From Numb to Feeling It All

I remember being a preteen, lying on the couch, closing my eyes, Pink Floyd’s Animals album washing over me in one go—how it’s meant to be heard. My uncle gave me that tape (this was before I’d discovered the expansive world of rock music). I didn’t get the lyrics or what they were saying, but that didn’t matter. It stirred something raw and alive in me. Listening to music made me feel things—big, wild things—and I loved that rush. I was a sensitive kid, and I cherished that sensitivity. I had a strong sense I didn’t just want to exist; I wanted to feel life fully.

But outside that safe little world, sensitivity felt more like a curse. Growing up in a post-Soviet country during the chaos after the Soviet Union fell apart, sensitivity wasn’t exactly a prized trait. The place was soaked in this brutal masculine vibe—social status didn’t go to smart folks or dreamers, but to thieves-in-law, tough guys kids my age and their parents idolized. Their values—or the messed-up, dumbed-down version of them—made everything toxic.

The mainstream fix was simple: toughen up. Sensitivity was a weakness. Real men didn’t feel stuff. But somehow, I knew toughening up meant something uglier—like putting calluses on my soul, numbing what made life worth living. When I got drafted into the army at 18, I vividly remember telling my mom my biggest fear was coming home less sensitive. Looking back, that’s what happened—not just from the army, but slowly over the next decade.

I completely rejected toughening up and instead leaned into a different, less heroic strategy: safety and wall-building (Roger Waters would get it). It wasn’t a calculated decision. Looking back, I was instinctively building a world where I could feel without fear of being hurt. I surrounded myself with respectful, like-minded people, built a stable life, and carefully avoided anything that might shake me up. And tbh I got pretty darn good at it. I built a successful tech career, met incredible people, and eventually moved to San Francisco—far from the post-Soviet harshness I’d known.

Yet no matter how carefully I built my external world, I was still changing in ways I didn’t want. Just existing was making me tougher—but not in a good way. It felt more like numbness. The sensitivity I’d tried to protect was slipping away.

For a long time, I thought the choice was between being sensitive and fragile or tough and numb. Even as I tried to stay sensitive, I felt myself dulling anyway. It wasn’t working. Then, in my 30s, I stumbled into what I now see as the real answer.

Rooted in Eastern philosophy and now gaining traction in Western psychology, this path showed I could be both exquisitely sensitive and unshakably strong—not by avoiding pain or numbing it, but by letting everything in without pushing back. This is equanimity.

Equanimity means experiencing emotions fully without being consumed. It’s not about suppressing feelings or being ruled by them—it’s about letting emotions flow through instead of getting stuck. This matters because emotions that aren’t processed don’t just vanish. They linger in the body and mind, distorting perception, influencing behavior, even showing up as physical illness.

This isn’t some voodoo—it’s an established field with lots of science (see this, this and this). Feeling emotions fully isn’t just about resilience—it’s about keeping a clear, open system where emotions move through instead of piling up.

Turned out the real answer wasn’t in perfecting the outside world (good luck with that) or suppressing emotions. It was about feeling everything—fully, openly—letting life move through me without resistance or running away.

It’s not intuitive. Why would feeling everything help? Why would anyone try to fully face the bad stuff—pain, fear, all of it—when every instinct says run? Most of us dodge that stuff for a reason. That was my reaction too, but at some point, I leaned into it anyway. I spent real time on this, trying, failing, unlearning. The more I stopped resisting, the more it clicked: it actually worked.

At this point you might be thinking, Well, sure, maybe this guy just has a lot of emotions. I don’t have that much going on. Everything feels pretty chill. I’d ask: How exciting is your life, really? Could it be you’re dull and don’t even realize you’ve bottled things up? A flat emotional landscape might not mean peace—it might mean you’ve gone numb without noticing. Me, for years.

So anyway, I’m still pretty new at this, but life’s getting sharper, more real. I’m sturdier, but not in a dead-inside way—I bounce back better. I’m handling messy emotions easier, and I’m okay stepping into stuff that might sting. It’s wild—I feel more alive, more in it, and the hard stuff doesn’t hit as deep. It’s like opening a window in a room where the air’s been still and stale—that fresh air rushing in.

And honestly, the fact that I’m able to talk about these things publicly is to me a good pointer that this is working. A few years back I would definitely not talk about these kinds of super personal and sensitive topics publicly.

Do you ever think about how you felt as a kid—when everything was fresh, new, exciting, like the world was bursting with color? I’ve missed that. I don’t think it’s natural for adults to just lose it. We act like going dull is normal, but I’ve seen people who still glow with that kid-like excitement. So I knew it’s possible. I’m pretty sure I’m figuring it out.

And now that I’ve got this window cracked, I can’t unsee how that old tug-of-war is everywhere. We’re always sold two extremes: toughen up and harden yourself, or seek safety and remove discomfort. Woke culture, love and relationships, parenting—you name it, it’s there.

Like, take woke culture—it’s all about making everything “safe” by policing language, canceling anything offensive, setting up spaces where no one’s allowed to disagree or push back, all to keep discomfort out. I’d been doing my own version of woke culture my whole life—controlling my world to avoid anything that might shake me, thinking it’d keep me safe. I get where it’s coming from, but it doesn’t work. The safer you try to make things, the shakier you feel. Even if you block every outside threat, your own worries sneak in. But toughening up isn’t the answer either—that just leaves you dull or worse.

Love and relationships show it too. People shy away from the deep stuff because getting hurt sucks. They build walls, keep it light, and at the first sign of pain, many walk away. But love needs you to open up. Equanimity flips that—you can love hard, go all in, and if it falls apart, it’ll sting, but you’ve got tools to deal. You’re not drowning—you can handle it.

Parenting’s maybe the clearest example. You’ve got the overprotective mom, shielding her kid from every bump, and the tough-love dad, thinking struggle’s the only way to build a spine. Mom’s kid ends up scared of the world; Dad’s kid just goes dull or worse, traumatized. Neither’s the full picture. Kids need to learn to face challenges head-on without losing their capacity to feel deeply and connect with the world.

You know that old paradox: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” vs “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.” I disagree with both. They’re incomplete. The reality is, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger if you can handle it—but if it’s too much, it breaks or numbs you. The real game’s not flipping between pushing through or staying safe, but growing your capacity to take in life without shutting down.

And the way to do that is through equanimity. Instead of adjusting how much adversity we face, we build inner strength to meet it all—pain, fear, joy—without resistance. Mindfulness and meditation are key tools here. They train us to stand steady in life’s intensity, not by toughening up or running, but by expanding our ability to feel without breaking.

I now try to sit with every feeling, every ache, and not fight it (I talk about it here). I can’t pack it all into words—it’s taken books and hours of meditation to get the basics. I just wanna say: you can be sensitive and strong. It’s real. If that sparks something in you, you’ve got a few pointers to dig into on your own.