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Feelings were not allowed in my childhood home. We learned how to numb out, to banish emotions to the realms of distancing and dissociation. Peppermint fudge ice cream and chocolate chip cookies soothed pain-filled tears that quivered but never came to pass. We lived a bland life, no salt, no pepper, spices made my mother’s fingers swell. No highs. No lows. Pure and simple neutrality. Not in the state that Buddhists reach for to end selfinflicted suffering but rather a state of nonexistence. Writing today, I still struggle at times to sit with my emotions, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say I still tend to block bodily sensations that start the experience of feeling something. My throat constricts when tears start. My neck is so tight my acupuncturist gave up trying to release it, and my massage therapist tenderly touches it without trying to dig in and create change. In the rare instance that someone asks me how I feel, my response is a courteous, “fine”. Unless I’m hiking and then I’m “happy”. When I look in the mirror, metaphorically and/or literally, I see my inherited neutrality. Stoic? Absent? Numb? Or perhaps never present and accounted for. Emotions are a conundrum. I know I’m not alone.