Jon Conte, one of the forefathers of trauma exposure theory says we can become like a sponge that is completely saturated and has never been wrung out. Feelings are our body’s natural mechanism for responding to external stimuli. We can override this system by numbing out or shutting down. We live in a society and work in agencies that encourage numbing. Some of us confuse attending to constant crises as something that we’re good at and makes us feel “alive”, when in fact it can be similar to a youth who cuts, it helps us feel something when most of the time we feel shut down or tuned out. This translates into an inability to genuinely empathize with others pain or to deeply experience joy.