Waking Up From Numbness

For many people living with chronic illness, the experience of being “in the body” feels distant. Perhaps you feel numb, disconnected, or unable to sense emotions clearly. It’s not that you don’t want to feel – it’s that your body feels shut down, frozen or hypervigilant – almost always in a state of survival. If this resonates with you, you’re not alone.

Feeling Like Nothing

Chronic stress and emotional repression can lead to a breakdown in communication between the mind and body. Over time, the nervous system learns to suppress pain — both emotional and physical — by shutting down sensation altogether. What begins as a survival mechanism can leave you feeling detached from yourself, disconnected in a state of dissociation and unable to access your very being.

Understanding the Freeze Response

When we talk about the nervous system and chronic illness, we must understand the freeze response. Unlike fight-or-flight, which aims to mobilise the body to respond to danger, freeze is a shutdown state. We go into a conservation mode, numbing sensation, lowering energy output, and keeping in a suspended state of “not feeling” or “living in the mind”.

For many people with chronic illness, this freeze response becomes the dominant state. You might experience:

Emotional numbness (difficulty feeling emotions or expressing them)
Physical dissociation (feeling disconnected from your body, parts of your body going numb, or struggling to sense things)
Extreme fatigue and brain fog
A feeling of being “stuck” in life, relationships, and in healing

These are signs of a nervous system that has adapted to overwhelming stress.

Rewiring: A Path to Feeling Again

The good news is that neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to change—allows us to shift out of these frozen states. This doesn’t happen through force or pressure, but through gentle, safe reconnection with yourself.

Here are a few ways to begin:

Start Small with Sensory Awareness – Begin by noticing sensations: the weight of a blanket, the temperature of the air, or the pressure of one of your hands on the other hand. This helps the nervous system register that your body is present and safe.
Soothing Healing Practices – Orienting or gentle touch practices (such as placing a hand over your heart) or self-regulation healing exercises like the Havening Technique can send cues of safety to the nervous system.
Compassionate Awareness of Numbness – Instead of trying to “fix” numbness, acknowledge it as a protective mechanism. Thank your Mindbody system for trying to keep you safe, and remind yourself that it is okay to take small steps toward feeling again. You can put your arms around yourself in a hug and gently squeeze.

Healing is Reconnection

Chronic illness often arises from a lifetime of disconnection — from emotions, from our bodies, and from our deepest needs. But just as the nervous system and brain can learn to shut down, they can also learn to open back up. Healing isn’t about forcing yourself to feel — it’s about creating conditions where feeling becomes safe and possible again.

If you resonate with this experience, know that healing is possible. Your body has not failed you. It has simply adapted to protect you. And now, with kindness, patience, and gentle exploration, you can begin to reconnect with yourself — one small step at a time.

Next Steps: Reconnect at Your Own Pace

Healing is about creating space for awareness to return. You are learning to be kind to yourself. If this blog post topic resonates with you, you might find this helpful: