Connor Beaton explains why men numb out emotionally and how to stop. He covers five steps: identify numbing behaviors, reduce them, notice physical sensations of numbness, use breath to reconnect to your body, and label what you feel. SSRIs can compress emotional range, and most men were never taught to feel.
Alright team, welcome back to the ManTalks Show. Connor Beaton here, and today we are going to dive deep into how you stop numbing out. And we're going to talk about what it is, what actually is numbing out. We're going to talk about why does it happen. And then I'm going to end this series, this little episode with how do you actually stop? How do you actually move through it? Emotions are just an energetic and physical experience. They are an energetic and physical form of information, right? Some people, you've probably heard the term, emotions are energy in motion, right? So emotions are an energetic experience, but they also have a physical part of them, right? So when you feel angry or sad or anxious, there's a very specific experience that you will have in your body, right? When you feel something, you don't just feel this analogous energy in your body, you actually feel it from a sensation standpoint somewhere in your body. Now, the trick here is that for a lot of men, the other thing that I want you to know is that for a lot of guys, you're not numbed out. You've just never been taught how to feel your feelings. And that's going to be a separate video, a separate conversation, but you've never been taught how to actually just feel, or you grew up in an environment where you were told, do not do that, right? You shouldn't be angry, or it's not okay for you to be sad, or, you know, it's not okay for you to display your different emotions, especially the quote-unquote bad ones, right? The sad ones, the angry ones. So that's what numbing out is. There are some caveats to numbness that I want you to know about, okay? 'Cause there are some drugs that are out there, and drugs are bad, okay? But there are some drugs that are out there. That's a South Park reference in case you didn't know that one, but it also wasn't a very good impression, so that's okay. But there are some drugs that are out there that are going to numb emotional pain, all right? And, well, let me just tell you what they are, okay? So antidepressants, there are some antidepressants and SSRIs that if you are prescribed those, they can have the result of, imagine that your normal emotional range is like this, right? You've got your high highs of joy and excitement and happiness, and you've got your lows of grief and sorrow. What some antidepressants and SSRIs do is they compress the spectrum or the volume at which you will feel those emotions. What causes us to numb? Well, hopefully you're beginning to get a bit of a picture that we numb out because we're feeling too much. What do you do? How do you stop numbing out? How do you stop numbing out? Well, the first thing that I want you to know is that just because you numb out or because you feel numb sometimes doesn't mean that there's something foundationally or fundamentally wrong with you. Every man that numbs out consistently has to go through what I call a— is a dethawing period. Where you are going to have to, over time, allow yourself to let some of these emotions out slowly, okay? And allow yourself to build a more robust connection to what is physically and emotionally happening in your body. And I'm going to give you a structure to do this, okay? I'm going to give you a structure to start to feel your feelings, to dethaw, and to stop numbing out. So the first step you need to take is number 1, you need to identify what behaviors and what substances you are using to numb out, right? Second, create a plan to reduce the volume of the usage of those substances or those behaviors. Okay, next, realize that numbness is an actual feeling and experience in and of itself. Kind of paradoxical when you think about it, but it is. Numbness is a feeling. It is an experience that you have. It's something that you feel and you can identify it. And what I would like you to do, number 3, is I would like you to try and write out in as much depth and detail as possible what numbness feels like physically, okay? What are the sensations attached to it? Does it feel hollow? Does it feel vacant? Does it feel like there's a lot of space in your chest? Number 4, as you go through this process, you are going to want to use the breath to reconnect to the body. So as you start to reduce the volume and the amount of using these coping mechanisms to help you numb out, and as you start to de-thaw and these emotions start to come up in your body, you are going to want to use your breath to connect to the physical sensations and the emotions that you are experiencing. Number 5, look for sensation. Look for physical sensation. Now, this is the key to letting go of numbing out is you actually get to start to feel everything that's happening in your body. You actually get to start to feel your feelings. So you can start to identify where is there tension? Where is there heat? Where is there contraction? Where is there cold? Where is there, energy moving around? Where do I feel like there's tightness? Where do I feel like there's weight and heaviness? And you can start to use some of these descriptors to pinpoint where there's sensation in your body. Please share this episode or any episode that you have found to be helpful for you. Man it forward to somebody in your life that you think will enjoy it. Share it on social media. All of that goes a long, long way to spreading the message. So until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off. See you next time.
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