Where is the feel?

[Mjolnir]

I guess I'll post here from time to time. To clarify thought, possibly spark idea's, and maybe get someone clues.

 

I've long been searching for a reason why I don't physically feel those good feelings. I'm talking about passion, joy, excitement, interest, drive etc. Those feel-not-so-good feelings I do experience. That belly feeling when I get anxious for example. Or energy when I get angry, like I want to throw something or kick something. That feeling when I get a big shock, knee weak arms spaghetti... you get the idea.
But I can't recall moments where those feelings that felt good were in my body. The energy, like those feel-not-so-good feelings but than that feel-good equivalent of that.

I'd like to add that, I can notice when things happen in life, like I feel a physical response, one that I can't override mentally so to say. So say a bad phone call, I can feel sick in my stomach. It's there, it just happens. There is nothing I need to do, it occurs. Same with frustration, or maybe anger, fear, worry. Sometimes those feelings just exist all of a sudden. But the feel-good equivalent just doesn't appear. Nothing like "hey I felt cheerful for a sec" or "I had this feeling of enthusiasm or passion for a bit". Just non existent.

The mindset is good though, no depression, sadness, anger, frustration, no negative beliefs about feelings/emotions. I can laugh, but it doesn't give a physical feeling. Calm person, aware of my thoughts, they're not in any way I'd guess could prevent the feel-good feelings. Positive, hopeful and endless possibilities type of outlook on life.

Done many out-of-the-comfortzone things but haven't made a change in my physical feelings. Went on vacation, walked on burning coals, jumped, cheered and hugged with people. Cold showers, cryochamber, tried pot cookie, breathing exercises. Changed diet, exercise, computer habits. Visualization and affirmations. Meditation habit, tried gratitude, saying more nice things to people. But all no change in how I felt.

Currently in a state of light frustration. I linked a high probability that these feelings-issues I have are connected to tight pelvic floor issues. Not sure whether or not it's true, as I haven't resolved the pelvic floor issues. In fact, I wish to, rather yesterday than today. But I haven't found what worked yet. And everything costs major energy and commitment, think months of daily exercises or stretches, but without certainty that it's the solution. It's all major energy investment, but there is no return, only potentially some return in a far future. No feel good for spending the energy. It's only investing without a return. No motivation, desire or drive to do the exercises, just a "should do".

I don't know, sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm doing something wrong. Do I really not experience those feelings, or are they maybe there but extremely subtle? Do I do something mentally, like a habit, that makes me experience life the way I am? I don't know.

cheers

[jake473]

How old are you?

So you feel like you could experience positive emotions if you fixed your health problems? 

I read some of your other posts and have had some similar situations

[Mjolnir]

@jake473  Hey sorry for the late response, I haven't checked for a while now.
I'm 27 now, I think the physical stuff started around 20-ish maybe 21?

Well, I've had one evening maybe a year or two into all the problems where my pelvic floor just relaxed after some diaphragm breathing. It was like a lot of pressure was just gone, it felt light, calm and relaxed. The muscles just released, like you flex a muscle for a very long time and then finally release it.
I recently spoke with someone on this forum who mentioned something along the lines of the energy moving freely in a healthy circumstance. But maybe due to the muscle tightness (basically flexing the pelvic floor muscles chronically) that energy isn't able to go freely. But then again, I can feel the feelings of dread or anxiety for example in my belly so I don't understand why a pleasant feeling wouldn't be possible.

Could you elaborate on your issues, how you experienced it and what you did to change it?
Thanks for your reply and have a good day!

Edited April 22, 2022 by Mjolnir
typo

[jake473]

@Mjolnir I've dealt with the same pelvic floor tightness and lack of feeling for years. I read a lot of anatomy and stretched most of my tight muscles. I had so many tight muscles in my lower body. I especially had to stretch my hip flexors because I'd been sitting all day for years. I had to strengthen my muscles because I was too weak to hold healthy posture. It helped me at first but my problems continued because there was more I had to address. Almost my entire body was weak from sitting for most of my life and my lower body muscles were very tight from running on a treadmill years ago, having the habit of running every day on a weak body without stretching, and I stopped doing that when my problems started occurring, but I didn't know anything about anything so I couldn't fix it and everything kept getting even tighter and more painful for years until I learned enough about the mechanics of the body. I don't know if you necessarily have a history of running but it's not really the point. These musculoskeletal problems occur because the body reacts in the way it has to, to whatever forces are placed on it at any time, whether sitting all day or something else. It was common when I searched for help online to find articles say it could be caused by holding your body in a tense state all the time due to psychological stress, but I found this to have nothing to do with my problem and not help me even though I've been stressed. Maybe that alone does it for some people. But there are also impersonal mechanisms of causality going on in the body that have to be understood and fixed, usually coming from our lifestyle. I spent so many hours thinking over my past years and reading articles to try to understand. I had severe pain, and it was coming from inadequate circulation for the cells to survive, and the cause of that was fascial adhesion. I didn't feel much pain at first, but I kept making it worse. I also read about nerve compression and scar tissue, and I probably have both to some degree, but reading about it wasn't helping much and I found out it wasn't the problem. The problem is that my fascia became so constricted while I was going through it that even after stretching and strengthening my muscles, the condition didn't go away. It will become tight if the lifestyle is sedentary. I stayed in bed for most of a year while struggling to figure out my muscle situation and I think that's why it became such a problem for me. By the time I rehabilitated my muscles it was too late to fix the problem with only that, because it had created a new problem. On my entire abdomen and underneath my ribcages, the fascia is almost like a bulletproof vest. I have to decompress it for 2 hours each day and it's steadily working. I haven't fully healed yet, but in feeling like I finally figured it out I already got my feeling capacity restored to some degree. I don't know how severe your situation is, but it's probably going to require the same things - stretching, strengthening, and fascia decompression if it's tight.  Here are some of the videos that saved me...

https://youtu.be/8OYMx_aw8E0

https://youtu.be/K-CrEi0ymMg

https://youtu.be/smG9qvVeMNM

I think you would benefit if you searched for any or all stretches that your body could use and work on balancing the whole system out. Our modern lives make us so tight. And I noticed if I'm doing a stretch with complex movements, it doesn't stretch what I'm intending to stretch unless I get the stretching position almost perfect, so I have to follow the instructions I find meticulously. And sometimes I read articles about stretches that I end up not really understanding, and I have to look for another person's explanation of it or try a different stretch. And I heard someone say asymmetrical tightness creates some harmful torque inside the body, so I paid attention to if on one side I was tighter, and I actually was on most stretches and I tried to balance it all out to stay safe. There's a lot that I've learned slowly over the months that allowed me to finally get improvement, and what I did was frequently search the internet with my problems and hope to get lucky. I still don't understand some of it, and we may have different situations, but I hope you can figure it out and get better and understand what happened to you.

[Mjolnir]

@jake473  Hey thanks for responding and sorry for the late response back. I haven't checked into the forum for a while, but I'm glad I did.

Happy to hear you're on a road back and massive props to making it such a commitment. Thanks for the resources and the new angles I can tackle my situation from!

I've had a very sedentary lifestyle ever since my early teen years. I did some exercise here and there, actually running as well (which I eventually quit because I kept getting calf issues). The issues became noticeable literally from one moment to the other and developed after that. I've had horrible posture basically always and to add that to the sedentary lifestyle was probably the origins. I currently work a VERY active job but whenever I'm free I'm basically behind a computer.

I've had many examinations of my body to find the problems and basically two things came out of it: one was lack of abdominal strength and the other was the fascia. I did get some tips at the time but couldn't really follow them up since it involved the gym which was closed at that time due to the corona. I'm currently working on the ab strength which is a slow process and tbh I have no idea what I'm doing. The fascia thing, I have no idea where to start. I haven't found anything that noticeably made a difference in the symptoms so it's just doing stuff in hopes of noticing an effect at some point. I think I remember the PT telling me to basically need full body stretches but again, no idea where to start.

Hearing your process is scary to me as you seem to go focused and deep into the exercises. I find it incredibly difficult to notice what I'm doing during the exercises. I don't have a clue whether or not I'm doing them correctly, which muscles I use, I don't really feel them and I often notice other issues after the exercises. I'm so unaware of what's going on in and with my body that I don't notice what I'm doing. So being this precise and aware seems kinda alien to me.

Cheers, thanks a lot and keep going!