The Moment the Inner Child Chose Numbness Over Pain

There’s a kind of coping we don’t notice because it looks so controlled: you don’t fall apart! you just stop feeling. Some of us didn’t burn out; we went numb. Because our inner child once learned that feeling too much came with consequences. So that child did the only thing that felt safe: stay calm, stay quiet, stay “fine.” And we grew up keeping that strategy alive. Living in our head instead of our body. Explaining instead of feeling. But the body doesn’t forget what the child shut down. It tightens, trembles, gets heavy, not to overwhelm us, but to ask, “Can it finally be safe to feel?” Healing starts right there. Not with a big moment, just with letting one honest feeling land without shutting it down. And that’s the point where we slowly start reconnecting with ourselves.