetic, alive, and brave enough to reinvent ourselves. We start doing the opposite of what we once believed was right, because it is often through a real crisis that we finally question all the decisions we have made throughout our lives.

Then the children grow up, and sometimes they start to reject us, challenge us, or push us away. And after years of being needed every moment, we begin to discover something unexpected: we start to enjoy being without them. What once felt scary, being home alone, suddenly becomes a holiday. We celebrate the moments when nobody is demanding our attention, when the house is quiet, when we can hear ourselves think, breathe, and feel.

And then solitude becomes something sacred. Solitude is not loneliness. Solitude becomes peace, joy, space, and the feeling we had secretly been dreaming of for years without knowing how to name it. We prepare the bath with rose petals and Himalayan salts to clear the energy of the day, and while the water holds us, we begin to dream about the next life that is going to start five months from now. Then we pause and think: well, maybe I could change it a little bit before.

Because suddenly we want so badly to create our best life again. We look at the clock, we look at our age, we realize that we are approaching our fifties, and at that point we do not care so much anymore about what others think. We care about ourselves, and not in a selfish way, but in a way that feels long overdue. We care about our peace, our joy, our truth, our body, our creativity, our freedom, our desires, our energy, and the life that is still asking to be lived through us. And those around us see it and Yes we create a ripple effect of joy that starts to transform their lives too.

And as we begin to manifest the life we always wanted, we start to live each moment as if it were precious, because it is. We become happier, more joyful, more peaceful, more connected to the simple beauty of being alive. I cannot tell you about the rest yet, because it is still to come, and maybe that is the most exciting part. But honestly, now that I have found more peace within, I feel more than ever.

I feel, and I feel, and I feel.

Life starts to feel real.

Authentic.

I am not numb anymore.

And I love it.