03/31/2026
I was in paradise.
Ocean view. Warm breeze. Women I’d grown to love in four days. The kind of retreat I’d dreamed about for years.
My teacher gathered us in a circle at sunset and asked the simplest question.
So, how are you?
By the second woman speaking, tears were already rolling down my face. By the third, I was focused entirely on not falling apart before it was my turn.
I failed at that.
When she turned to me, I sobbed, the kind where you can’t breathe or speak. And when I finally found words, they were:
I feel nothing. I am in paradise and I feel nothing. I am completely numb.
That’s the thing nobody talks about.
The woman whose reactions feel too big for the moment, who snaps, spirals, says something she regrets, and replays it for days, she’s not dramatic. Her nervous system is overwhelmed and has nowhere to put it.
The woman who goes quiet, stays busy, gets through the hard thing and moves on, who wonders why she can’t seem to feel joy even when life looks good from the outside, she’s not cold. She’s been managing emotions so long she’s lost access to them.
These women look completely different from the outside.
Inside, they’re doing the same thing, surviving emotions that never felt safe to feel.
And most deeply feeling women I know have been both. Sometimes in the same week. Sometimes in the same afternoon.
The over-reaction that seems too much. The numbness that feels like nothing.
Neither one is who you really are.
They’re what happens when no one ever taught you how to actually feel your emotions, safely, in your body, without losing yourself or disappearing.
That moment in the circle cracked something open in me. For the first time in years, I had told the complete truth about how I felt.
That’s where it starts. Not with controlling your emotions better. With finally feeling safe enough to have them.
If you recognized yourself in either of these women, you’re in the right place. Follow along. This is exactly what we talk about here.
