Your Amazon Cart Can't Fix Your Feelings

Feeling emotionally numb? You're not alone. Many of us have become "smart, sad zombies" - we can analyze our feelings and name our patterns, but we can't actually process emotions or break free from emotional numbness.

In this episode, we explore why intellectual understanding doesn't equal emotional healing, and how to stop avoiding your feelings through shopping, scrolling, and overthinking.

What You'll Learn:

• How to recognize when you're numbing out vs actually processing emotions
• Why analyzing your feelings keeps you stuck (and what to do instead)
• Practical ways to feel your emotions without being overwhelmed
• The difference between emotional awareness and emotional healing
• How to stop shopping your feelings and start processing them
• A guided mindful breathing exercise to reconnect with your body

Key Topics Covered:

• Emotional numbness and desensitization
• Processing emotions vs avoiding feelings
• Breaking patterns of emotional avoidance
• Mindfulness techniques for emotional healing
• Stopping overthinking and overanalyzing
• How to feel your feelings safely
• Emotional sobriety and authentic living

If you've been trying to think your way out of sadness, buy your way out of emptiness, or scroll your way past anxiety - this episode offers a different path. Learn to witness your emotions without fixing them, and discover how processing (not analyzing) creates space for genuine joy and connection.

This Week's Reflection: Ask yourself - "Am I avoiding or am I actually processing?"

Perfect for anyone struggling with emotional numbness, overthinking patterns, shopping addiction, social media avoidance, or feeling disconnected from their emotions.

Share this episode with someone who might need to hear it - you could be offering the medicine they didn't know they needed.

Chapters

• 0:00 Smart Sad Zombies
• 1:07 Self-Awareness vs. True Healing
• 3:20 Mindful Breathing Exercise
• 6:11 Processing, Not Analyzing
• 7:58 Choose Joy & Final Thoughts

Transcript

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 0:00

Sometimes I wonder have we all gone a little numb, like we're scrolling, reading, reacting but not actually processing anything? Because here's the truth most of us can still feel. We just don't know what the F to do with those feelings. So we avoid, we analyze them to death, we numb out with Netflix or shopping or whatever. I literally just looked at my closet while writing this and realized I've been buying ish I don't even use. The thing is, I know better. I've done the Marie Kondo purge, yet here it is sneaking back in again. Yet I have the tools to ask myself what am I actually trying to soothe here? What feeling am I trying to buy my way out of? And that's what's creating all this disconnection and disease. We're walking around like smart, sad zombies who can explain exactly why we're effed up but can't actually feel our way out of it. Many of us can name out our patterns, yet we don't know how to process, witness and listen.

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 1:06

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, nat Nat. And this is where we create a space to wake up from the emotional numbness. This is where we get real about reactivating joy in a world that wants to keep us desensitized. So if there's somebody that popped into your head. Take a moment to share this podcast with them. This may be the medicine that you didn't even realize they needed to hear for themselves, because many of us are hiding, we're doing it alone, and the reason why I created this podcast so that there'd be belonging and let people know that there is community and they don't have to suffer by themselves. You see, I used to think that self-awareness was I had to name my patterns Like, oh, I'm a people-pleasing again, or there's my abandonment wound, and that's all great. Yet that's only one level the real work To go down and be in my body and be with the actual relief of changing the pattern. Because you know, when I'm still shopping my feelings, at least I have the awareness of asking myself what am I avoiding? Sometimes I can't catch it. I still get into the anxiety, and you know what? I'm a thumber. I use that smartphone and those social medias to avoid my anxiety.

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 2:31

Analyzing is a big one, isn't it? It's the best way to think our way out of sadness instead of just letting ourselves feel fucking sad. There's a massive difference between knowing why you're avoiding something and actually stopping the avoidance. We've confused intellectual understanding with emotional healing, and that's why we're all walking around like smart, numb robots with closets full of ish. We don't need put your hand up. I know some of these guys can relate to this. You're on that sheen, you're on that Amazon cart and if you look you have like a whole load of stuff. I know I do. Yet it's being able to do those micro shifts.

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 3:17

This isn't about being perfect. It's about meeting ourselves where we are, moment by moment, and sometimes we go backwards, sometimes we propel and go forward, yet it's always having a compassionate space to be honest with ourselves, not hide in wanting to be perfect. Actually meet our messy parts. So what does processing look like? It's messier than you think.

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 3:44

I'll use myself as an example. Instead of I have abandonment issues because my dad left, I'll try. There's a scared little child in me right now and she needs me to hold her, not lecture her. Instead of scrolling TikTok when I'm having a breakdown, I allow myself to put on a song that gets me every time and allows an ugly cry that it just wrecks me for a moment and allows me to be authentic and honest. Instead of opening Amazon when I'm feeling empty, I'm sitting with the emptiness and asking what am I actually hungry for?

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 4:29

The goal isn't to be healed, the goal isn't to be perfect. The goal is to be honest about where you actually are and meeting yourself there. See, many of us want to fake the funk and just like a map if you don't know exactly where you are on that map, you'll always be lost. So it takes honesty and truth to indicate exactly where you are, so you can find the solutions, so you can create whatever it is that you want to create. And one of the tools that helps me all the time are these mindful moments. So, right now, wherever you are, stop what you're doing and let's put this into practice.

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 5:10

So take a breath that actually reaches your belly, inhale to the bottom of your spine and let it go upward to your collarbone, and when you exhale, gently, let it out through your mouth, letting all the ish go. Take another deep breath at the bottom of your spine and let it move upwardly, gently, exhale out of your mouth, letting it go, mouth letting it go. Now ask yourself what's the one feeling I've been trying to solve, instead of just having Whatever came up. Don't fix it, don't explain it, just acknowledge it. Maybe say hey grief, hey rage, hey loneliness. You're here and you're real and you don't have to make sense. I'm just going to feel you right now and I'm gonna listen. Whatever may be coming up, let it pass through. You're safe to feel and you're safe to let go take another deep breath all the way to the bottom of your spine, letting that breath rise up and gently exhale, letting that shit go.

NatNat- LiftOneSelf: 6:49

So I don't know about you. Yet in those moments that I take, there's a lot of stuff that sometimes comes up that I didn't even realize I was holding on to, and I hope that in these practices that I bring forth, that it's giving you a little bit more clarity, it's letting your body soften a little bit more, because right now the world is moving really fast with a lot of stuff that we don't even know how to feel or process. You're not alone in that. Our minds always want to make sense of things and make meaning. Yet some of this stuff that we are intaking, there's no way to make meaning of how big it is. So this is where we have to learn to process, not analyze, not avoid. Process, listen, witness, and from there we choose joy, not as denial, but as the reminder that we're still alive, still connected, still growing. So the question for this week is am I avoiding or am I actually processing? Either way, be kind to yourself. That's the only way forward, until next time.