I found myself stuck in a state of emptiness
I am numb.
I am not feeling unhappy, but I’m not feeling joyous either. It isn’t a sad emotion. In fact, I can’t cry. I’ve tried. I think a really good cry, where I sob until my body shakes, would help. It can be cleansing, and a complete emotional cleanse is exactly what I need.
But right now, I am feeling nothing, really. Like when your foot goes numb, and you have to pound it on the floor until the blood flows again. I wonder what the equivalent of that would be to unnumb your mind, soul, and heart. Would an electric shock to my heart make it feel again?
I am sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen. I take a moment to assess my life to see if there is any reason for my apathy. In doing so, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with my brother-in-law a few years ago, when I asked him the secret to being married for so long.
“Apathy,” he said.
“Truly that can’t be the answer,” I said and thought at the time. He shrugged. Maybe he was joking, but maybe he was right. Perhaps the key to living a long life and staying in a job or a marriage is pure indifference.
I am not wired for numbness. It’s why I’ve never liked weed or any drug that numbs your mind. My whole life people have asked me why I am so passionate, energetic, or driven. How can this person who snorts when she laughs, talks too much, and loves babies and puppies now exist in a state of numbness? Speaking of which, when was the last time I snorted, I wonder?
I thought the world was making me unhappy
It’s easy to blame Covid and the last few years of everyone being isolated and remote. It’s easy to think I have no right to feel this way, since I have a loving family, a good job, a beautiful home, and my health. But I do. I blame everything.
I don’t think I’m depressed. I am just lacking joy. My light is not shining. I believe I’ve lost my true purpose in life.
As an empath, I’ve spent my life wishing I could put up a shield to protect me from other people’s emotions and energy. Without even realizing it, I did it. However, in shielding myself from everyone else’s essence, I’ve lost my own. Or perhaps I’ve given in to the gravitational force of negative energy and lost the balance with my own positive energy.
Regardless of why, I am not in balance. As with the universe itself, to exist in an optimal state we need fundamental interaction, physical contact, and energy from other forms of matter and life. While this symbiosis can be painful, it is necessary to thrive and to feel both joy and sadness.
I’m sure I am not alone in feeling this way. Have you ever felt numb, like you’re surviving but not thriving?
If yes, then let’s take this journey together to re-spark our inner light, so we can start shining it again for ourselves and the world. I have been on this journey before. Why it took me so long to recognize the need to do the work I can’t say. But at least I can share this with you, and hopefully, you can hold me accountable.
Here’s the path I am taking.
Choosing Joy with 6 Happiness Habits
1. Admit we are not our best selves
In thinking back to when this started, it’s easy to identify the external circumstances that I thought “made” me feel this way. I was dealing with a lot of stress at work, we were isolated from Covid, we had major family issues and a health situation, and we were dealing with daily fire drills with our family businesses. But in truth, none of these environmental influences made me shut down. I allowed it to happen.
Many years ago, I discovered and defined my personal “why”; the reason I am in this universe. I am here to both shine my authentic light and also help others through coaching and mentoring to discover and shine their true light.
Oh, the irony: the shiner of light has gone dark.
The first step is making the conscious, intentional decision to break free; to not be okay with living life in a dimmed, disinterested state.
We have to be honest with ourselves and admit we are out of whack. Isn’t this always the first thing to attack? One day, I took that first step.
“My life has become unmanageable, and I feel powerless over the way I feel. I want to take my life back.” I told myself and the universe.
Sure, I bastardized the first step in AA, but it worked.
I have the power to change this. Right now.
2. Get Help from a Professional
With this self-realization, I knew I needed help, as it was clear I could not just “knock myself out of it.” I am a true believer in therapy, as with the right guide, you can overcome nearly any trauma or situation. Our brains are so powerful, and I need someone trained in this power to help me move forward or overcome a specific issue.
Before I lost my courage, I browsed onto Psychology Today and started searching for a new therapist. My former one retired, and I’ve tried a couple but never felt they fit. I need someone to challenge me, push me, and give me work to do. I don’t need an overly nice person just to agree with me.
Channeling my doctor daughter, I narrowed down my search to PhDs, Psychiatrists, especially DOs, or other well-educated therapists. As my daughter told me during her own search, “I want someone smarter than me who thinks about humans holistically, not just symptomatically.”
One bio stopped me. It is a woman doctor with an office near me, born in Germany, with a MD, PhD, Mental Health Counseling license, and intensive training in family systems therapy. Based in the U.S. now, but she is a global citizen, well educated, and also interested in spirituality. These all fit my criteria. Beyond my checklist, I am just convinced this is my person. I will call her Dr. P. Within five minutes of reading her bio, I emailed her.
In her response, she told me she was no longer taking patients in person, but only virtually, as she was living in Bali for a year. That only made me want to work with her more, as I figured a little Asian culture and spirituality would be good for my soul.
After one meeting, I knew my gut was correct, as she is amazing.
“Okay, here’s what I want you to do over the next week,” Dr. P states matter-of-factly, as we wrap up our one-hour session.
“I want you to meditate, be aware, and write down where you want to focus your energy. Make that list. Where do you want to focus your energy? How do you get back to doing the things you love? How do you surround yourself with people that give and don’t take your energy?”
“Also, I want you to visualize the best possible outcome for the issue we were talking about. What’s the best way this can be resolved for you and for everyone involved?”
This is a lot, and I’m scratching all this down in my notebook so I can process it later. She must have seen me hesitating.
“Tell me something you haven’t done for a long time that you love and that brings you joy,” she asks.
“Writing,” I say immediately. I used to write all the time, and now I just freeze when I think about writing. And girlfriends. I almost never see my girlfriends, and they are my source of inspiration and community.
“Good,” she says. “Then write something. And call your girlfriends.”
Of course. It sounds so simple. However, I know I’ve had the power to do those things all along and haven’t. Will I do it now that she has made it part of our work together?
3. Do something you LOVE
Amazingly, I do. Two days after our session, I am staring at a blank document on my computer screen ready to write a blog. This blog. Only, I had no idea what I was going to write about.
I look through my previous blogs for inspiration. It’s like reading the words of a stranger. Did I really write all that? The most recent ones date back to 2020. Three years of not sharing my voice with the world. Three years of playing it safe.
I then found drafts of blogs in my online folder and am amazed at all the ideas I’ve had in the past that never made it to the publishing table.
I take a deep breath and give myself permission to just let go. And then, as if my mind is operating on its own, without my permission, my fingers start typing the words, “I am numb.”
With those simple three words, something releases inside me, and my fingers are flying on the keyboard for a couple of minutes. I realize I’ve stopped breathing, and I suddenly gasp for breath and stop typing.
I’ve done it. I’ve started a new blog.
With this step forward, I make a list of what else I need to do while I am feeling my energy vibrating around me, like a bee buzzing around a flower ready to take in the essence of life.
My list includes finishing this blog, picking back up the book I started to write in 2019 and have done nothing since, and getting my personal strength back.
Immediately, I Google searched for gyms near us like the one we went to in Seattle years ago. There are many, and I read through each one: what’s their mission, their philosophy, their style, and their workouts. I find one that combines strength, balance, cardio, and health – that’s it! A mix of CrossFit and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).
I made an appointment to do a free trial. (I have now gone four times, and my body is both sore and soaring with energy!)
4. Be intentional in choosing joy
We can all make a list of things we love to do, and even start checking them off. This will help. It will give you renewed energy, just like it did for me. But that’s not all we need to do to maintain a state of happiness.
We must choose joy every single day. Many of you know of my love of daily mantras and using them in my meditation and as a daily reminder.
I start every meditation and prayer with gratitude. Thanking God and the universe for the abundance that I have. It’s hard to feel sad or numb when you are reminded of all the universe has provided.
Dig deep. When you are feeling numb, it’s hard to be thankful or even find why we are grateful. Start small. Be grateful for the people you love, or your pets, or your comfy sweatshirt you’re wearing at that moment. I found at first I had lost my ability to see abundance, but once I started each morning with gratitude, I soon found more than I could list in my thankfulness.
I pray for those who don’t have abundance or who need support: that close friend still looking for a job; my son who is unsure of his next step; a world at war.
My mother always told me, “if you want to stop feeling sorry for yourself, focus on helping others who have less than you.” She is right. Plus, I believe in the power of prayer and sending positive energy to others. It works.
Then, I ask the universe for help. Help me choose joy and appreciate all I have. Help me shine my light on others. Use me to make the world a better place.
Finally, I focus on my mantra. I am joyful. I am choosing joy.
5. Believe in your soul’s purpose
“I have lost my purpose,” my beautiful mentee says when I ask her how she’s doing. “I just feel lost,” she adds.
It’s like looking in a mirror, as she is only a few weeks behind me in feeling this way. I was there, and now I am not. In doing the work, I realized my purpose was never in question, because it has not changed. I share this with her.
“My purpose, and your purpose, is to be YOU,” I remind her.
“There is only one you in this life’s journey, and you are on this planet at this time to bring the unique talents and abilities you have. You are enough!”
Then, I tell her about my current happiness journey, and the work I’ve been doing.
I realize for many of us this feeling is cyclical. Every five years or so we lose our way for a bit. The outside world, and all the input and feedback we absorb every day, along with our own inner critic, overwhelm us, and we shut down. We stop feeling much of anything, because it is safer than feeling everything.
If you haven’t done it before, now is the perfect time to write down your purpose, or what I think of as your “why.” What is uniquely yours? When you are living your why, you are living the best version of yourself. It doesn’t matter what job you have, or how much money you make, or how many things you own.
6. Activate your community
To be honest, I am still working on this. I have reconnected with several friends, and I made a huge decision to buy a second house in a city, as the isolation of living only on the coast contributed to my morose. This has helped.
Being five to ten minutes away from gyms, good grocery stores, nail salons, coffee shops, and restaurants feeds my need for human interaction and helps me live healthier. While I enjoy my alone time, I do need to talk to and connect with strangers – sharing a smile and conversation.
Working out at a gym is also part of my community. I love the support, high fives, and just adrenalin from a group of people all focused on being stronger, faster, and more balanced. Even though I’m not a social gym rat, and in fact, I’ve been accused of being anti-social when working out, I do like the support of the community at my gym.
Now, I need to do more to meet and connect with my girlfriends. I think about these women all the time. It’s hard to ask for help. I don’t know why, but during my darkest times, when I really need my girlfriends, I go into my hole and don’t reach out. I’m working on it.
If you are reading this and need someone to reach out to, you can find me on LinkedIn. Let’s go through this together and build community.
Happiness is a Choice not a Consequence
The universe often delivers messages to me right when I need them. As I’m working on choosing joy every day and intentionally meditating on happiness and gratitude, a podcast comes up on Spotify I’ve never heard of: Spiritually Hungry with Monica and Michael Berg .
The episode is called: The art of Finding Joy: 6 Ways to Live Happier. Wow. Thank you, Universe, for delivering this gift.
“Happiness is not an effect of external stimuli. It is an effect of internal being. And then the internal state we are in is completely dependent on our actions and behaviors,” Michael Berg says as the podcast opens.
Boom! This is revolutionary to me. Like most of us, I’ve been looking to the world, people, jobs, lovers, and events to bring me happiness. To make me joyful. All along, the ability to create joy existed within me.
Just like we should not need external validation to feel smart or beautiful or good enough, neither do we need outside influence to make us feel happy. We are good enough just as we are. Joy manifests when we choose joy for ourselves.
Of course, in choosing joy we will surely have a ripple effect on the world. Our positive energy will reach out and help others potentially start to feel that joy is possible.
Read these words out loud right now: “I am joyously grateful.”
We can do this.