Beyond Numbing: Learning to Feel Instead of Escape

We all have our go-to escapes. Food. Scrolling. Shopping. Overworking. Even silence. On the surface, these might look like coping mechanisms, but if we’re honest, most of them aren’t helping us cope at all. They’re numbing patterns. They distract us, silence us, and keep us stuck in cycles of shame, guilt, and self-abandonment.

The real question isn’t “What do I reach for?” The question is: “Is this numbing me, or is this helping me heal?”

When Numbing Takes Over

I know this pattern well. During my divorce, I can look back at photos and see the story written across my face. Stress showed up as weight gain, sugar cravings, and restless nights. I wasn’t sitting down to nourishing meals. Instead, I found myself snacking constantly, reaching for salt and sugar, and consuming foods that left me feeling depleted instead of restored.

Scrolling was another trap. I convinced myself that liking posts and leaving comments was a form of connection. But the more I scrolled, the more disconnected I felt. It was a hollow kind of comfort. And when home life felt overwhelming, I used work as my escape. It felt easier to throw myself into being productive than to face the conflict waiting for me at home.

Numbing feels like relief in the moment. But it never resolves what’s happening underneath. It’s like pressing mute on a song that’s still playing in the background—you don’t hear it, but it’s still there, and eventually it gets louder.

Why We Numb

Most of us learned early on that our emotions were inconvenient. Maybe you grew up with the guilt-laden message of “kids are starving, so clean your plate.” Maybe food was love, and not eating was a sign of rejection. Maybe silence was rewarded, and speaking up made you “too much.”

These lessons stick with us. They become the unspoken rules we follow as adults. We learn to stuff down our feelings, hide our needs, and find external ways to soothe ourselves—food, alcohol, shopping, endless scrolling, or working ourselves into exhaustion. On the outside, it looks like coping. On the inside, it’s self-abandonment.

The Bridge to Healing

The first step out of numbing is awareness. When I finally realized how much I was reaching for unhealthy foods or distractions, I began asking myself a simple question: Is this helping me heal, or is this just distracting me? That awareness was uncomfortable, but it gave me the choice to respond differently.

I began looking for healthier ways to release stress. Sometimes it was movement—going to the gym or walking outside. Sometimes it was sitting quietly in nature or playing with my dog. And sometimes it was creativity. I’ve always loved crafts, from sewing my own clothes in high school to cross-stitching. Last year I even took a watercolor pencil class. I wouldn’t call myself an artist, but I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it. The room was quiet, the concentration was calming, and for a moment I felt like a kid again with a box of crayons.

Healing is rarely linear. It’s messy, full of false starts and small wins. But the shift comes when you stop silencing your feelings with numbing habits and start experimenting with practices that allow your body to process instead of suppress.

Where Healing Takes You

The truth is, your body is not your enemy. It’s your ally. When we ignore its signals, it speaks louder—through stress, pain, illness, or burnout. But when we learn to listen, when we allow ourselves to feel instead of escape, we begin to build trust with ourselves.

That’s when the transformation happens. We stop shaming ourselves for reaching for the ice cream or losing hours on social media, and instead we start asking what our body is really asking for. We begin to move from self-abandonment to self-trust, from numbing to wholeness.

Healing sometimes goes beyond words. It happens when we give ourselves permission to sit with discomfort instead of running from it. It happens when we choose expression—whether through art, movement, or mindful practices—over suppression. And it happens when we stop treating ourselves like a problem to fix and start treating ourselves like a friend who deserves compassion.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why do I keep doing this when I know better?” know this: you’re not broken. You’re not too much. You’ve just been accepting too little. The patterns that once kept you safe are not the ones that will take you where you want to go.

It’s time to stop numbing and start listening. Because the life you want—the relationships, the peace, the freedom—begins on the other side of feeling what you’ve been taught to escape.

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