Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / why don't you feel like yourself anymore?

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why don't you feel like yourself anymore? · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

• 0:00
  Why don't you feel like yourself anymore?
• 0:03
  Not in a dramatic way, not in this something's wrong way, but
• 0:08
  just like you're a passenger inside of your body, like you're
• 0:12
  living inside a body that just isn't yours.
• 0:15
  Like life is happening and you're kind of just watching it
• 0:17
  from the outside. I've been there and it is a
• 0:22
  struggle. And I want to start today's
• 0:25
  episode off with a poem that I wrote about this feeling.
• 0:28
  My name is Ethan Jewell, and welcome back to Feel Your
• 0:32
  Feelings. I wrote this poem about this
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  feeling. There's somebody else living in
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  my body. I can tell because he leaves the
• 0:40
  lights on and the door cracked. And he keeps a journal of every
• 0:43
  meal I eat. I watch through a foggy window
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  as he talks about something. He really makes me feel ugly.
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  There's somebody else living in my body and it isn't me.
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  I can tell because when someone asks me how I am, I freeze.
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  They say 1 foot in front of the other, but my legs have gone
• 1:00
  weak. There's somebody else living in
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  my body and I don't know how to tell them to leave.
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  This feeling's scary, this dissociation, this not feeling
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  like yourself. It comes out of nowhere, and it
• 1:13
  often comes alongside other mental health issues.
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  When you're depressed, when you're dealing with anxiety
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  issues, you suddenly stop feeling like yourself.
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  You feel like somebody else has taken over your body.
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  And that's a difficult feeling when you're already struggling
• 1:27
  with your mental health, when you're already feeling
• 1:30
  depressed, and then on top of it, you feel like you've lost a
• 1:32
  piece of yourself. You feel like you're not you
• 1:35
  anymore. That is a nearly impossible
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  feeling to grapple with emotionally.
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  Reconnecting after trying to distance yourself from your own
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  feelings is not an easy task, but it is possible.
• 1:47
  And in this episode, we're going to talk about that.
• 1:49
  We're going to talk about why this feeling happens.
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  We're going to talk about what it does to you and how bad it
• 1:55
  feels. And then finally, we're going to
• 1:56
  talk about some solutions to this issue.
• 1:59
  I want to remind you, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist,
• 2:03
  I'm not a professional in the mental health industry
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  whatsoever. I'm just a normal guy who, like
• 2:07
  you, has felt some big feelings and wants to start the
• 2:10
  conversation. So what is this feeling?
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  What is this dissociation? This feeling like you're living
• 2:16
  in a body that isn't yours anymore?
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  A lot of people describe it as feeling detached from their
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  emotions, feeling like life is happening to them, not that
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  they're experiencing life. Feeling numb, foggy, on
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  autopilot, looking in the mirror and thinking this isn't me.
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  For some people, this experience falls under something directly
• 2:38
  called dissociation. Dissociation sounds very scary.
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  It sounds intense. You know, you're you're
• 2:44
  completely outside of your body, but it's actually a protective
• 2:47
  response. It's your nervous system saying
• 2:50
  this is too much, let's take a rest, let's take the backseat.
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  It's a natural response from her brain to a stressful situation
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  to an overwhelming emotion to try to protect you.
• 3:03
  Whenever I'm thinking of these mental health issues, it always
• 3:06
  helps for me to compare it to a physical issue.
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  So let's think about this like you're trying to run a marathon,
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  right? And maybe you haven't trained
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  hard enough and something comes up that you weren't expecting.
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  Like, I don't know, your leg starts hurting out of nowhere,
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  and instead of deciding to push through you just completely, you
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  stop the marathon and you sit down on the curb.
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  This dissociative response is almost like you sitting down on
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  the sidewalk, like you taking the sidelines because something
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  happened that you weren't expecting.
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  Some difficult emotions, some feeling, some situation happened
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  and now your brain is wanting to take the sidelines because that
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  is much easier than going through it, pausing the emotion,
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  going around it instead of going through it.
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  Research shows that this kind of dissociation often shows up
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  after prolonged stress, anxiety or panic, emotional overwhelm,
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  burnout, or periods where you had to keep going even when you
• 4:02
  didn't have the capacity. It's not always about some
• 4:07
  direct traumatic response. Sometimes it's just years of
• 4:11
  telling yourself, I'll deal with this later, I'll feel this
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  feeling when I have time. I can just push it down for now.
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  You know, other people have it worse.
• 4:20
  I can just pretend this doesn't exist.
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  Eventually that pretending catches up to you.
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  Those feelings, they don't just disappear.
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  That disassociative state, it doesn't fix anything.
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  It's just your own brain pushing a piece of you under the surface
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  because you're trying so hard to not face those feelings.
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  Your body learns that the safest way to survive is to pretend to
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  not feel anything. Another piece of this
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  dissociative state is escapism, and I think this has become an
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  even bigger problem in recent years.
• 5:00
  I remember when I was the most depressed around COVID, I talked
• 5:03
  about this last episode some. I would sit on my phone
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  scrolling for like 10 hours a day because there wasn't really
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  anything to do. And I was sitting there just
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  depressed and I was trying so hard to not feel anything.
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  I would turn to escapism. There's a really big difference
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  between coping mechanisms and trying to escape and numb, and
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  it's super important to make that distinction.
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  Coping mechanisms can be very, very helpful for healing your
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  mental health. But sometimes escapism comes
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  across like a coping technique. So for example, laying down and
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  scrolling in the moment, it feels like it might be doing
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  something good for you because it's stopping you from feeling
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  whatever you need to feel in that moment.
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  But in reality, it's just prolonging your suffering.
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  It's just making you have to deal with those feelings at a
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  later date, after they've sat under the surface, after you've
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  dissociated and taken yourself out of the present moment.
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  And those feelings, they grow stronger.
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  Endless scrolling and binge watching, always needing noise,
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  always staying busy. It doesn't make you weak.
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  It doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong.
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  It just means being alone with your thoughts is uncomfortable
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  or unfamiliar. But when we never slow down
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  enough to heal, when we never slow down enough to think or
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  feel, our own feelings become distant, our own inner world
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  becomes distant, and it becomes a reality that we don't even
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  live in anymore. One day you wake up thinking,
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  where did I go? Where have I been?
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  It's so easy to lose yourself in escapism day after day.
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  Waking up, scrolling, going to work, scrolling, binge watching,
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  never taking a moment for yourself.
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  One of the most important parts in mental health recovery is
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  spending time with yourself. Quiet moments alone, without
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  distractions, without music, without scrolling.
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  That is so crucial. You have to get to know you.
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  You have to get to know your feelings.
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  And when we are scrolling, when we are escaping over and over,
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  day in and day out, we never take a pause.
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  We never take time for ourselves.
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  And living this way is exhausting.
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  You're going to begin to feel disconnected from joy.
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  You feel flat even during the good moments.
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  You struggle to trust your own emotions.
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  You feel like you're watching your life instead of living it.
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  And the scariest part? It can make you feel like you've
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  lost yourself. It can make you feel like you're
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  just spectating your own life. But the truth is, you're still
• 7:36
  in there. You're just a little
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  disconnected from your own inner experience, from your emotions.
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  You're still experiencing the outside world, but you're not
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  experiencing the world inside of you that you're still there and
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  you can still reconnect. So let's talk about what we can
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  do. And we're actually going to
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  start by saying what doesn't help, OK?
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  Because we we hear about this scenario and we think let's just
• 8:02
  snap out of it. That doesn't help.
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  Snapping out of it doesn't help. Forcing positivity onto yourself
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  doesn't help. Judging yourself or panicking
• 8:10
  about that feeling of dissociation.
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  It doesn't help. It only makes that dissociation
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  dig in deeper. What does help is gentle
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  reconnection is coaxing yourself with self compassion and
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  kindness and not forcing yourself to do everything at
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  once, but slowly reminding your body that it's safe to be
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  present again. That is the key to all of this
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  is safety. Your brain needs to stop feeling
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  like it needs to push emotions down, like it needs to escape
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  because it's so scared. It needs to feel safe.
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  So here are some super practical, realistic ways that
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  we can reconnect, that we can come back into our own bodies
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  and we can feel a little bit like ourselves again.
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  First, we can use some techniques that physically
• 8:56
  ground you. It sounds a little bit silly,
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  but I've used these techniques before and they absolutely help
• 9:01
  me feel more present. So reconnection starts in the
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  body. So start with simple things like
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  feeling your feet on the ground, holding something cold or
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  textured, you know, holding it up against your neck, maybe
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  physically bringing sensations to your body, taking slow,
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  intentional breaths throughout the day.
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  You're not trying to fix yourself, you're just trying to
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  notice the world around you. You can name or talk yourself
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  through what's happening. Saying out loud that you feel
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  disconnected is enough to create a little space between you and
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  the fear of what you need to feel.
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  You're not becoming this way. You're not stuck this way.
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  You're experiencing something temporary.
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  You're experiencing an escapism, A mechanism that your brain has
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  been using to avoid feeling feelings.
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  And you have to let those feelings count, even the
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  smallest ones. You don't need some huge
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  emotional breakthrough. Mental health is never this big
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  beautiful moment. Your healing journey will never
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  be 1 moment where you step over the finish line.
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  There's not going to be 1 moment where you fully ground yourself.
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  You're back in your body and you feel all of your feelings at
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  once. No, you have to start with
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  really small. All wins.
• 10:08
  So let's say you feel frustrated about something.
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  Something doesn't go right in your day.
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  Maybe it's disappointing. It makes you kind of feel sad or
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  angry. Instead of immediately pushing
• 10:16
  that feeling down and going back to those ways of escapism,
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  instead of picking up your phone and scrolling physically, stop
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  yourself. Take a deep breath.
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  Name out loud what just happened and how it made you feel.
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  These moments matter more than you think.
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  Being able to physically stop yourself and name a feeling is
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  so powerful. But these are things that we
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  don't do because they feel like they're not helping.
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  They feel so ridiculously small in the moment that you're
• 10:44
  convinced that they're not going to help.
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  Taking deep breaths and naming feelings.
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  It feels childish. It feels naive to think that
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  that would work, but I've used these techniques for years and
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  what happens over those years is those ridiculously small acts
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  build up and what from the start was a small feeling that you
• 11:03
  acknowledged eventually becomes a big trauma that you're working
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  through. That small feeling, allowing
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  yourself that initial breakthrough will lead to the
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  bigger stuff later on. So in those moments where you're
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  dissociated, in those moments where you're trying to get away
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  from something, instead of asking what's wrong with me, you
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  know, why am I so dissociated? Why don't I feel like myself?
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  There has to be something wrong. Instead, try asking what
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  happened that made my system feel like it needed protection?
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  What feeling came up that I'm trying to get away from?
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  What situation frustrated me, made me angry, made me sad, and
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  made me shut down? That question is rooted in
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  compassion instead of shame or guilt.
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  That question is rooted to help you heal instead of just shaming
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  you deeper into escapism. Healing doesn't happen by
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  forcing yourself to be who you used to be.
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  It happens by meeting yourself exactly where you are right now.
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  Because that version of you, it's not gone.
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  You're growing into something new.
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  You're experiencing difficult feelings, difficult emotions
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  that come with the changes in life, and you can't force
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  yourself around that. You have to walk yourself
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  through it. You can't force yourself around
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  those difficult emotions. You have to gently and
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  compassionately walk yourself through them, through your
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  emotions, not around them. Feeling your feelings one day at
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  a time. Starting ridiculously small is
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  how we actually lead to real healing.
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  Starting with a small feeling, acknowledging it is how we
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  eventually heal. Those traumas is how we heal our
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  biggest issues in life. And it's going to feel silly,
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  but you deserve to heal, and you deserve to take one step towards
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  that every single day. You don't need to rush your way
• 12:55
  back, you don't need to fix yourself.
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  You just need patience, safety, and time.
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  And slowly, often without even realizing it, you start to feel
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  moments of yourself coming back. It's not going to be all at
• 13:07
  once, but enough to remind you that you're still here, you're
• 13:13
  right here, and you're worth reconnecting with.
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  That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
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  Thank you so much for being here.
• 13:22
  If you like this podcast, one of the best ways you can support me
• 13:25
  is by getting my book. I read one of the poems out of
• 13:28
  this book at the beginning of this episode.
• 13:30
  There's over 120 in this book and you can find it in the
• 13:33
  description or at ethanjewel.com.
• 13:36
  Also, if you need help feeling your feelings, you should check
• 13:38
  out my music on all platforms under the name of Jule.
• 13:41
  I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.
• 13:43
  Also, drop me a comment. Let me know what you think about
• 13:45
  this topic. Let me know if this is a feeling
• 13:47
  that you relate to and what you might do moving forward to help
• 13:51
  yourself with this. So thank you so much for being
• 13:53
  here. Thank you for understanding that
• 13:55
  you are worthy of compassion and you are worthy of reconnection.
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  And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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  I'll see you next time.