The Finding Today E-book is available for free!
Avoidance Tolerance
When our ancestors noticed a rustling in a nearby bush, the ones who lived on to continue humanity were on the run. Curious early humans were not always rewarded by finding a sweet lamb or slow moving turtle. Those innate senses we still have of fight, flight or freeze kick in without much thought on our part even now when something isn’t quite right. Humans are experts at avoidance. Eliminating it from our hidden powers hasn’t been a priority since we still use it so often. Not always by choice.
Avoiding Avoidance
The stress we encounter today comes mostly from inside of us. And then we stress about that stress. We might have some ability to distract ourselves by drinking, shopping, working, or focusing on anything else too much. These are displacement activities designed to give us a little of that feel-good response we get when we try to escape to avoid a problem. Sadly, the issue follows us and is waiting for us even after we get done. It’s like turning around and bumping right into that old flame from college that you never wanted to see again. Now you have to be awkwardly polite and speak a little. How droll.
Confrontational Power
Avoiding the avoidance is where the real power lies. When you step back at those first thoughts you have when you are looking for an escape route, pause and see if you are choosing the journey or if you are just relying on some ingrained methods of getting out of town. There are consequences, good and bad, to making choices. Think back to whether your usual way of handling things was really working well or if you need an upgrade. It’s completely your choice if you make it your own and just don’t rely on the way you always handled stressors before.
Don’t Avoid the Choice
It is important to understand your power of choice. This is not meant to be comfortable either. You are discovering something new about yourself and that is awesome. Your increased awareness to yourself and your default choices gives you a chance to show that you are on to your tricky brain. It’s like you are in on the joke. This type of self-compassion helps you recognize your innate ability to learn from shaking bushes too. You will understand how to prepare yourself for any scenario and have more options to use; this time it might be detachment and next time it might be engagement. Your choice, expert.
What is your go-to method of avoiding something? If that isn’t working, why is it still in the tool kit? What would happen if you didn’t avoid the next thing that came up?
