When I’m talking with my clients, the word “avoid” comes up  a lot. And, I really enjoy working with my clients because they’re brave
enough to confront the hardest parts of their lives that they’ve been avoiding for a long time. There’s few things more rewarding than seeing one of my clients say “I’ve avoided this long enough, and I’m ready to be done with the pain this causes.” They’ve recognized that avoidance doesn’t solve our problems, it compounds them.

When we avoid our problems, we usually end up making our lives worse. To be clear, I’m not talking about having healthy distractions to use
when we’re struggling, I’m talking about avoiding the hard things of life to our own detriment. Maybe you know your relationship needs some help, but it’s hard to bring yourself to do the work. Maybe you know your life is out of control, and you’re not happy at all, but it’s challenging to admit that and try to do something different.

So, with all this, why do we still avoid our problems? If we know that avoiding issues will usually make our lives worse, why do we do it?

We avoid because we feel like we can’t bear the emotions. To confront our problems means that we will step into anxiety, fear, guilt,
sadness, and many more uncomfortable emotions we’d rather push to the side. In all of us, we’re afraid that we won’t be able to handle those emotions, and we’ll self-destruct.

We avoid because we’re scared we’ll only make it worse. For this one, I see this in our relationships very frequently. When we know
something is off, we know there’s resentment or tension building between us and our spouse, there’s a part of us that wants to address it and start the healing process. But, we’re worried that we’ll say the wrong thing, make another mistake, and set us further back.

We avoid to try and find temporary relief. I know that we don’t avoid our problems for no reason, the truth is: avoidance really helps
us relax for a brief time. When we put our problems out of sight and out of mind, we get to enjoy the present moment, briefly. But, soon, that feeling creeps up on us, and we remember what we’re avoiding, and then we can’t enjoy the present moment anymore, because we know what the near future holds.

Lastly, I need to say this: I completely understand what it’s like to avoid the hard parts of life even when I know it’s going to worsen my
life. Human beings aren’t fully rational robots, sometimes we self-sabotage; avoidance is self-sabotage. However, we have the amazing ability to recognize our avoidant tendencies, and make a real commitment to change.

Today, think about what you’ve been avoiding, and why you’re avoiding it. Think of how much better your life would be if you weren’t running
away from that problem as much as you are. It may take some work to unlearn your avoidant tendencies, but with the right support, you can do it, and you can enjoy your life so much more when you’re running towards things you enjoy, rather than running away from what you fear.

Thank you for reading my practice’s blog, my library of all the random thoughts that would make a terrible book but make a halfway-decent blog. To request a session or contact me, head to my Scheduling page to get in touch with me today!