 Hey guys, David here again. I have a question from a viewer. It's about emotional numbness or dissociation. It's also about our tendency to wear masks and our personas that we wear in order to keep us safe. But it's based on a question, it's a really great question and I know it came from a video I made about dissociation and that numbness that comes in often after a long time. And we live for it for a long time. But it's from Taylor and Taylor writes, Hi David, I like this video about dissociation. I'd love to get to know your viewpoint on something. I really like the non-judgmental approach you take to this emotional numbness. And really got me thinking about how we approach feelings with so much unnecessary shame and suffering. And you're right, there is a lot of shame around numbness or dissociation. There's a lot of like, what's wrong with me? Okay. And the main thing with dissociation or emotional numbness is to realize there's nothing wrong with me. What's happening is my nervous system is responding in the best way it knows how. And as soon as my nervous system feels safe again, the emotion comes back. We need to feel safe before we can allow ourselves to feel certain emotions because it's the whole point of the nervous system was completely overwhelmed with negative emotions over a period of time. The defense it took up was to shut it down. So shame and guilt certainly is of no help to us in this. And it's inappropriate. It doesn't make any sense. A lot of personal development gurus and even some spiritual teachers advocate for this idea that life is about the quality of our emotions and thoughts, which I agree with. Me too. I agree with that too. It is about that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to feel good. That's for sure, which I agree with. But doesn't that also mean that we're judging thoughts and feelings in that process. And I agree with that. Yeah, there can be this thing about, you know, you better start to feel good, or you know, you're not going to manifest the life you want or something. And it's like the, or another one is that you try to feel good in order to get the life you want eventually. And really, it's kind of like belittling emotions a little bit. It's like, there's no such thing as a negative emotion. Like even words like anxiety or depression, they're very loaded terms. They're, they're, they're immediately you have to have these negative connotations with them. Ultimately, it's the shame and guilt around those that's the biggest issue. But really, all those negative emotions, you know, those negative emotions want, like anxiety, fear or rejection, anything like that. Those feelings come up. And all they're really asking is, is there a place for me here to be felt so that I can be heard? That's really it. You know, there's nothing shameful about any of these feelings. So where was I here in this question? Also, if we stop chasing certain feelings, it's fascinating to see how we begin to question why we do anything in this world. Why would I start a business gaining the feeling of success and significance if that wasn't really the purpose of why I'm here? These questions enlighten me, but also confuse me a lot because there's so many things I want to feel and achieve yet down, deep down, I know I am more than just my thoughts and feelings. Okay, so really, what we're looking at is what's driving us here and what's authentic, what isn't and emotional numbness we talked about. It's usually the result of living a kind of a fake life. And the best way I know to talk about that is the concept of a persona. And a persona is the fake false self that we develop over time in order to keep us feeling safe. And it usually comes from the past, we learn all sorts of behaviors, we learn all sorts of do's and don'ts, things that are appropriate, things are acceptable, things that are not. And we fashion this sort of a mask that we feel comfortable sharing with other people in the world. And there's nothing to do with our personality or who we really are. So yeah, we begin to question why do I want to feel successful? Why do I want to feel anything? Some of it's persona driven, some of it's driven by approval from other people. But really, to feel successful, for instance, okay, you could want to be successful because your persona demands it, right? But there's a very real part of you that wants success. And it's about reinterpreting what success means sometimes, making sure that it's the right definition of success. Success, does success means being better than someone else, being better than who you were in the past or something, or becoming better than you are now? Or does success is success basically something that you're willing to define in your own terms? Success means what I say it means for me, my version of success. That's authentic, right? So when you're beginning to question these things, a really good way to look at it is, okay, there's the shadow part of myself, the very judgmental part of myself that is pretty nasty sometimes. And there's just persona that I want to become. I feel comfortable showing to other people I like wanting to become this better thing. And really, none of these parts are really authentic. Okay, most of us get trapped in our persona wanting other people to see us a certain way. When really, there's an authentic perfect personality, just waiting there. And all it wants to do is come out and express itself. And it is so much success when you do that. That's what it is. So that desire for success is very real. There's nothing wrong with wanting to feel good to feel alive, to feel positive and optimistic and hopeful and grateful for things in your life. That's very real. The easiest way to do that is to just question this shadow stuff, this limiting beliefs, these questions we have about ourselves. And also to kind of really start to question, look, do I need to be successful so that other people will think this about me or that about me? Start to question that persona a little bit so that it has less of a hold on us. And even when we do notice we have a persona, you know, I'm doing this because my persona feels like it will be keep me safe. Realize even that is not a problem. It's just to bring awareness to it. It's like, oh, I think I'm doing this so that that person will appreciate me more, or that person will finally accept me. Realize why that's there without any judgment. It's just they're okay. I guess maybe at some point in the past, something, maybe I went through a rejection and it was emotionally painful for me. And now my nervous system has developed this strategy of putting on a mask in order to avoid that feeling in future, understanding ourselves or more like this. Even when we have the persona, there's no reason to judge anything. Sure, we want to move into that authenticity, but that's a journey that takes time to happen, right? So there's no rush in this. It's all about awareness, but understand ourselves on a deeper level. Great question, Taylor. And I hope that was useful. And if you guys have any questions yourselves, feel free to add them below. Take care and I'll talk again soon. Bye.