I Have Become…Numb – Episode 475

Life can be so stressful and so overwhelming, that we might seek to become…numb.

There are so many ways that we can numb ourselves to the challenges of life.

When this becomes a habit through the various ways available to us, then we can find ourselves stuck, stagnating, hiding out and disengaged from life.

In this episode, Ted discusses the wisdom he got from an old Pink Floyd song, and how that is a warning to us all when we want to hide out and numb ourselves to our own lives.

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If you’re watching this on YouTube, you may notice that I’m holding a guitar. That’s because today I want to talk about a song.

“Hello. Is there anybody in there?”

Now, if you know anything about rock music and you grew up in the era that I grew up in, then you probably recognize the lyrics to that song. But first, a little back story…

A few weeks ago, I got together with my good friend Adam to play some guitar. Now I’ve been playing guitar for a while, and I can sit down and probably entertain you with some songs from my era for an hour or so, but Adam, my buddy Adam, is on a whole other level. He’s an awesome lead guitarist. (Click Here to check out his channel)

Anyway, we got together, and we were we were playing some songs, and we decided to work on a particular song by Pink Floyd called “Comfortably Numb”

We worked up a really good rendition of it, and it was very, very fun, but I became very interested in doing a deeper dive into this song, so I started to explore its history as well as its lyrics. I invite you to take a listen to this song.

The following information is from Wikipedia from the article titled “Comfortably Numb” (last edited 5/3/25)

• In 2021 the song Comfortably Numb was ranked number 179, on 179. On Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
• David Gilmour’s performance on the track has been consistently lauded as being the crowning achievement of his career as a guitarist.
• The song is from the 1979 album called The Wall, which is a concept album about an embittered and alienated rock star named Pink.
• In “Comfortably Numb”, Pink is medicated by a doctor so he can perform a rock show.
• These lyrics (by Roger Waters, writer and vocalist) were inspired by his experience of being injected with tranquilizers for stomach cramps during one of his performances in 1977 during one of Pink Floyd’s tours.
• Author Mike McCormick writes that the song “is perhaps the apex of rock music as an art form. No other song cuts deeper says so much about the human condition or hits such moments of beauty and horror.”

The line from the song that speaks to this beauty and horror and human condition is the line “I have become comfortably numb”.

So that’s what I want to talk about today. I began to think about what this song says about the human condition. I realize that what it says is that we as human beings have a desire to numb out, to not feel, to hide out from life.

There are so many ways that we can do this. We can numb out by immersing ourselves in the pit of social media, by sitting on the sofa and just binging the latest streaming show, while mindlessly doing the hand to mouth ritual of mindless eating.

We can numb ourselves with the old standbys, drugs and alcohol.

Many times, the news becomes a way of numbing ourselves. We become numb to all the news stories, just another way to hide out, another way to medicate ourselves from life.

I think the reason that we have a tendency to do that is because of what I’ve referred to in my previous podcast as an epidemic of overwhelm, particularly today, 2025 with much going on, so many changes, so much to think about.

In my own life, here at the end of May and the beginning of June 2025, I have two kids graduating, one from community college and transferring to a university and another one from high school. There’s a whole lot going on. There’s a lot of things to think about, a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.

I’m no different from anybody else. I want to numb out by watching the latest show. I want to numb out by coming home and fixing myself a mixed drink or a couple of glasses of wine. I want to numb out by doom scrolling on social media. I think we all have that tendency to want to get numb.

For many people with mental health conditions, that might be the way forward. The way to make it through the day might require some kind of prescribed medication or even a little bit of recreational medication. I’m not against that, but each person needs to decide for themselves what they need to move forward, as opposed to the need to stay safe and comfortable and not move forward.

I love that quote by John Shedd from 1928 that says

“A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”

As the captains of the ship of our lives, we want our ships out there engaged with life, exploring, discovering new ways of being, continuing to grow and become better navigators, if you will.

Yet, we have a tendency, and it’s part of our DNA, to be safe, be comfortable, and at times, perhaps to numb ourselves in the many ways that I just talked about.

However, you may know what that leads to: stagnation, stuckness, and not moving forward. It’s so easy to get to that place of just consistently numbing out. And then one day we turn around and we say, “What’s the point of life? Why am I here? All I do is avoid the challenges of my life and nothing changes.”

I’m being a bit extreme here, and I’m not talking to anybody in particular, but we all know that feeling.

Let me tell you a little story. A friend of mine purchased a house in a gated community and as he was working on his house, he would notice that a couple of times a week, a guy would drive by in a golf cart with a ladder. He would stop the golf cart, pull out the ladder, and he’d climb up and change the light bulbs on the cute little street lights.

They weren’t the really tall streetlights, they were kind of vintage looking street lights, not too tall, something that you could reach with a ladder. And that’s what this guy did. He would climb up, he would change the bulbs, he would clean out the spider webs and the birds’ nests.

One day, my friend approached him and said, “Hey, I’ve noticed that every couple of days you come by and you do this. Are you employed by this gated community?”

The man said, “No. Actually, I live here. I’m a resident here. They pay me a small amount of money to make sure that all the streetlights are functioning properly.”

He continued, “I don’t really need the money. But when I moved in here, I noticed that many people who moved in and retired started playing golf, drinking, and in two years, they were dead. I didn’t want to be like that. So, I decided I needed a mission. I needed a purpose. I needed to get out of my comfort zone. So, my mission and my purpose is to keep the lights on, and that’s what I do.”

Think about that for a second. He didn’t want to go into that medicated, numbing, hiding out feeling of playing golf and drinking. Not that there’s anything wrong with retiring or playing golf, but he saw a pattern, and he didn’t want to be a part of that pattern.

The idea is that to live a fulfilling life, we must be engaged with life, both the good stuff and the not so good stuff. We must constitute ourselves as being up for the challenge of living and not have numbing out as our go to strategy. It’s easier said than done.

We all need rest and relaxation. No doubt about it, we all need time to chill, to relax, to take a vacation, to step back from the challenges of life. However, we want to make sure that we’re not doing that for avoidance.

What we need to do is to feel discomfort. We need to get out of our head and into our body and feel the resistance to doing the things that are hard or facing the situations that are challenging. We need to learn to manage our stress and overwhelm so we can get better at it and gain more capacity.

I’m not talking about relaxation, not talking about chilling out, not talking about an occasional celebratory drink with friends or family. I’m talking about avoidance, which we all do, but we want to be conscious of when we’re doing that and be aware of it.

Procrastination is a good sign that we’re trying to avoid something. Let’s be very clear about that: we all avoid. We all procrastinate. Nobody wants to face hard times or difficult challenges. Nobody wants to walk into areas of uncertainty, yet, that’s how we grow. That’s how we get better.

I don’t know about you, but there’s no point in my life where I want to say, “Ah, I’m done growing. I’m done trying. Now I’m just going to coast.”

It’s so easy to do, especially when you get a little bit older. But Helen Keller said, “Life is either an exciting adventure or it’s boring.”

Brene Brown said, “Numb the dark and you numb the light.”

So how do we do that? How do we get out of the need or the desire to be numb avoid the hard stuff?

Well, I can tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I try to do consistently.

I get up early so I have some quiet time before the day starts. I try to do at least 10 minutes of meditation every day. I do some stretching to get into my body. I try to write some things that I’m grateful for. I create an intention for the day. I get out of the house and get outside and allow green trees and blue skies and wind and sun to come into my mental environment. This really allows me to start the day feeling very centered and very grounded. I’m always telling myself affirmations, such as I’m up for this, I’ve got this, I’m courageous.

There’s another quote, I’m not sure who said it, but it goes something like: when we numb ourselves to the negative emotions that we feel, we numb ourselves to the positive emotions as well.

Life is about light and dark, and we must embrace both in order to have a life that is intentional and a life that is fulfilling. We need to have the belief in ourselves that we’re up to the challenges of life. I can’t stress how important this belief is. So many of us need to know what’s going to happen. We want to have that sense of certainty, and if we don’t have it, we’re anxious and afraid. This is where trust and faith come in: trust that we can constitute ourselves as being courageous, being intentional, and being somebody who can continue to move forward even though we’re scared, even though we’re anxious, even though we’re overwhelmed.

So, keep that in mind. I talk a lot about overwhelm in my podcast, and you’ll know you’re in overwhelm when you’re doom scrolling, when you’re reaching for that next drink, when you’re sitting in front of the television telling yourself, I really need to turn this off and do something. Rest and relax when you need to, but above all, keep moving forward.

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Are you ready to free yourself from the habit of numbing yourself? Ready to take life on with courage, strength and confidence? Request a consultation to find out if hypnotherapy is right for you. To request your complimentary consultation, go to https://Tedmoreno.com/contact and he’ll get back to you in 48 hours to schedule your consultation.

Thank you very much for tuning in to my podcast today. Take good care of yourself, and by all means, go to the show notes at Tedmoreno.com/blog and check out the links that I have in the transcript to this podcast.

Take good care. We’ll talk soon. Bye now.
Ted