Why so many people feel emotionally numb

Over the last few years, the question at the heart of my work has been, “What allows people to feel alive?” I see more than enough clients in my therapy practice who feel they have achieved their goals and are secure regarding their relationships and money, yet nothing seems to stick. Emotionally, they feel a void. A 47-year-old male client tells me, “I have more than what I need. I’m busy all day with work, weekends are for the family. Yet I feel dead inside. I have forgotten what it’s like to come alive with joy or anger. I move through life without feeling much.”

Another client in her late 20s says, “I miss the version of myself from 10 years ago that could immerse in life and experience it to the fullest. Now my social media makes it seem like I’m dabbling in a lot of stuff, but I feel hollow within. On most days I feel numb.”

While many causes and conditions can contribute to clients not feeling alive or experiencing numbness, I often see an underlying thread that contributes to a state of ennui and weariness. I feel across genders that it boils down to the sense of vitality people experience. The term vitality has an element of emotional energy, but at its core it includes a capacity to experience life and the ability to be touched by what life has to offer. A quality that’s becoming rare in the world we are living in—where apathy and self-absorption are kicking in.

The quiet loss of vitality

In my experience, vitality involves zest for life, openness (which reflects in the autonomy one exerts over what can be controlled), how one socially engages with the world, emotional flexibility and grounded optimism.

Vitality is not constant excitement or energy, but a felt feeling of aliveness which can be experienced in many subtle ways and yet experienced personally.

Some of my insights and perspectives on this have been shaped by conversations with clients in their 60s and 70s, who share with me how deeply alive and engaged they feel in their daily lives. Then community and social workers describe how, despite the hard ground realities, they come alive every time they are working and trying to make a change. Then, of course, there’s work with children, who naturally carry vibrancy and curiosity that’s infectious and at the same time offers a new lens through which to view life. Working as a psychotherapist since 2005 has given me a chance to see how our definition of vitality has shifted over the years and how global events and technology have impacted our visceral experience of vitality.

Research has shown that vitality does have an impact on our overall well-being and people’s intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, the absence of vitality can impact how much people engage with relationships, new opportunities, their sense of initiative. In the long run, it impacts how we experience burnout, the goals we pursue and even how we use technology. As a client mentioned, “I keep scrolling on various apps in the hope that something will make me feel something.”

Finding your way back

We need to remember that we all can work towards cultivating vitality. For me personally, going to a biennale, art gallery or watching an immersive film in a cinema hall are activities that can evoke a feeling of collective effervescence and, in turn, an aliveness. I have a client who mentions that going on treks or being closer to nature has the same impact. Remembering what values serve as our anchors and drive us is crucial. I have often seen that as people get older, they sometimes forget the very reason they chose a profession or made a choice. It also helps to pay attention to the people you surround yourself with or spend time with as others are often capable of evoking vitality in us even if they are not consciously doing it.

Sometimes the process of working towards vitality begins when we recognise that it’s missing. Working on vitality is a lifelong process, one that helps us feel emotionally alive.

Sonali Gupta is a Mumbai-based psychotherapist and author.