Have We Forgotten?

I think at some point, I became numb to life.

And for a long time, I didn’t even realize it was happening.

Not all at once. Slowly. 

Through learning that feeling deeply was unsafe.

So, I became logical.

Efficient.

Resilient.

I responded to life through my mind, not my heart.

Perhaps somewhere along the way, we began associating love with dependency.

And in our pursuit of individualism, achievement, and self-protection, we slowly severed ourselves from it.

Yet underneath all the noise, all the striving, all the independence…

we still deeply yearn for love.

There is perhaps no greater example of unconditional love than a mother’s love for her child.

A father’s love is different, often quieter, less expressive but it is there too.

There are other subtle forms of love too.

A stranger acknowledging your presence with a smile.A nod of the head while passing on the street.

A simple “hello.”

Tiny moments that quietly say:

“I see you.

You matter.”

One of the subtle shifts we noticed after moving from India to the US was exactly this.

In India, perhaps because of overpopulation, competition, and lower societal trust, strangers often avoid eye contact. There’s a kind of emotional guardedness in public spaces.

In the US, even if people don’t want conversation, many still acknowledge one another’s presence.

That small gesture stayed with me.

My parents would often say:

“They value another life here.”

And it made me wonder,

When did we stop valuing one another?

When did we become so emotionally distant?

During my coaching training, we each went through our own kind of personal unraveling.

A dissolving of identities, defenses, attachments, and unconscious patterns we had carried for years.

Near the end of the journey, we were invited to share what we had discovered about ourselves.

What came out of me surprised even me.

I realized that the pain I carried growing up had made me rebellious…

but it had also made me emotionally numb.

I had shut myself down to the feelings of others because I didn’t know how to deal with my own.

And that numbness shaped how I moved through life.

I rushed toward conclusions.Takeaways.Fixes.Next steps.

I was far more comfortable “solving” an experience than actually feeling it.

But life is very different when lived only through the mind.

When we slow down enough to truly feel an experience, not analyze it, not control it, not escape it, something else begins to emerge.

A different intelligence.A deeper connection.

A more alive experience of being human.

Opening the heart has become one of the deepest journeys of my life.

And honestly, I think it may be a lifelong one.

But gradually, I notice something softening.

My love is expanding.

Towards people.

Towards nature.

Towards animals.

Towards strangers.

Even towards those I disagree with.

More and more, I feel God’s presence in all of it.

In everyone.In everything.

And it leaves me wondering:

Have we forgotten how to love?

Have we become so hurt, so guarded, so overstimulated,that we’ve disconnected from our own capacity to feel?

Love has always been here.

The question is whether we are still open enough to feel it.

- Nitin