Do you remember when you used to look forward to things?
Not in an anxious, forced way—but genuinely. When a weekend trip could spark real anticipation. When dinner with friends felt exciting. When small moments throughout your day could bring a smile to your face without effort.
And now… if you’re completely honest with yourself… that’s changed.
Maybe it happened gradually, so slowly you didn’t notice until one day you realized: I don’t really look forward to anything anymore. The things that used to light you up now feel flat. You go through the motions—showing up, functioning, doing what needs to be done—but inside, there’s a heaviness. A grayness. A quiet sense that something essential has dimmed.
If this resonates, I want you to know something important: you’re not broken, and you’re definitely not alone.
I’m Abi Beri, a holistic therapist and somatic practitioner, and this is something I’ve experienced myself. It’s also something I work with in my practice constantly—this loss of joy, this emotional flatness that so many of us carry but rarely talk about openly.
Today, I want to help you understand what’s actually happening when nothing excites you anymore, why this happens to so many of us, and—most importantly—how to begin finding your way back to genuine feeling.
The Loss of Joy Isn’t Random
Here’s what I’ve learned both personally and professionally: when joy dims, when you stop looking forward to things, when everything starts feeling like going through the motions—this isn’t happening randomly. Your system is trying to tell you something profound.
My Story: When the Fire Went Quiet
A few years ago, I noticed something had shifted in me. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but I realized I had stopped genuinely looking forward to experiences. I’d plan something that should have excited me—a trip, a gathering with people I cared about, a new project—and I’d feel… nothing.
Not sadness exactly. Not acute depression. Just a flatness. A sense of going through the motions. The anticipation was gone. The spark was missing. That fire in my belly—the aliveness I used to feel just moving through the world—had gone quiet.
And the confusing part was that nothing was particularly wrong. My life looked fine from the outside. I was functioning. Working. Showing up. But inside? Inside there was this low-level heaviness, this chronic sense that life had lost its color.
I’m sharing this because I think this experience is far more common than we acknowledge. And I think we need to talk about it more honestly, without shame, without the pressure to pretend everything’s fine when it’s not.
What’s Really Happening: The Science of Emotional Numbness
When people search “nothing excites me anymore,” they’re often looking for two things: understanding why this is happening, and hope that they can feel differently.
Let me address the why first, because understanding what’s going on in your body and nervous system can actually be the first step toward change.
Your Nervous System Has Three States
Your autonomic nervous system—the part of you that operates automatically, without conscious thought—has three main operating states. Understanding these is crucial to understanding why joy has dimmed.
The Ventral Vagal State: Safety and Connection
This is where joy lives. When your nervous system is in this state, your body feels calm but alive. Your breathing is easy and full. Your heart beats at a healthy rhythm. You can think clearly, connect with others, and actually enjoy experiences. This is where that fire you remember comes from—the spontaneity, the aliveness, the genuine excitement about life.
The Sympathetic State: Stress and Activation
This is your fight-or-flight response. Heart racing, mind spinning, muscles tense, always on alert. A little bit of this is healthy—it’s excitement, challenge, appropriate stress. But chronic sympathetic activation? That’s the endless to-do lists, the pressure to perform, the rushing, the constant low-level anxiety that defines modern life.
The Dorsal Vagal State: Shutdown and Collapse
This is what happens when your system gets overwhelmed and gives up. Everything slows down. You feel numb, disconnected, exhausted in a way that sleep doesn’t fix. There’s a heaviness, a sense of “what’s the point?” This is where depression lives somatically in your body.
Why You’re Stuck in the Loop
Here’s what happens to most of us: we get stuck cycling between sympathetic activation (stressed, overwhelmed) and dorsal vagal shutdown (collapsed, numb). We push and push—trying to meet demands, keep up, be productive. Then we crash—exhausted, flat, barely getting through. Then we force ourselves to push again because there’s no choice, right?
But that first state—that ventral vagal place of calm aliveness where joy actually exists? We hardly ever get there anymore. Our nervous systems have literally forgotten what genuine safety and connection feel like.
This is what’s happened to your fire. It hasn’t disappeared—it’s been suppressed by a nervous system stuck in survival mode.
Why This Happens: The Slow Accumulation
The question I get asked most is: But why? Why did this happen to me?
The truth is, joy doesn’t usually leave all at once. It’s a gradual dimming that happens for understandable reasons.
When We Stop Feeling Our Feelings
When you were younger—whether that’s childhood or just a few years ago—your body probably knew how to feel things fully and then let them go. You got angry? You felt it, expressed it (maybe loudly), and then it passed. You felt sad? You cried, and then the sun came out again.
Emotions moved through you like weather.
But then life taught you different lessons: Don’t be so emotional. Calm down. Sit still. Be productive. Stop being so sensitive. This is how adults behave.
The world you were entering didn’t really have space for your full emotional range. It needed you controlled, contained, predictable, productive. So you learned to hold your feelings in instead of letting them out.
And here’s what nobody tells you: those emotions you didn’t express didn’t disappear. They went somewhere. They settled into your body. Into your shoulders, your jaw, your belly, your breath, your nervous system.
Over time—months, years, decades—all of that unexpressed life, all of that unfelt feeling, becomes a weight. A dimming of your fire.
The Modern Life Factor
Add to this the specific pressures of contemporary life: constant connectivity, endless information, productivity culture, financial stress, relationship complexity, global uncertainty. Your nervous system is chronically activated, always perceiving threat, never fully resting.
Research in positive psychology shows that two specific dimensions of wellbeing—purpose in life and personal growth—naturally decline between midlife and older age. Not because of biology alone, but because of how we’ve structured modern life. The things that make life feel meaningful gradually get squeezed out by demands and responsibilities.
The Sadness Beneath the Numbness
When nothing excites you anymore, there’s often a deep sadness underneath. Not always the crying kind of sadness. More like a soul-level grief for the life you’re not living, the feelings you’re not feeling, the person you used to be before the dimming began.
The 13th-century poet Rumi wrote something that captures this beautifully. In his poem “The Guest House,” he suggests that all our emotions—including the difficult ones—are visitors bringing messages:
“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival…
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.”
What if your sadness, this sense that nothing excites you anymore, isn’t the enemy? What if it’s actually trying to clear something out? Clear out the performed happiness, the forced positivity, the living for everyone else’s expectations?
What if this emotional numbness is your soul’s way of saying: “No more. I’m done with that version of life. Something needs to change.”
How to Begin Feeling Again: A Different Approach
So how do you reconnect with joy when nothing excites you anymore? How do you reignite that fire?
Not through willpower. Not through positive thinking. Not through forcing yourself to “just be grateful.”
You start by doing something that might feel counterintuitive: you turn toward what you’ve been running from.
Making Space for What’s Actually There
The path back to joy doesn’t begin with chasing happiness. It begins with making space for the sadness, the numbness, the heaviness you’ve been trying to avoid.
This is where somatic practices become crucial. “Somatic” simply means body-based—working with your physical sensations, your breath, your nervous system rather than just your thoughts.
When you create genuine space for difficult emotions in your body—when you can actually be with your sadness instead of pushing it away—something profound happens. The emotion finally gets to move. To discharge. To complete the cycle it’s been trying to complete for months or years.
And when that happens, when you stop using all your energy to suppress your feelings, that energy becomes available again for actually living.
A Guided Practice for When Nothing Excites You
I’ve created a guided meditation specifically for this experience—for when you’re going through the motions and nothing feels exciting anymore. It’s called “When The Fire Dimmed,” and it’s different from typical meditation practices.
Rather than trying to transcend your feelings or think more positively, this practice guides you through:
- Understanding what’s happening in your nervous system (in simple, accessible terms)
- Making genuine contact with the sadness or numbness you’ve been carrying
- Learning to be with difficult emotions without being overwhelmed by them
- Beginning to reconnect with the felt sense of aliveness in your body
- Creating new neural pathways back to joy
This 50-minute practice combines education, personal story, and somatic techniques to help you meet what’s been dimming your fire—and begin the journey back to genuine feeling.
What to Expect: The Journey Back to Aliveness
I want to be honest with you: reconnecting with joy when you’ve been numb isn’t instant. It’s not a light switch. The fire doesn’t suddenly roar back to life.
But here’s what I’ve seen happen, both in my own journey and in working with others:
The heaviness starts to lift gradually. Not all at once, but you notice moments of lightness. Brief windows where your chest doesn’t feel quite so tight.
Small things start to register again. The taste of your morning coffee. The warmth of sun on your skin. A moment of genuine laughter. These aren’t forced—they just… happen.
You become more aware of what’s been weighing you down. When you stop numbing, you start noticing: this relationship drains me. This job crushes my spirit. This way I’ve been living isn’t sustainable.
You start making different choices. Small ones at first. Saying no to something that doesn’t serve you. Saying yes to something that genuinely calls to you. Taking a real rest instead of pushing through.
The fire returns—but differently. Not as the manic intensity of youth necessarily, but as something deeper. A quiet, steady aliveness. A sense of being present to your own life.
Practical Steps You Can Take Today
While the guided practice offers a deeper journey, here are some immediate things you can do:
1. Stop Pretending You’re Fine
Acknowledge honestly, even just to yourself: I’m not okay. I’m going through the motions. Nothing excites me. This simple act of truthfulness is powerful.
2. Check In With Your Body Daily
Ask yourself: What am I feeling in my body right now? Not what you think you should feel—what you actually feel. Where is there tension? Heaviness? Numbness? Just notice without judgment.
3. Let Yourself Feel One Thing Fully
Pick one emotion today and actually let yourself feel it completely. If you’re sad, cry. If you’re angry, find a safe way to express it (scream into a pillow, write it out). Let something move through instead of storing it.
4. Question Your Autopilot
What are you doing just because you always have? What commitments are draining you? What are you performing? Start getting honest about what needs to change.
5. Seek Support
If the numbness is severe or you’re having thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional. This isn’t something you have to navigate alone.
Final Thoughts: The Fire Remembers
When nothing excites you anymore, it feels like maybe joy is gone forever. Like maybe you’ve lost something essential that you’ll never get back.
But here’s what I’ve learned: the fire never actually dies. It gets buried under years of suppressed emotion, unmet needs, and living for everyone else’s expectations. But it’s still there, waiting.
Your sadness, your numbness, your sense that something’s wrong—these aren’t the problem. They’re the messenger. They’re your soul trying to wake you up, trying to say: “Come back. Remember who you are. There’s more.”
The journey back to feeling, back to genuine aliveness, begins with the courage to stop running from what’s there. To make space for the difficult emotions. To listen to what your body has been trying to tell you.
It’s not an easy path. But it’s the only path that actually works.
And you don’t have to walk it alone.
Work With Me
I’m Abi Beri, an IPHM-accredited holistic therapist and somatic practitioner based in Ireland, working with clients worldwide. I specialize in helping people reconnect with their bodies, process stored emotions, and return to genuine aliveness.
Individual Sessions Available:
- Somatic therapy for emotional numbness and depression
- Family constellation work for ancestral patterns
- Integrative energy healing
- Online sessions for global clients
- 🌐 Learn more: www.blissfulevolution.com | www.somatictherapyireland.com
