Have you noticed that you don’t seem to be quite as bothered by the news lately? 

Like, you just kind of scroll past a clip of an ICE raid, or a headline about another wildfire, or the current death toll in Palestine without really having much of a reaction to it? 

Likewise, in that same scroll, you watch reels of kittens doing funny things, someone hosting their own version of a cooking show, ads for skin care products, hormone supplements, GLP1s. 

You’re crumpled up on the couch, staring at your phone, feeling a lot of nothing, except tired, and maybe an impulse to buy something, or eat something, or consume some other dopamine poking thing.

You’ve been putting off getting into an exercise routine. Waiting for a better time to pick up a creative hobby. You’ve been telling the same friends, “we should get together some time,” knowing full well that time will never come. Because you’re so busy. Or rather, you’re so tired. And honestly, nothing really sounds that fun anyway. It just feels like work. 

If you’re thinking, “ah, fuck. Are you spying on me?” Welcome. And no, I’m not spying on you. I just understand the outcomes of chronic stress and unresolved trauma. And I also know what you can start doing about it.

Which is why today we’re going talk about numbness, shutdown, functional freeze- the state of hypo-arousal. We’re going to talk about why you’ve lost your zest for life, who’s benefitting from you becoming a zombie, and most importantly, what you can start doing to get yourself back online- but not the internet. Online in your body. 

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Welcome to Creative Self Care, I'm Crystal McLain — somatic practitioner, nervous system educator, and your guide to stress management, resilience building, and radical self-reclamation.

If you'd like to support this work and want to dive deeper with practical tools and a supportive community, come find us in The Uprising over at Patreon. To learn more visit The Uprising

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THE SCIENCE OF SHUTDOWN

Alright my friend- if you know me, you know I love to kick things off with a little bit science because knowledge empowers you, and it let’s you know that I’m not bullshitting you when it comes to this self care stuff. 

Okay- so, you being unfazed by catastrophic shit in the world doesn’t necessarily mean you’re thick-skinned, stoic, or naturally unbothered by things. It could be that you’ve gone numb. Or, you’re a sociopath. I don’t know, we’ll find out…

Anyway, numbness happens when your body decides that a threat is inescapable, that there's simply too much stress to endure for too long, or when you’ve reached an epic state of burnout. 

When this happens, your nervous system makes a calculated decision to switch your body into a state called, dorsal vagal shutdown. So, where fight-or-flight, or the sympathetic response creates and uses energy- the freeze response, or dorsal vagal shutdown conserves it. 

When your body is in a dorsal vagal sate, it goes into a protective mode. The heart rate drops, and breathing becomes slow or shallow. Muscles get weak, so the body feels heavy or weighed down, and you feel really tired. 

Metabolism slows, digestion stalls, and your body temperature can even drop causing your hands or feet to feel cold. 

Words become harder to access. Life feels surreal and impossible. And your sensory processing, so literally your ability to FEEL, starts to go numb. Including your ability to feel joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.

This is your body’s way of coping when life feels like too much. And when your nervous system is stuck in this survival mode, your brain is going to come up with all sorts of creative ways to convince you to avoid anything that feels like effort, change or challenge. Even if those things are consciously perceived as “good.”

That’s why it’s going to be harder to follow through with going on that walk, picking up that hobby, or making plans with a friend. 

Your rational brain may KNOW that going for a walk would probably make you feel better, that starting a hobby might actually be satisfying, that spending time with your friends may quite possibly be exactly what your body and soul need to feel alive again. 

You are intelligent, and you know, you can conceptualize that these things would benefit you and the quality of your life in some way, and yet- you can’t seem to follow through. 

And that’s just the shit you want to do, never mind the things you don’t want to do. Like scheduling that over due doctor’s appointment, catching up on chores, or establishing a boundary with someone who’s been draining you. 

When you feel incapable of following through, or showing up in the ways you wish you could, that opens the door for all sorts of toxic beliefs and narratives. 

You might tell yourself that you’re lazy. Or broken. You might think, “what the fuck’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just [fill in the blank].” It seems so simple right? Doing the dishes. Taking a shower. Making a call. But not for you. Nope. Nothing can be easy for you. 

And so, those narratives just add to the already insurmountable mountain of stress. 

My dear, dear friend. Please trust me when I say that I know exactly how this feels. I think it’s safe to say that most of us have experienced this at some point, and to some degree throughout our life. 

So, believe me when I say you’re not alone. And you’re not lazy, or broken, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with you. In fact, it means your nervous system is doing a really good job at identifying your stressors and trying to protect you from them. 

The only problem is, is that the stress has been driving the bus for too long. And nobody showed you how to take back the wheel. 

But that changes today.

So let’s start by celebrating what you’re already doing right. 

You’re already proving that you’re capable of investing in yourself- because you’re here- right now- with this post. That’s evidence that you’re able to crawl out of numbness and start reclaiming your life. You showed up with curiosity, and that’s, honestly, half of it. 

So well done. 

Okay- speaking of curiosity, I have a question…

WHO BENEFITS FROM YOUR ZOMBIENESS

As important as it is to be empowered by science, it’s also important to widen your perspective of curiosity, especially when you feel like you’ve lost your autonomy. 

We often ask questions like, "what's wrong with me?" But what if we asked a bigger question instead, like: who benefits from me staying numb?

Because someone usually does, and it’s definitely not you.

Maybe it's the manipulative family member who has an easier time controlling you when you're too depleted to push back. 

Maybe it's a narcissistic, gaslighting partner who thrives when you're too exhausted to notice that they are the one keeping you in a state of hyper-vigilance and hypoarousal. 

Maybe it's the boss who loves how agreeable you are when you don't have the energy to advocate for yourself.

Now, you might be wondering — okay, so why didn't I stand up to them? 

Well for starters, you didn't become passive because you're weak, or conflict-avoidant, or spineless. You got passive because your nervous system did exactly what it's designed to do when a threat feels inescapable — it shut down the parts of you that would fight back, because fighting back felt too dangerous, too risky, or impossible to sustain. 

Remember, your nervous system is going to do all that it can to keep you safe. Even if it seems counter-intuitive. A lot of times we learn to dissociate during childhood, when we’re literally at our most vulnerable, and completely dependent on someone else for our survival. That’s some serious autonomic imprinting that we can carry throughout our entire lives, showing up as exhaustion, overwhelm, perfectionism, people pleasing. 

Unless, of course, we learn how to change those patterns. 

Anyway, let’s zoom out further. 

My next question is: What’s the gain when an entire population is stuck in a dorsal ventral state? 

When actual policies, practices, and structures of a society are built in a way that keeps certain groups on top and other groups on the bottom, or shut out completely, we get something called systemic oppression. And it targets groups of people based on race, gender, and class. And in order for systemic oppression to survive, it requires us to stay stuck in a state of hypoarousal. 

If we’re too exhausted to go for a walk, or hang out with a friend, or schedule that appointment, we’re definitely too numb, too tired, too fucking checked out to organize, or vote, or even notice there’s a problem, let alone resist the policies and societal structures that stand in our way of having a safe, healthy, and dignified life. 

When you’re stuck in that flat, foggy, dorsal vagal nothingness — too tired to notice the deliberate oppression, too tired to even want to fight for yourself — you're not just having a rough week. You're the exact result these systems aim to produce. Because a tired population becomes a compliant population.

A numb population doesn't organize because it barely has the bandwidth to get through the  fucking week, let alone question why the week is so hard to get through in the first place. 

[deep breath]

IT'S A LOT. AND THAT'S OKAY

I know this sounds like a lot. So, thank you for hanging in there. 

I do not say this to further overwhelm you. I just feel we’re in a moment where we don’t have the luxury to fuck around and find out. Because honestly, we already have. We’ve fucked around. And we are finding out that shit is bad, and we are tired. And for the love of all that is good in this world, I want something better for us. And I know we can have it, if we’re brave enough to stop opting for comfort and compliance, and start stepping into our confidence and power. 

I want to recognize all the ways we’re being knocked down into dopamine-addicted submission, and I want us to start getting a little bit angry about it. Because then we at least have some energy to work with, instead of being paralyzed by our fear and exhaustion. 

And this doesn’t mean you have to do anything drastic, or commit to over extending yourself in any way. It simply means reconnecting with your body, and having an honest conversation with yourself about whether or not you feel like you have agency over your energy, emotions, or self advocacy.

And so this is an invitation to join me as we build our courage and our confidence, together. 

So let’s talk about how we do that.

STEPPING OUT OF HYPOAROUSAL

If you’re like most people, you probably want a quick fix to this problem. You probably want to slap down 20-bucks, watch a video, read a download, and be ready to face the world. 

Sorry, friend. That’s not how this works. Training your nervous system to feel safe enough to feel, and express, and choose something different is kind of a slow, gradual process. But it’s one worth investing in. 

And if you’re ready to start prioritizing yourself, and your holistic health and wellbeing, I’d like to invite you to join The Uprising. There’s a self-guided course called, Turn Stress Into Strength, which expands your body literacy, deepens your self awareness, and offers six evidence-based tools that are easily adapted to fit your lifestyle and needs. There’s a bank of inspiration for self reclamation. And there’s an ever-growing library of somatic practices that increase emotional intelligence, help support the nervous system and manage stress. In fact, there’s a whole set of tools that just address Numbness + Shutdown. So, when you’re done with this post, you can head over to Patreon, where I host The Uprising, and get started today. And I offer this all on a sliding scale, because access to empowering, self regulating content shouldn’t be reserved for the privileged. 

Fuck. That. Shit.

Anyway.... 

The way we get ourselves back online in our bodies, is to give our bodies something to sense. And if we’re coming from a place of trauma, it’s important that we start with sensing things that have little-to-no emotional attachment to them. 

So things like, the difference between warm and cold water. Nerve strokes or a gentle scalp massage. Textures, wind, the weight of your body in the chair. The trick is to really pay attention to what you’re feeling, and then to name it, describe it, the best you can.

This may sound too simple, and maybe even silly. But there’s actually a lot going on with these practices. 

For starters, there’s mindfulness- which is the act of paying attention with intention. Every time you bring your awareness back to your chosen focal point, you’re increasing your brain’s ability to interrupt that automatic shutdown state. You’re reminding your conscious brain that you, and it, are in control. You may have an automatic reaction, but you also always have the final say in how you consciously respond. How you use your attention and energy. Mindfulness can also bring us out of things like panic attacks, addiction, rumination. It’s good stuff. 

And every time you engage your senses, you also stimulate cognitive development, and support physical coordination. You’re basically training your brain and body to be better communicators, so you, as a whole, can function more effectively. 

Now let’s be honest. Are we expecting to become fearless leaders in our own life and community after doing a few of these simple, silly exercises? 

ABSOLUTELY NOT. 

But we have to start somewhere. And this is a great place to start if we’ve been numb and shut down for a long time. There’s safety in its simplicity. And that’s what the nervous system needs. It needs to trust that what it is sensing is okay. And it needs to trust you to be in control of the process. 

So go feel the wind on your face. The warmth of a cup of tea. The sensation of cold water through your fingers. And remember that you are alive and have agency. 

I love you.
I appreciate you.
And I hope to see you at The Uprising. 

Bye.