Selectively Numb
laurenhsweeney.substack.com
“We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.”--Brené Brown
Recently, something uncomfortable happened. Someone hurt my feelings, and I decided to talk to them about it.
My first impulse was to drop it. I tried to reason my way out of feeling what I felt and when that didn’t work, I tried to apply compassion to the offender. I tried to do the things I’m learning to do in therapy—I tried to locate what “part” of me was feeling the way I did, and interrogate this part to figure out what their deal was.
I finally decided that what I was really attempting to do was not seem crazy.
Because in our culture, it’s crazy to feel hurt and to talk about it.