You Are Never Feeling Nothing

You Are Never Feeling Nothing

Learning to Recognize the Subtle Beginnings of Intuition

A man I was working with once asked me about something that had happened during one of our meditations. I had asked him what he was feeling, and he had answered honestly that he did not feel anything. There was no recognizable emotion, no physical sensation he could name, and certainly no dramatic intuitive message. Then I asked whether he had felt bored for a moment—perhaps a small flicker of When is this going to be over? This is pointless. He stopped, looked inward again, and realized that he had. The feeling had been present, but it was so slight and so quickly dismissed that it had disappeared before he understood that it counted as a feeling at all.

This happens frequently when people begin meditation, energy work, or any serious attempt to become more aware of their inner lives. They assume that a feeling should arrive as a clearly labeled event: anger, fear, sadness, excitement, a pain in the chest, a vision, a voice, or an unmistakable psychic impression. If nothing that definite appears, they conclude that they are blocked, shut down, spiritually ungifted, or simply doing the exercise incorrectly. I am reluctant to describe someone as “shut down” too quickly, because it turns a capacity that has not yet been developed into another reason for self-criticism. Most of us were simply never taught to pay attention at this level, and we cannot be expected to recognize a language we have never learned to hear.

When someone tells me that they feel nothing, I may ask what kind of nothing it is. Is it the nothing of floating quietly on a pond, or the nothing of waiting impatiently for something to happen? Is it peaceful, bored, guarded, numb, tired, absent, watchful, skeptical, or simply unfamiliar? Does it feel as though nothing is happening, or as though something is happening just beyond the edge of awareness? These are not merely clever distinctions. Peaceful stillness, protective numbness, and impatient disengagement may all be called “nothing,” but they are profoundly different inner states, and each one tells us something about what is happening in the person at that moment.

Our culture trains us to notice what is loud, urgent, external, and easily explained. We are considerably less practiced at noticing a slight hesitation around a person, a subtle contraction in the body, an unexpected urge to take a different route, or a quiet sense that a conversation is not quite what it appears to be. Some people call these responses intuition; others understand them as instinct, energy, unconscious pattern recognition, psychic information, or spiritual guidance. I do not need everyone to agree about the source before we can become curious about the experience itself. Whatever explanation we eventually use, we cannot investigate something we have trained ourselves to dismiss before it reaches consciousness.

There is an expression in some religious traditions that God whispers. That has generally been true in my experience, although there have been rare exceptions. Many years ago, before I had fully accepted the spiritual direction of my life, I went to see an old boyfriend who was drunk and had passed out on the floor. I suddenly heard a voice, as unmistakable and theatrical as the voice of God in an old biblical movie, telling me, “Leave now.” I dismissed it as something crazy, and then I heard it again with the same force: “Leave now.” I left, and a few days later I learned that he had previously gone to my house drunk and carrying a gun, intending to kill my dog. In that situation I apparently needed something loud enough to break through my denial, but I would not want to live my entire life waiting for an external voice to issue orders. If every decision required a command from somewhere outside me, I would not be developing spiritual discernment; I would be surrendering my own authority.

Most intuitive information is quieter and gives us room to participate. We can notice it, question it, take a small step, observe what changes, and decide whether to continue. A subtle response does not have to become a commandment, nor does every momentary feeling need to be treated as a message from Spirit. Learning to trust intuition is not the same as obeying every impulse. It involves developing a relationship with our own perceptions—testing them against experience, recognizing the effects of fear and wishful thinking, and becoming humble enough to revise our interpretation when we are wrong.

As this awareness begins to develop, people sometimes pass through a period in which they move from believing they feel nothing to feeling far too much. They walk into a room and register everyone’s moods, tension, expectations, and emotional undercurrents. Noise may become more intrusive, crowded places more exhausting, and other people’s distress more difficult to separate from their own. Many people who identify as empaths become stuck at this stage and begin to believe that being sensitive means living permanently overwhelmed, with everyone else required to accommodate their sensitivity. I do not believe overwhelm is the final destination of intuitive development, nor do I believe that sensitivity excuses us from learning how to function in relationship with other people.

With a sustained practice, sensitivity can become less engulfing rather than more. The emotional atmosphere of a room may still be perceptible, just as a fan running in the background is perceptible, but it does not have to consume all available attention. The aim is not to stop receiving information or to build such rigid defenses that nothing reaches us. It is to develop a sufficiently stable center that we can notice what is around us, distinguish it from what is ours, and decide how much attention it deserves. This takes time, particularly for people whose sensitivity was once connected to danger or survival, but it is a capacity that can be strengthened.

This is one reason meditation so often returns us to the breath. The breath is not the only thing that matters; the repeated return teaches us how to move attention. We notice that we have been pulled into a thought, a sensation, another person’s mood, or a fear about what may happen, and we practice coming home. Over time, that simple movement can create an internal steadiness from which we are able to reach outward without abandoning ourselves. We do not have to choose between being open to subtle information and remaining grounded in ordinary reality.

The same principle shapes the way I work with people. It would often be faster and more impressive for me to announce what I think someone is feeling, and there are times when a little direct help allows a person to recognize something they could not yet find alone. But if I continually supply the answer, the person may become increasingly confident in my perception while remaining uncertain about their own. I would rather ask questions that help them look more carefully: What kind of nothing is this? Where do you notice it? Does it feel peaceful or protective? What changes when you name it? Once the person has begun to locate the experience, I can validate what they have found and perhaps add what I am noticing, but they are already developing the inner muscles required to continue without me.

The goal of a good teacher, healer, or intuitive practitioner should not be to remain permanently indispensable. It should be to help people become more capable of perceiving, questioning, and trusting themselves while retaining the humility to know that no one is correct all the time. What you have been calling “nothing” may contain far more information than you realize. You may not be empty, blocked, or cut off from intuition; you may simply be waiting for a whisper to sound like a shout, when the real work is learning how to hear the whisper.

If you are sensitive or intuitive but have difficulty distinguishing your own feelings from everything around you, this is something we can explore together. I offer a free 30-minute introductory session by Zoom or phone so that we can talk about what is happening and whether my approach is right for you. You can learn more or schedule at DrMarie.org.