Episode 14 | Explore Numbness & Dissociation Via The Womb-Space

Welcome To The Womanhood Podcast.

In this weeks’ episode, we’re discussing emotional numbness and dissociation through a Somatic & Energetic Lens. We explore these sensations through this lens, and then bring context to these sensations and experiences via the Female Body; and the Feminine Essence. I end with x4 Somatic Cues to invite embodiment, so you can integrate this Womanhood Wisdom into your life for lasting effect.

RESOURCES:

Heart & Womb Somatic Practices: https://youtu.be/iQ3bhcGbeZg 

🌸 Feminine Harmony Starter Course (info link): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/feminine-harmony/

🌸 Feminine Harmony Starter Course (buy link): https://buy.stripe.com/8x23cu9pDaeReo24Ns5EY0o 

🌹 Book A Somatic Womb Session With Me (info link): https://www.somaticbody.com.au/one-on-one-consults

🌹 Book A Somatic Womb Session With Me (buy link): https://buy.stripe.com/cNibJ08lzcmZ2FkcfU5EY0m

Book an Embodiment Session 🔮📞 A free chat with me:  https://www.somaticbody.com.au/book

Connect With Me:

IG 📲 https://www.instagram.com/somatic.body/

Website 🌐 https://www.somaticbody.com.au

With Love, Shannon

🔻 Somatic & Energetic Integration Specialist for Women,

🔻 Creatress of the Feminine Harmony™ Program and the SomaCycle™ Method.

🔻 Feminine Systems Educator | Reclamation Guide | Ritual Facilitator

🔻 Foundress of Somatic Body™ - a space devoted to helping women reconnect to their feminine bodies.

00:50 Introduction: What This Episode Is Covering

3:30 Pre-facing Numb & Dissociated States

05:15 The Difference Between Numbness & Dissociation

07:58 The Nervous Systems' Protective Mechanism

10:43 What's The Hurry? 

12:59 Forcing Exacerbates It

13:52 Meet Yourself, And Listen To The Pain Body

14:59 The Body Will Create The Space If You Don't

16:03 The Womb Space & It's Link To Numbness & Dissociation

19:07 Numbness/Dissociation That Stems From The Womb-Space

20:17 The Guarded Heart: A Gateway Into Holding Space For Ourselves 

24:14 Create Your Safe Space. Invite The Heart & Womb Connection

24:55 The X4 Somatic Cues For Integration

26:26 Finalising The Integration & Some Extra Resources

28:09 Finalising The Episode & Whats Next (Something New*) On The Womanhood Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Womanhood Podcast. I'm your host, Shannon, Somatic and Energetic Integration Specialist for Women, founder of Somatic Body and creatrice of the Soma Cycle Method and the Feminine Harmony Program. And I'm here to inspire you to reclaim your rhythms, remember your wisdom, and root into your womanhood. Each week I'll be discussing topics centered around our womanhood from a multifaceted, somatic and energetic viewpoint, weaving together both science with spirituality and masculinity with femininity. We'll be talking cyclical natures and rhythms, intuition, instincts, ancient womb wisdom, and grounded embodiment strategies. Find yourself a cozy space and let's get started. If you've ever said, I just feel numb, or I'm not sure what to feel anymore, or I'm not sure I can feel right now in this moment, then this episode's for you. We're going to explore numbness and dissociation through a somatic lens, a psychosomatic lens, of course, and an energetic perspective as well. But we're going to be doing this in a way that reconnects us to our emotional body, or at least invites us to start listening to our emotional body again. But also we're going to be looking at what numbness and dissociation really mean so that we can actually have a greater understanding and a greater appreciation for what it actually is signaling to us, how we can unpack it and start to actually appreciate those moments when we find ourselves in those states of numbness and dissociation. You may be feeling that right now, for example. And so this is a great space for you to land if you're actually feeling somewhat numb to your emotions or dissociated in your body. And I should also preface that we're going to be exploring this not only through a psychosomatic lens, talk about the energetics behind it as well, all the metaphysicals, but we're going to be exploring this through the womb space, being that this is the womanhood podcast. So we're going to start exploring the feelings and the sensations that lack of sensations and feelings that come with numbness and dissociation and how that relates to us as women through the womb space, through the female body. We're going to be exploring all of this, of course, with safety, compassion and awareness, with curiosity and a real reverence for ourselves. And as we start to unpack what numbness and dissociation really means on a on a somatic level, on an energetic level, we'll start to feel that for ourselves as we go through this episode. And if those of you who are listening are actually feeling quite numb and dissociated or a little bit lost in finding, you know, the sensations through your body right now, my hopes is for you that by the end of this episode you're going to feel a little more reconnected to yourself and a little more senses are going to start to come back and like you're no longer just going through the motions of life without fully feeling and fully experiencing the world around you. And we're going to create that space that allows you to be in that numbness and dissociation, to feel safe enough to be there, and also start to invite in a little more feeling, a little more something that you didn't feel was quite accessible, but suddenly feels accessible now. And so, first off, what I'll start with is that if you are feeling or you have quite a few moments in your world recently, current time reality, where you feel like you are numb to your emotions, or you feel like you're dissociated from your body and you can't connect to your body, like you don't trust the things that are going on in your heart, your mind, your physical body, then you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. It's uh it's simply your body protecting you. And we're gonna start to unpack that now. The way we're gonna unpack that is by going through what numbness and dissociation really is. When we look at numbness, this is the absence of sensation. This is what it refers to is the absence of sensation. And you think about that even on a physical body level. When talking about numbness from a neurological perspective, from the nervous system perspective, it's like when you have a lack of sensation. But we can also apply that to our emotions and our heart. There's that lack of being able to feel into our heart, or that lack of being able to find clarity in our mind, or that lack of being able to energetically connect with others around you and sense into them, however it is that you sense people around you when you're in connection with others. And so that's really what numbness is on a holistic perspective. You know, I like to work with the four bodies and not just speak to the physical body. And so when we're talking about absence of sensation for numbness, it's not just the physiological definition of numbness from a nerve issue like nerve damage. We're talking about that absence of sensation of feeling, of clarity of mind, of connecting with others energetically, that energetic exchange. And so that's what numbness means to me on a whole body level. When it comes to dissociation, you know, sometimes we can interchangeably get them mixed up, numbness and dissociation. They feel very similar in how we experience them, which is ironic because numbness and dissociation is like a lack of sensation, but they are experienced very similar and perhaps perceived to be very similar, which they are, but there is a little bit of a difference there. Because when we're talking about numbness, we're talking about an absence of sensation. When we're talking about dissociation, this is where we have a disconnect from the body, a disconnect from emotions or a present moment with someone. And so that's where we're completely shut off. You know, with numbness, it's like an absence of or a lack of sensation. When we are talking about dissociation, it's a it's a complete shut off. There's not even an inkling of feeling. So, like one an example would be the emotional body. We can feel that we are content. We can feel that we are hungry and looking forward to our food. So we're excited for our food. That's an emotional response. But then there's this feeling that feels like I can't put my mind on what it is. There's just no way for me to get through to it. And so that's where that dissociation comes in. I'm dissociated from that particular feeling, or I'm dissociated from that particular person or that particular thing I've been trying to work out in my head. I just, it's so confusing that I feel like I can't even try anymore. That's where that dissociation comes off. Think of it as like cutting a cord. Whereas numbness is like there's that absence or lack of sensation, but you can sense that it's there, you know? Like when we come back to the emotional body, I feel emotionally numb. Like I can sense that I am numb to my emotions in general. It's much more broad, but I can still sense it is there. Whereas dissociation is much more like fine-tuned, we're looking at one particular thing and it's cut off. Numbness is like you're aware of it and you can sense it, but there's this slight numbness or absence of sensation that's going to allow you to be able to work through it. Whereas dissociation, it's like I'm aware of certain things, but when it comes to these particular things, I'm just cut off. I don't even care, you know? And so that's where dissociation does differ from numbness. Numbness is like there's a spectrum of numbness, like from complete sensation to zero. And zero being the cutoff, if that's another, there's probably another metaphor, another way to look at the difference between the two. So yes, numbness is an absence or lack of sensation. There's a spectrum to it. Dissociation is that complete cutoff, a complete disconnection from the body, from emotions, from the present moment, a particular emotion, even, or a particular person, but it's a complete cutoff. Now, when we're experiencing numbness or dissociation, this is where we can bring in some greater appreciation for numbness and dissociation, is by understanding that when we feel numbness towards a certain area of our life or a certain emotion or thought, when we feel a certain numbness or a certain dissociation and cut off from other other people or another situation, it's actually a magic trick that our body does for us. It's a magical thing that happens when feeling or thinking or existing around other people is too much. It's a protective mechanism. And so when we look at the somatic truth behind what numbness and dissociation is, is it's this nervous system response to trauma, to past experiences. It's a protective mechanism, even to current time overwhelm when something becomes too much. You know, I was I was talking about how the mind gets confused and can't figure something out. There's that that slight numbness, that lack of clarity towards something. And so then we eventually just go numb to it, so we can sense that it's there, but we're not quite sure what to do with it. So we just table it, or we completely cut it off, which is dissociation. And so when we're doing that, it's not there's nothing to feel guilty about because it's just our body preserving itself, it's our body protecting itself. Perhaps we are having trouble going through whatever it is, physical, emotional, or mental, because it's too much for us to deal with. And often that is why that nervous system response kicks in. Think of it as like freeze or fawn. When it comes to that numbness or dissociation, whatever it is about, we are freezing and fawning in that moment with that thing. Freezing being numbness, like, oh, I can feel it's there, but I don't really know what to do about it. And so this is where we start to cut off from it and distance ourselves from it. The body's very smart. That's the thing. The body turns down the volume when something feels unsafe or like just unsafe to feel or to think about, to experience. But the thing is, numbness isn't actually the absence of experience. It's just the body choosing less experience to keep safe. Remembering that when we cut something off, we're dissociating from it, but it's not that we're experiencing nothing at all. If we were experiencing nothing at all, then we would just be a blob on the ground with no consciousness and no awareness, right? So when we're dissociating, it's not that we're dissociating from everything. It's just that we're choosing less experience, whether it is numbness or dissociation. We're just choosing less experience to keep ourselves safe. There's nothing to shame or to hurry or to rush to get better when we catch ourselves in these moments either. We want to meet it with tenderness and actually thank our bodies for having that nervous system response to protect ourselves when something's become a little too overwhelming or unsafe in some way to experience. So we can actually have a greater appreciation for our current state, when we are in a state of numbness or dissociation, by thanking our body and just meet yourself where you're at, you know? And at the end of the day, when it comes to dissociation and numbness, when something's too much, feels too unsafe to explore or to experience, especially when it comes to our emotions, more so than our thoughts, more than our mental body, when it comes to our emotions, it's not like there's a rush. There's no reason to rush to process through it. When our emotions are felt in the body and they aren't processed, they don't disappear, you know. So why rush? We don't have to rush to the finish line to try and process and get over something. It's like that grieving process. We don't rush grieving. We don't rush processing our rage. We don't rush, you know, mourning over someone, we don't rush happiness either. We don't rush good experiences either, just because we have to be somewhere. You know, there's a level to that, of course, if you actually do need to be somewhere like work because you need to pay for your bills. There's logistics, of course. But what I'm saying is you don't need to rush to process through a feeling. And the same thing goes with thoughts too, but we're here to focus on the emotional body because I feel like that's something we experience most with numbness and dissociation is our emotions. And so when we think about the fact that when our emotions aren't processed, they they don't disappear, they get stored in the body. They do become suppressed, they do become numb. Then it's like, what's the rush? You know, you want to be able to create the space. That's the thing. You want to be able to create the safe space, the nurturing and grounding and calming space for yourself to be able to process it fully anyway. So if you don't have that capacity to hold yourself the space of a distraction-free space that feels safe for you to fully let go to be able to process your emotions or your thoughts or your, you know, aches in your body or your energetic body. If you don't have that safe space, why try and force it? Why try and rush it? You know, yes, shit gets stored in the body, yes, it piles up, yes, our pain body will start to speak up, but we are human. This is normal, this is what happens. And so don't rush yourself. In fact, rushing yourself is what's going to create more pressure and less safety that is required in order to process through our emotions. And so, yeah, take the pressure off, take the accelerator off, put the brakes on, and just be where you are at. Be okay with the fact that you're feeling numb in that moment or dissociated. And don't worry about rushing to process your emotions or your thoughts or the sensations in your body because it's not going anywhere. And in fact, you're better off serving yourself when the time feels more spacious, when you feel more spacious, like you can hold yourself and you have the capacity to. So, yes, meet yourself where you're at. And when the body begins to disconnect because the emotions have been stored for far too long, that's when the pain body comes out. That's when we can start to listen. That's when if our pain body arcs up enough, it actually creates the space. An example of this is when I was working three jobs in my early 20s. I was 21, I was working three jobs. I had a cancer scare. If you've been following me for a while, you'll have seen the video. I had a cancer scare. And by the end of it, I ended up quitting one of my two jobs. And that created the space for me to start healing, not just physically, because yes, my lymph node that was flared up, it was just a virus. It wasn't Hodgkin's lymphoma or leukemia, like my doctor thought. But that pain body spoke to me, and it was the beginnings of me to start working through. There was no rush. It felt like it at the time because I was working three jobs and I was in a state of high performance and high anxiety. And I, there was all of that emotional baggage and belief systems, the mental body and the energetics behind that from being around certain people who like to be high performing as well. There was all of that that I had to unpack, but there was no rush. And eventually my body told me it was time and it created that space for me to do the work. And so there's no rush, just meet yourself where you're at. Yes, shit will get stored in the body. Yes, your pain body is gonna arc up, but that's what creates the space for you to do the work. And I'm not saying wait until your pain body's arcing up and you're experiencing something bad to start honoring yourself. What I am saying is that if you are in a moment of numbness and dissociation, forcing yourself to try and process through it is not going to help. And so be okay and be at peace with where you are at and trust that when your body is ready to process these things, it will tell you. I'm not saying to ignore your body until the point where you become reactive. Still be proactive, still honor yourself, but don't force yourself to process things. Just create the space. Start there. Create the safe space. Take the pressure off. That's a that's a way you can create safety in your body is by taking the pressure off. Create the space first. No rush to process through anything. We need to create the safety. And the same thing can be mirrored when we look at the womb space. So this is where I'm gonna start to bring in the feminine body, the femininity, because we are women listening here on the podcast. Or if you are masculine or a male and you're listening, it's because you want to understand that femininity, that female body more. When we start to look at the womb space and feeling a disconnect there, I'm gonna start there because this is how we can relate it to the female body, we can apply the same values. A disconnect from the womb doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. It just means that you did what was required in order to feel safe. So if you experienced a traumatic labor, if you have experienced a loss through the womb, whether it be infertility, miscarriage, even bad experiences with your bleed cycle, your menstrual cycle, if you've dissociated from that part of your body, that part of your femininity, or even your breasts, then the same rule applies. This is just a protective mechanism, honor that and come back to creating the space and the safety first without rushing the process of healing. Thank your body for protecting yourself, for having that nervous system response to protect itself. The first thing is just acknowledging that there's numbness and dissociation there. And then just meeting yourself where you're at and creating the safety, creating the space to nurture yourself. And this is where I come back to that womb disconnect. The womb, when we're we're talking about women and femininity, the womb is our epicenter. It's the epicenter of our femininity. It's what makes us a woman, is our reproductive organs. And the womb space itself is our emotional center. It's our center of creation, it's our center of nurturing and safety, even when we look at the sacral chakra. And so when we take all of that into consideration, I would say the best place to start, and this is a hot tip, when it comes to us being women and addressing our numbness and dissociation, creating that safe space is by meeting our womb. If we feel like we have a disconnect from our womb, if we feel like we have a numbness or dissociation from our body or our womb space, we meet ourselves and our womb space in a safe place. We create that safety, we create that space to just be there and nurture ourselves. And that's why I say just start there, especially as women, even if you're a male or masculine, like create the space. But when it comes to women, especially, we have that magic ability within us. We can tap into our womb space, the space of emotions, the space of nurturing our emotions, the space of creativity, create that safe space. Literally, that's we can tap into our womb to create that safety, to create that nurturing. We have this magic trick up our sleeves that we don't appreciate enough. And it really is the most magical thing to be able to access that. And to learn to access that takes time because you have to learn how to access your womb space as a woman or to remember how to access your womb space as a woman in your own way. Find your own journey. And again, it's about taking the pressure off, not comparing yourself to others and just creating the space that feels safe for you. Now, this can be particularly hard to create safe space when you're feeling numb and dissociated, but especially when that numbness and dissociation is centered around emotion, like emotional numbness or dissociation, or centered around the womb space, feeling dissociated from the womb space. And this is where I'm going to tie it back to what I was talking about before. If we've had some kind of trauma within the womb space, whether it be fertility or menstrual cycle or a hysterectomy, even, you know, the womb space is still there, even if we have had our womb taken away from us physically. Because we are not just a physical body. We are emotional, mental, energetic. That space, that epicenter is still there. We are still woman. And so when we have a dissociation or a numbness that is specifically around the womb space as a woman, it's going to feel more challenging to meet yourself in that moment of numbness and dissociation and to create that safe space and just be there when the womb's involved, as in when that dissociation or numbness feels like it's linked to the womb. And 99% of the time, if you're a woman, it is going to be somewhat linked to the womb, even if that's not what's presenting for you or coming up for you right now. And so this is where we can start to access the guarded heart and our emotions. Emotional guarding is our protective mechanism. It's where that emotional numbness and dissociation path start. We start to guard our emotions, suppress our emotions to not express them or to not even acknowledge and witness them. And when we continue to do that, when we are taught to suppress our emotions, to not express them, when we are taught to just get on with our day and not show our feelings, when we are taught to not nurture ourselves from whoever it was in our child life, our past life, when we have been taught to believe that this is okay, then over time it's what leads to that disconnect and that dissociation, that numbness, whichever of the three it is. I mean, you can use numbness, you can use disconnect, you can use dissociation, but that's what it leads to is that that guarded heart, that conditioning of the guarded heart, really. It's a conditioned response. And so we can counteract that through vulnerability rather than guarding and protecting. And so this is where heart wound practices, I'll link it in the show notes below, but heart wound practices come especially unique to us as women. We can tap into our numbness and dissociation in the sense of creating safe space for it by tapping into our womb space and our heart space. If our womb space is where we're feeling the disconnect and feeling the numbness, whichever, then we can come to the heart space first and foremost. Start to de armor the guarded heart. And this is where I was going with you know, if we have womb trauma and womb dissociation or womb numbness, it's hard to tap into our body as a woman if that's where our guarding and our protection is. And so we come back to the heart space. Our epicenter of our emotions is our womb space, but our heart. Also, you know, the heart chakra, our connectedness to others, but also to ourselves. And so we come back to the heart space. It's easier to access if we have some kind of disconnect or dissociation or numbness in the womb space. We come back to the heart first. Then we start to sink heart to womb. Then we start to drop in and surrender and create a nurturing space for our body. And that in itself is what's going to create the safety for ourselves to start feeling again without pushing, without rushing, without forcing ourselves to process anything. It just creates the space to be held and just to witness what unravels without any attachments of what unravels or trying to predict what might unravel. And that's a big part of somatic work in general, anyway, is like just let the body lead and witness what happens rather than trying to control and focus or be attached to what is about to unfold or try to predict what's going to unfold. That that's actually a protective mechanism there where we're trying to predict what's about to happen or control what's happening. The only way we can surrender and heal when it comes to numbness, dissociation, or even just dropping in somatically, especially as women, but in general, is by surrendering to the safe space. And if we're creating, you think about it, if we're creating safety, then what is there to fear? So that's why we start with safety. We start with heart womb connection and the safety within that. So if you want to start practicing that on a more regular basis, I'm going to be linking that in the show notes below. That's another hot tip for you. There's a practice that you can try and start to work with for yourself, to explore that for yourself and to start to feel what safety feels like for you. Because, like I said, it's going to be your own journey. You're going to experience this in your own timeline, like on your own timeline. There's no rush. It just what's happening is happening. It's meant to be. And so, yeah, numbness is what happens and dissociation is what happens when that guard never comes down, the guarded heart. And that really is the gateway. Unlocking that guard is the gateway to feeling again, to connecting to the body again without rush or urgency, just inviting that in by accessing the guarded heart, taking those guards down by creating safety. And you can apply this, like I said, to any masculine or male person in your life, or if you are, you can apply this to your life as well. But when it comes to women in particular, we can access this through our heart and our womb space. And the reason we do that is because these are our epicenters for our emotions, for creativity. So creating the space, the safety, and for nurturing. And so that's really why we start there. One more thing I will leave you on before we finish up here. And it's something I like to do at the end of a lot of my episodes, is some reflective somatic cues or prompts. And for the end of this episode, I think I want to make it a little more integral, like a little more practical for you to integrate. And so I'm going to ask multiple questions before we finish. So feel free to pause this and grab yourself a notepad and pen or any kind of medium that you might want to express your answers on. We'll keep it really integral here, especially if you're in a moment of numbness and dissociation right now. I would recommend pausing, grabbing a notepad and pen or whatever it is you want to use to record, and I'll meet you back here. But just taking a moment to kind of drop in, you can close your eyes, listen to my words, and we'll just go through this question by question. And so question number one, where in my body do I feel nothing, numbness or dissociation? Where in my body do I feel nothing? Numbness or dissociation? And again, you can pause through each of these questions so you have time to answer, but I'm just gonna run through them. So just pause after every time I ask a question. So question number two, when did I first learn it wasn't safe to feel? When did I first learn it wasn't safe to feel or to feel a certain thing? Question number three, what might my body be protecting me from? So get curious about this. What might my body be protecting me from? Have reverence for that and thank yourself for that protection. Because there's gonna be gems of wisdom in there too. And the fourth and last question is what would safety feel like in my body right now? What would safety feel like in my body right now? Again, pausing to answer that question too. So you can pause between each of those four questions. But these are the four questions I would leave you with at the end of this episode to get started on exploring what your numbness or dissociation is currently, or if you feel like you tend to have that come up for you, you can revisit this podcast or revisit these four questions and start there. And especially when it comes to the fourth question, what would safety feel like in my body right now? This is the place to start when it comes to creating the safety. So you'll have that practice, that heart wound practice in the links below. But also based on your answer of question four, you can start there too. This is again, it's not about needing an answer right away or needing to heal from your numbness or dissociation straight away. We're not trying to force, we're not trying to create urgency, we're just trying to create a safe space. And so, what would your body feel like right now if it was safe? Is that fourth question that you can integrate. Another way you can answer those four questions is by noticing what arises every time I ask that question. So you can come back to this moment of the podcast and just notice what arises in the body. That can be a practice in itself to invite sensation into the body rather than writing your answers down on a cognitive mental level, noticing what you feel in your body as each of those four questions are asked to you. And so if this episode stirred something in you, this is your body beginning to speak. So just trust that. Trust that whatever has come up, whatever is stirred throughout this episode is what's meant to be. And it's actually the language of your body. It's it's wisdom and it's something to be thankful for, just as much as numbness and dissociation is. It's a messenger, it's a protective mechanism. And so there's no need to rush, there's no need to force the feelings, and just be where you're at, create the safe space. And remember that magic wisdom of your womb space, something unique to us as women. So it's something, it's like a little magic trick. It's something to be especially magical and mystified by. It's very cool. We can literally create through this center the safety for our emotions, for our body, for our mind to just rest and be and witness what unfolds. So I'll be seeing you in the next episode where I'm gonna be guiding you through something a little bit different to every other episode I've done before. I'm actually gonna be guiding you through a somatic audio journey. And so that's gonna be something very different. I'm gonna guide you through feminine embodiment. And so we're gonna be tapping into that feminine aspect of our body, the female aspect of our body in the next episode. So if that sounds like something that you're really interested in, I will see you next week. Until then, bye for now. As we finish this week's episode, remember that you are your own rhythm keeper. So just keep listening for that rhythm and keep coming home to you. Until next time, with love, Shannon at Somatic Body.