Normalization of Suffering – Post 1: When Did We Stop Feeling?

 Normalization of Suffering – Post 1: When Did We Stop Feeling? 🧠💭

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.

Not just about what we see…
But about what we’ve stopped seeing.

Or maybe worse—what we’ve gotten used to.

When I was a kid, we had a black-and-white TV 📺

Simple. Limited. You didn’t sit in front of it all day.

Then came color. More channels. Satellite dishes. Then everything.

And somewhere along the way, something changed.

I remember those “Save the Children” commercials.

Images of emaciated children in parts of Africa…
Flies on their faces… empty eyes.

They were meant to make us care.

And they did.

At first.

But then they kept coming.

Again.
And again.
And again.

Different place. Same suffering.

And slowly—without anyone saying it out loud—we adapted.

That’s how normalization works.

Not in a single moment…

But through repetition 🔁

Fast forward to now.

We scroll past suffering 📱
We walk past suffering 🚶‍♀️
We sometimes even film it 🎥

From global hunger… to addiction crises in cities like Vancouver…

The pattern is the same:

Exposure without resolution.
Emotion without action.

Until eventually… less emotion.

And it’s not just what we see.

It’s what we’re fed.

Advertising. Everywhere 📢

Bus stops. Phones. Videos. Social media.

What used to be occasional is now constant.
What used to be optional is now unavoidable.

There was a time I didn’t fully understand how deep that influence went.

Until my environment changed.

Injury. Indoors. Constant exposure to TV.

And suddenly, the messaging was relentless:

Take this.
Fix that.
Lose weight.
Eat more.
Be different.

Even when I wasn’t overweight… I started to feel like I was.

And I changed.

Not because I needed to—

But because I was being told, over and over, that I did.

That’s the other side of normalization.

Not just becoming numb to suffering…

But becoming disconnected from ourselves.

So here’s the question for this first post:

What have we normalized… without realizing it? 🤔

Because once you see it—

You can’t unsee it 👁️

And maybe that’s where this series begins.

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Reflective Questions 📝

When was the last time something truly shocked you—and why?

Have you ever caught yourself scrolling past suffering without reacting?

Do you think repeated exposure builds awareness… or numbness?

What messages about your body or health have you absorbed without questioning?

If all advertising disappeared tomorrow… how would your thoughts change?