Emotional avoidance
How it hurts you in the long run.
In the context of your mental health, avoidance means sidestepping uncomfortable emotions, thoughts or situations. It is a common coping mechanism, one that is self-protective and useful in some contexts, particularly if we need to stay present in a moment to focus on what’s in front of us or need temporary relief. In the long run though, avoidance has a detrimental impact.
The relief it provides tends to be a short-term illusion. When we bury difficult emotions (such as anger, frustration, sadness, fear, disappointment), they don’t always just disappear, especially if we do not face them later to process. Instead, they can re-appear as psychological or physical manifestations. Research actually shows links between repressing emotions and a decreased immune system and to symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression.
When it comes to anxiety and fears, avoidance ends up creating a feedback loop and increased anxiety, since you end up enabling the very fears you’re seeking to escape and adding fuel to the fire. It’s like you’re continually convincing yourself that your fears and anxiety are evidence-based, when in actuality, they might not be and instead be based on cognitive distortions and core wounds, which deepens your belief in them and causes more avoidance.
Emotional avoidance can also show up in relationships, particularly with resisting important conversations or being vulnerable about how you feel. While these can be challenging and uncomfortable conversations, not having them can place a deep strain on relationships by limiting communication, honesty, and authentic intimacy, which all can eventually create distance in the relationship and conflicts.
Emotional avoidance also strains your relationship with yourself. It limits self-discovery and being able to explore and heal parts of yourself. By constantly avoiding yourself, you miss out on opportunities to learn, build resilience and evolve. Resisting difficult emotions also limits how much you can tap into joyful emotions to their fullest extent. Pain and joy are two sides of the same coin— when we limit experiencing one, the other is impacted.
The other reason you might avoid is that it simply doesn’t feel good to sit with discomfort. There could be a fear that you’ll get stuck there, or that it will lead to long-lasting distress. But with the right coping tools, you can navigate the discomfort so that it feels less overwhelming and that you can use the wisdom of your emotions to grow. It’s worthwhile to remember that every emotion and sensation has an ending, and that you’ve dealt with discomfort before.
Why does emotional avoidance happen? There could be many reasons, but a large one points to childhood and what it was like for you to be vulnerable with your emotions. Many grow up with messages such as “suck it up, get over it, you shouldn’t be sad/angry/etc. about this”. While caregivers might have been well-intentioned, the messages encourage suppressing emotions rather than understanding why they are present and feeling validated. Even further, if you were reprimanded for being vulnerable, it engrains avoidance even more and the idea that being “emotional” is bad.
Signs you might be avoidant:
Constant distraction and busyness: you tend to persistently distract yourself with activities, work or anything to be busy so that external stimuli prevents you from sitting with feelings or certain thoughts.
Minimizing or dismissing emotions: this could look like telling yourself “it’s not a big deal, I’m fine” to avoid acknowledging and expressing your emotions, as well as processing them. It could also include self-attack and a harsh inner narrative as an attempt to “override” the emotion.
Persistence substance use: using alcohol, cannabis or other substances to constantly numb yourself. Even if the amounts are not significant, any level that takes you away from your thoughts and emotions can point to avoidance.
Avoiding intimate relationships or vulnerable conversations with loved ones: this could be a fear of getting close to others, despite wanting closeness. It could also be putting off difficult or vulnerable conversations with those you are close with because the potential discomfort feels too overwhelming.
Not being able to be in silence and stillness: this can look like constantly needing to be tuned into music, podcasts, or TV and not being able to sit with yourself and not do anything or listen to anything.
Cognitive avoidance: consciously and consistently telling yourself not to think about specific things, filling your mind with fantasies or daydreams, chronic worrying, obsessive thoughts, or constantly preparing for “what ifs”.
Often in healing and personal growth, we feel worse before we feel better. Avoiding difficult emotions and thoughts help in the moment, but will only hurt you and your relationships long-term. With the right tools and grounding techniques, your psychological flexibility goes up and it becomes easier. Beyond being able to sit with emotional discomfort, you can also get to a place of befriending and accepting all parts of yourself, including the parts you avoid, and this becomes a true act of self-love. 💕
5 ways to address avoidance
Mindful self-reflection: Begin to identify when you are engaging in avoidance. What specific situations, emotions and or thoughts cause you to distract or avoid? A good starting point is simply writing them down, without the need to problem solve them, figure out the “why” they are present, or over-analyzing them. Simply acknowledge what is present.
Develop emotional awareness. Tune into what emotions you’re feeling (the emotion wheel can be very helpful in identifying specific emotions) and the physical sensations that come with them. Once you identify an emotion, bring a compassionate curiosity to explore ‘why might this be here?’ Tuning into difficult emotions can provide a lot of wisdom to what’s important.
Practice acceptance and mindfulness-based practices. Mindfulness is the best pathway to increase your emotional awareness and to be able to sit with discomfort. Because it happens at the embodied level, mindfulness teaches you to not evaluate thoughts and emotions are “bad” or “good” and allows for acceptance and compassion which leads to healthier processing and growth.
Gradual exposure and behavior activation. Practice engaging in activities that feel difficult and would typically lead to avoidance; i.e., being vulnerable with others. Start small and keep building. The more you see that you can tolerate discomfort and be OK, the more evidence and bravery you’ll gain, which will allow you to continue.
Create more pauses for yourself. Before the automatic behaviors of whatever you turn to distract yourself or be busy, i.e. turning on a podcast, pause and allow yourself to be still and in silence for a few minutes. Take deep breaths, check in with yourself and see how long you can tolerate it before moving forward.
Be patient and compassionate with yourself as you slowly learn to sit with yourself and reach out for professional help if it’s too overwhelming.
