numbness
When I’m facilitating a yoga session, I often hear myself asking people if they can notice numbness in their bodies.
I’ll say: “You might notice if there’s sensation in your shoulders. If something is there, you could decide to label the sensation: is it more like an opening, a pulling, a sense of tingling, a numbness, or maybe it’s more of a temperature?”
The idea is to help participants connect to what’s happening in their bodies.
I remember doing my first body scan in meditation class, and I was 100% with the instructor as he listed possible body sensations until he said “numbness.” How can you feel numbness? By definition, isn’t it an absence of feeling? Every time he offered “numbness” I giggled to myself. How silly. You can’t feel numbness. I continued to think that until recently. To be honest, I only include “numbness” in the list of potential body experiences because my TCTSY instructors always did. They have more experience than me, so even though it didn’t make sense to me, I’m a good student & I did what they did.
Then I had foot surgery. Surgery on two of my toes, to be exact: one to correct a bunion & the other to refurbish the joint. Of course, numbness is normal after a surgery like that. At first, it’s due to medication; they injected me with a numbing agent that left my entire left foot without feeling for two days! I thought that was amazing, and I was happy not to feel my bruised & stitched-up foot. As I got off prescriptions, it was swelling that caused numbness. Feeling slowly returned to my left foot, and the inflammation melted gradually until my toes started to look more like toes, and I started to move & use my foot again. Then I realized that the area of skin on top of my left big toe & second toe, and the space just below those two toes felt strange. I kept thinking that I wanted to take my bandage off, only to look down & see no bandage. What was gripping my toes? As I got the courage to start touching those tender, scarred areas on my foot, I was startled to realize that I couldn’t feel my finger pressing on top of my big toe. It had been 2 months since surgery. I was back in my old sneakers again, able to walk 2 or 3 miles. There was soreness at the incision sites: to be expected. A feeling of stretching on the inside of my big toe: they warned me that I would have to adjust to the new alignment. But this was neither of those sensations.
Once I realized that I was actually detecting “numbness,” I started noticing. Sometimes it feels like a string is tied around the base of my 2nd toe. That’s actually my perception of the boundary between sensation & numbness. When I pull on a sock, it feels like my big toe is missing. I think that’s numbness. The top of the toe is numb, but the bottom isn’t; I can easily feel my finger touching it. Where does the numbness start? How deep is it? I’m fascinated by this.
What’s more, it changes every day. As my nerves regrow, as my soft tissue adjusts to the new architecture, there will be sudden changes in sensation; sometimes numbness feels tingly, like my toe is trying to come back to life. I can move it, but I can’t feel it. That is so weird to me. When I look at it, it seems like someone else’s toe. But the toe next to it is clearly attached to my body.
I think maybe “numbness” isn’t the absence of something at all. You can perceive that a part of you is numb, and all the parts of you that connect to the numb part are giving you feedback about the changes in sensation. Every tissue in our bodies is connected. Part of perceiving numbness is how other parts relate to it.
Numbness is actually very interesting. It can teach us so much about our bodies, if we listen. I’m back at the conclusion that any feedback our bodies give us is full of wonder. I shouldn’t discount any sensation, because everything my body tells me is valid. I don’t have to make a story about it or take action every time; I think sometimes my body just wants to be heard. I see you, numb spot. You’re welcome to be a part of me.
