Giving Myself Compassion for Feeling Nothing

Lately, I’ve been sitting with something that feels unfamiliar… giving myself compassion for feeling nothing.

For most of my life, my body has lived in survival mode. Fight, flight, freeze all the protective states that keep us functioning but disconnect us from what’s underneath. And now that my system is slowly learning what safety feels like, I’m beginning to see something clearly:

Often the conflict isn’t about what we feel, it’s about what we think we should feel.

The guilt. The shame. The expectations we place on ourselves and the expectations others hand to us.

For me, that expectation was always around how I should love my mother.

I’ve known for a long time that the relationship wasn’t built on love, not in the fairytale sense and not in the warm, connected, nurturing sense either. There wasn’t hatred, but there also wasn’t emotional safety, affection, or genuine care. We said we loved one another because that’s what families are supposed to do.

Because duty, belief systems, and upbringing tell us what love “should” look like even when the body knows something very different.

My mother believed that an apology, no matter the depth of harm, meant her love was unchanged. But now I understand she didn't know what love truly was, or how to show it.
And so many of us from painful childhoods end up in this same cycle,

a lifetime of yoyo’ing between craving approval and connection, only to be reminded again and again why we feel unsafe, unseen, or abandoned.

This week, memories of a dear friend who passed away through voluntary assisted dying, have been surfacing. She was dying from an aggressive brain tumour, and I remember grieving her in a way my body understood, feeling the sadness, the ache, the loss. Letting the waves move through me.

Even now, when a song plays or I drive past a place we shared, there’s a tenderness that rises, a fullness in my chest, a sense of missing her.

But when it comes to memories of my mum… there is often nothing.

Silence.
A blankness in the body.

For a long time, I thought this meant I was detached or broken, that something was wrong with me.

I would scan my body, waiting for a sensation, a spark, anything to tell me I was capable of feeling the way a daughter is “supposed” to feel.

But I’m learning now that this isn’t absence.
It’s a different kind of presence.

I did love her ,but not the way stories, movies, or society define love. It wasn’t longing or warmth or a missing.

It was gratitude for the parts of my story she shaped, the pieces of resilience that grew out of the hardest moments.

A recognition of both the wounds and the wisdom that came from her place in my life.

And maybe that, too, is love.

Recently I found out her probate had been granted in October, without anyone informing me. Her wishes, her estate, the logistics are all still sitting in limbo. And for days I kept asking myself: Why does this bother me so deeply? Why do I want this part to be completed so badly?

Today, in a moment of vulnerability, the truth surfaced.

It’s not about her needs, she didn’t protect mine.
It’s not about duty,though I carried that for years because I’m a Christian.

It’s about closure.

When you grow up in a fractured family system, you learn to question whether people keep you in their life because they love you or because they feel obligated. I think part of me is waiting to see what remains after the dust settles.

Will there ever be a moment, a song, a memory, a place, that allows my body to feel something for her? Not out of pressure or expectation, but organically?

And will my brother, who I deeply love but who is hurting and misunderstood, want to continue a relationship when obligation is no longer the glue?

I don’t know the answers yet. But I do know this,

This is healing.

It’s not always tears or breakthroughs or big emotional releases. Sometimes it’s sitting with the numbness. Sometimes it’s curiosity. Sometimes it’s allowing space for your story to unfold without forcing it.

This is what I want my clients to see, that healing isn’t linear or tidy.

It’s pausing.
Reflecting.
Noticing.
Allowing.

And offering compassion to every part of ourselves… even the parts that feel nothing.

If something in my story stirred a quiet echo in your own, I want you to know you don’t have to walk your inner journey alone. You’re welcome to reach out and connect with me when you feel ready, or begin gently by reading THE ONLY CHILD: A Story of Connection, Isolation & Healing. It may offer the understanding your heart has been waiting for.