Feeling Numb During the Holidays? You’re Not Alone

f you’ve found yourself staring at twinkle lights this season and feeling absolutely nothing — not joy, not sadness, just flat — I want you to know something right away:

You’re not broken. You’re not ungrateful. And you’re definitely not alone.

For a lot of people, the holidays don’t bring warmth — they bring overwhelm, old wounds, and a kind of emotional shutdown that feels confusing and isolating. Especially when everyone around you seems to be leaning hard into cheer.

Let’s Talk About Holiday Numbness

Numbness is often your nervous system doing what it knows best: protecting you.

When life has been heavy — chronic stress, grief, trauma, burnout, family dynamics, financial pressure — your body sometimes decides that feeling less is safer than feeling everything.

So instead of sadness, you feel blank.Instead of joy, you feel detached.Instead of excitement, you feel tired… and maybe a little guilty for not feeling more.

This isn’t weakness.It’s regulation.

Why the Holidays Can Make Numbness Louder

The holidays are emotionally loaded. They come with:

• Expectations to feel happy

• Pressure to show up a certain way

• Family roles that never quite changed

• Memories of people who are gone

• Financial or relational stress

• And zero actual downtime

When your system is already stretched thin, all of that can push you into freeze — a state where emotions get muted because it’s simply too much to process at once.

So if you’re thinking, “I should feel something… but I don’t,” that makes sense.

What Numbness Is Trying to Tell You

Numbness isn’t the absence of emotion — it’s emotion that hasn’t felt safe to surface yet.

It often shows up when:

• You’ve been strong for a long time

• You’re holding more than you realize

• You don’t feel like there’s space to fall apart

• Rest feels earned, not allowed

Sometimes numbness is your body saying:

“I need gentleness, not forcing.”

If This Is You Right Now, Try This Instead of Fixing It

You don’t need to push yourself to feel festive. You don’t need to “snap out of it.” And you definitely don’t need to compare your internal world to someone else’s highlight reel.

Instead, consider small, grounding permissions:

• Let yourself opt out of what feels draining

• Create quiet moments without expectations

• Name the numbness without judging it

• Focus on comfort over productivity

• Allow neutral to be enough for now

Healing doesn’t always look like feeling better.Sometimes it looks like feeling safer.

A Gentle Reminder

You are allowed to move through the holidays at your own pace. You are allowed to feel disconnected. You are allowed to need support — especially now.

And if numbness is lingering, confusing, or starting to worry you, working with a therapist can help you gently reconnect with yourself in a way that feels safe, grounded, and compassionate — not forced.

At The Growth Collective, we specialize in supporting women who are navigating burnout, emotional shutdown, trauma, and the quiet exhaustion that so often shows up this time of year.

You don’t have to push through this alone.

💭 If you’re ready for support — or even just curious — you can learn more or request a consultation by visiting our website.

Soft seasons still count. You still count. And you’re doing better than you think. 🤍