On avoidance:

We've all been there before, right? The place we'd rather not think about or relive? We'd rather shut off the experience entirely, and just move on with our new experience. But that's not how it works. Instead of freely moving into whatever is next, the process of avoidance tends to shut off our access to the full range of emotions, not just the hard ones. By avoiding the difficult parts of our story, we might accidentally be avoiding the great ones, too.

So, what is avoidance, and what do we do about it?

Avoidance is a coping mechanism that I don't think is all bad. At some point, this response served you as a protective factor. Maybe it wasn't the right time, or maybe life was too difficult to be able to fully access the pain points. Maybe you were a child, and you simply did not have the language or tools to work through the difficult event. Instead of processing and feeling the difficult feelings, avoiding seemed like the right thing to do. For a time, this seemed okay, until there was a moment that you realized there were other areas in your life that seemed more muted. Or maybe you just stopped feeling like "you." Or maybe, like a friend of mine, you were asked what you were enjoying lately, and you realized you didn't have an answer. That's the tricky thing about it- avoidance gradually creeps in and, while protecting us from the difficult emotions, it can slowly take us away from the depths of joy that we were feeling, too.

To respond to avoidance, we must actually do the opposite of what it is telling us to do. As avoidance is often a learned behavior, it is unlikely that a person who is stuck in a pattern of avoiding will suddenly open themselves up to feeling everything they were pushing aside. Just as we learned to avoid, we must learn to gently embrace the emotions that come up within us. This might look like putting your phone down when you typically reach for it to distract from the thoughts that might arise. Or maybe it means reflecting on the painful experience or even setting aside some time to share what it was like with a trusted person.

Whatever it is and whatever you choose, know that you do not have to be alone in this. There is no shame for whatever this process has looked like, or the amount of time it may have been. Maybe you aren't ready to move through this, and that's okay too. Once it is no longer serving you, you get to decide what is next. If this sounds like something you are experiencing, reach out and we can talk about moving through it together.