The most common stumbling block Tara Healey sees is people dropping into the body, reporting “I don’t feel anything,” and then beating themselves up about it as though they’ve failed. She turns this completely around. Feeling nothing is not a failure of the practice — it’s data.
“If you don’t feel anything, that’s that’s awesome. What’s it like not to feel anything?”
Her move is to treat numbness as raw material to explore rather than a wall to bounce off. If you “know” you don’t feel anything, then some signal is telling you that — so go investigate the signal. Is it quiet? Does it feel like a void? Is everything just blank? All of that is somatic information.
“Instead of letting the mind tell you I don’t feel anything, go and explore. What’s the data? What are the data points that tell you I don’t feel anything?”
This same curious, non-judgmental stance applies to the other sticking points she names: getting flooded by the nervous system (slow down, soothe it with breath) or flooded by an emotion like grief (give it time, balance it with self-care). Nothing that arises is wrong; it’s all information about what’s there. The practice is to stay curious about whatever you find, including emptiness.
Related Concepts
- Body awareness is built in short enjoyable reps, like going to the gym
- Somatic awareness is a key to presence and to the wisdom of emotions
- The gut points you toward what you want before the mind knows it
- Balance time spent with grief one-to-one with self-care
- The body holds emotions whether or not you put attention on them
- Thinking you can’t feel may actually be repression