| Avoidance can be helpful for healthy, confident | | | | they could look their realities square in the eye, they |
| functioning and the accomplishment of your life | | | | might see how their usual "I can't" could become "I'll |
| mission. Bet you never thought you'd hear that. | | | | give it a try." |
| I'm not talking about turning the other cheek when | | | | Creative Avoidance Can Be Useful |
| you're angry. Nor am I talking about keeping | | | | Not all avoidance is bad -- sometimes it can actually |
| insensitive, harshly critical, or mean-spirited remarks to | | | | be a creative strategy when the timing and time |
| yourself, although both these examples are clearly | | | | spent allows us to intuitively gather thoughts, release |
| good uses of avoidance that's more commonly called | | | | stress, work up courage, and wait for calm or clarity, |
| common sense. | | | | etc. |
| Psychologically, avoidance usually means the passive | | | | Creative avoidances generally have merit in and of |
| act of not doing something that is good for you and | | | | themselves: taking a walk is good for your health |
| using or doing something else instead that is harmful, | | | | even if you do it to avoid a discussion you don't |
| or that hinders your personal growth and the | | | | want to have, for example. Likewise, starting a craft |
| achievement of your goals. Procrastination is a first | | | | project, or tending the garden, or (in my case today) |
| cousin to avoidance, though usually of shorter | | | | writing a magazine article when you should be doing |
| duration, and with an end result of ultimately doing | | | | your taxes, are creative pursuits used inappropriately |
| what is good for you after some delay. | | | | to delay tackling an unpleasant chore. |
| When It's Dysfunctional to Avoid | | | | Usually, creative avoidance involves choice -- making |
| For Daria, being hypersensitive to disapproval and | | | | a conscious decision to do something that might |
| rejection, fearing the possibility of being shamed or | | | | hinder meeting one need, where the outcome |
| ridiculed, and feeling inept leads to limited interactions | | | | furthers a different goal, or benefits our health or life |
| with her peers. Daria's social avoidance stems from | | | | mission. Jaleesa, for example, chooses to focus on |
| feeling deeply inadequate. As a result, she finds it | | | | her mission to promote English literacy in immigrant |
| difficult to have easily satisfying interpersonal | | | | communities but does this in part to avoid dealing |
| relationships. Avoidance in this sense is highly | | | | with difficult family dynamics. |
| detrimental not only to her personal success, but also | | | | Sometimes creative avoidance incorporates a guilty |
| to a good quality of life. | | | | pleasure in the choice. Patrick goes out dancing to |
| Sam avoids expressing himself, or discussing | | | | avoid spending evening hours on client accounts, and |
| interpersonal issues when it would benefit him to do | | | | pays for it the next day with his back in spasm. We |
| so because he fears starting an argument, or | | | | might question if that avoidance choice was creative |
| embarrassing himself. Narelle avoids paying her bills | | | | or dysfunctional. For Patrick, it was a little opportunity |
| because doing so triggers irrational feelings of scarcity | | | | to reclaim his social life, which served his life mission |
| and insecurity, as if she might not have cash when | | | | of celebrating the artistic efforts of others. |
| she needs it for emergencies. | | | | 2 Questions to Help You Know the Difference |
| These individuals are using forms of dysfunctional | | | | To help determine if you are using avoidance |
| avoidance -- acts that harm or hinder clear | | | | dysfunctionally or creatively, ask: 1) is the activity |
| understanding and longevity in relationships, feeling | | | | you're doing -- that's allowing you to avoid something |
| good about oneself, and having normal effectiveness | | | | you don't like -- freeing or binding you? and 2) is the |
| in the world. These types of thought, feeling, and | | | | avoidance time /activity producing something |
| behavioral avoidance are patterns that create | | | | beneficial and helping you move toward |
| enormous stress. These patterns can be detected in | | | | empowerment? |
| the self-judging, self-blaming remarks we make about | | | | In my coaching practice, I see much self-judgment |
| ourselves, and in some of the false beliefs we have | | | | that hurts one's life-spirit and keeps us stuck in |
| about what we can't do. | | | | under-achievement. Reframing the "avoidance" that is |
| Dysfunctional avoidance is rarely a chosen path. | | | | actually creative processing into a perspective that's |
| Daria's, Sam's, and Narelle's avoidances are their | | | | more empowering and true, is helpful and healthy. |
| default response to perceiving the need to do | | | | Rather than being a method that promotes the |
| something they don't want to do. It's a faulty coping | | | | avoidance of taking responsibility, reframing is a |
| mechanism that kicks into gear, often without their | | | | mental processing technique that stops us from |
| conscious intent. | | | | heaping undue criticism on ourselves and helps us |
| The more they travel that unconscious path, the | | | | become more aware of what motivates our actions. |
| deeper the "habit ruts" in their brains become. Once in | | | | An empowering reframing statement might be: I'm |
| the neuro-rut, it's easier to get stuck in the negative | | | | choosing to do A instead of B right now, so that I |
| "I can't" frame of mind. | | | | can return to A when I'm ready with clarity and |
| Dysfunctional avoidance is often fueled by patterns | | | | courage (or with fresh eyes, or with compassion for |
| of unconscious denial of actual realities. Narelle's | | | | myself and others). |
| scarcity mentality, for example, is in contradiction to | | | | It's possible to change our habituated patterns. We |
| the facts -- she's an educated, middle class woman | | | | can stop dysfunctional avoidance completely if we |
| with job security who lives within her means. Sam's | | | | look at what's real, and follow our own deep |
| conflict-avoidance happens when he's in denial about | | | | knowings and intuitions. Creative avoidance can be |
| his compassion, empathy, and good communication | | | | fun, although it can cost valuable time and energy. |
| skills. Daria's persistent feeling of not being good | | | | Becoming conscious to our faulty beliefs, |
| enough belies the many social invitations and excellent | | | | self-judgments, and actions helps us see the unhelpful |
| performance reviews she receives. | | | | patterns in our lives -- patterns that we all have the |
| All three are habituated to avoiding their triggers. If | | | | power to transform. |