Do you feel like you are starting to become a numb robot? Not being able to get to your feelings is incredibly annoying, because feelings (even bad feelings) let you know that you are really alive. So how can you suddenly become unfeeling, where does not being able to get to your feelings come from and how do you make yourself feel again? Find out in this blog article.
Dissociation
Not being able to reach your feelings is a signal of dissociation[1]. You have lost connection with yourself, so to speak. There are all kinds of dissociation. There are even people who do things in this state and later cannot remember them.
Not being able to reach your feelings, then, is a relatively mild form of dissociation. The annoying thing is that you may feel like you have no connection to yourself or even your own history, or life story. You feel like someone other than you is living your life.
The connection between your brain and your body can feel very poor to you. Your body does what you want, but feeling emotions in your body is no longer there.
An incredibly unpleasant experience, you may feel, or at least that this is not what you want.
What is interesting is that with hypnotherapy you also use dissociation, but precisely to focus on your internal. The connection with your body and your feelings is restored, but you are no longer focused on the outside world. You are aware of the outside world, but under hypnosis it is less important.
Cause of your feeling shut down or not feeling
You may suffer from losing connection with yourself when you experience something traumatic. To protect yourself, your subconscious can then put the connection with your feelings on pause for a while. This can happen during a super traumatic event or just after (source 1).
If this happens during or right after trauma, it is often a precursor to developing post traumatic stress disorder.
In some cases, people who suffer from bi-polar disorder may also suffer from dissociation, or Not being able to reach your feelings.
Problems may already arise in childhood that prevent you from being able to access your feelings properly later on, such as:
- Death of one of your parents.
- Divorce and consequent loss of one of your parents.
- Moving out which takes you out of your familiar surroundings.
- Bad relationship with your parents.
Often, not getting to your feelings can then arise when you don't come to another solution to handle this type of situation. Then not feeling is unconsciously a choice not to feel the unresolvable pain (source 1).
Even neurologically, dissociation due to post traumatic stress syndrome in the brain can be explained. Connections to be able to process your feelings are then broken, so to speak (source 1).
Stress and beliefs
Sometimes not being able to reach your feelings can also have a somewhat simpler cause. Indeed, in our society, negative emotions are somewhat pushed away, as if you are not allowed to feel them[2]. If you have certain beliefs here and you are actually in a period with a lot of negative feelings, you can be hindered by the belief from getting to your feelings.
When you are then out of the stressful period, you can often get right back to your feelings. You can also consciously use self-hypnosis, meditation and even yoga to be more connected to your body and feel emotions, even if it is during stress.
Beliefs about masculinity can also cause you to lose touch with your feelings as a man and even become depressed. Oddly enough, using social media can make this worse[3]. Looking less often on social media may then be a solution.
Alexithymia
You may also suffer from alexithymia, a condition in which you have difficulty recognizing, understanding and expressing emotions. You feel them, but you just don't know it very well[4]. You are then also often not well connected mentally with your body.
Hypnosis to feel your emotions again
So there are multiple possible causes for not being able to feel your emotions properly, and that ensures that there are multiple solutions as well.
Research shows that hypnotherapy helps people suffering from alexithymia to better recognize and understand emotions[5]. Feeling emotions are then restored through the use of visualizations. In the feeling reversal technique, for example, people are given suggestions to give feelings colors and shapes.
These types of suggestions can also help people become more aware of their emotions and feel better as a result.
For men, this can be especially important, as alexithymia can cause erectile dysfunction[6].
Is not being able to reach your feelings more linked to dissociation? Then hypnosis is also great for reconnecting with yourself[7]. This can even have an effect again very quickly.
For example, regression can be used to identify the cause for dissociation, such as childhood trauma. Then it can be processed with other techniques so that closing off to the pain is no longer necessary. Ego strengthening can also be used to reinforce change.
This can also reduce behavioral problems caused by not being able to reach your feelings[8].
Removing limiting beliefs is usually also an important part of hypnotherapy to make it possible to get back to your emotions. Also for obstructive beliefs, regression is often used to find the moment when you decided, for example, "I am not allowed to have negative emotions." Then you can spend the rest of your life blocking those negative emotions and therefore eventually feel like you can't get to your feelings.
With hypnosis, instead of your rational brain, your emotional brain is influenced to subvert and remove these types of irrational beliefs[9].
One way this can be done is with techniques of Ericksonian hypnosis[10]. Much use is then made of metaphors and symbols to get changes done. For example, if something is blocking you from reaching your emotions, you can imagine that it is a wall that you are going to break down and demolish so that you can reach your emotions.
What to expect from hypnotherapy for your feelings
Generally, three to five sessions are required to solve problems. In the first session, you have the preliminary conversation in which you can talk more about your problem of not being able to access your emotions.
You can then talk about the impact this is having on your life and what you think is causing the problem.
In the first session, hypnosis is also explained and you will go into hypnosis for the first time. A small start can then already be made with hypnosis techniques, such as imagining that you are in a safe relaxing place where you can completely relax.
In the second session, the real therapeutic work often takes place. Then come the techniques, with metaphors, regression, the conversation with your inner child, for example, to break through what is currently blocking you from getting to your feelings.
There will also always be a piece for strengthening your ego and post-hypnotic suggestions, so you can stay in touch with your feelings outside of therapy.
The third session is verification that the hypnotherapy has worked. Have you worked in your daily life that you do get back to your feelings? If so, the course is over, and if not, a hypnotherapist will continue therapy with you for a while longer to really make the blockages disappear completely.
In severe cases, suppose you have violent trauma, for example, this may take more than 3 sessions, but generally the third session is also the last session.
Even if you don't know now why you can't get to your feelings.
Learn Hypnosis
Would you like to learn hypnosis to help people get back to their feelings? Then come to a free master class for an introduction.
Or register directly for one of our events and trainings.
You can take the trainings in class in Assendelft, or join the class live online. Super fun! And ideal if Assendelft is too far away for you, or you don't even live in the Netherlands.
Check out our training courses here.
Schedule a 1-on-1 consultation here if you have a question about our training. This is really a check to see if the training suits you, not a therapeutic conversation.
Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
Sources:
[1] https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003057314/dissociation-dissociative-disorders-martin-dorahy-steven-gold-john-neil
