What is Your Avoidance Telling You?

What is Your Avoidance Telling You?

Avoidance isn’t always unhealthy. In fact, there are plenty of times that it’s really adaptive. I want to avoid getting a parking ticket, so I move my car during the specified times. You want to avoid getting fired so you do the parts of your job that you’d prefer not to do. I want to avoid getting scratched by that mysterious cat, so I won’t bend down to pet her.

Sometimes we’ve personally experienced something that has taught us to avoid a certain stimulus and other times it’s common sense or a gut feeling. In my early twenties, I had to learn through a few different experiences that Hot Cheetos should be avoided if I wanted to side-step heartburn and a fairly sizeable stomach ache. I did not, however, have to learn through personal experience that the assignments for my Abnormal Developmental Psychology class needed to be completed and handed in on time. My instincts told me that my professor had zero tolerance for tardy assignments.

And really, it’s up to us to decide what we’re willing to endure. If you don’t mind getting the parking ticket, dealing with heartburn, or getting a bad grade, you probably won’t move your car. You’ll eat that bag of Hot Cheetos while procrastinating your assignments. We all have varying levels of tolerance to discomfort. And we even label discomfort differently. I might experience public speaking as uncomfortable, but you might label it as one of the more pleasurable ways to pass an evening. It really depends on what we tell ourselves about the experience we are having.

Avoidance becomes more troublesome or unhealthy when it gets in the way of our relationships, responsibilities, and the way we want to live our lives when it becomes our thinking-doing pattern. If I think, “Ugh, I really hate this meeting. I don’t want to go. We never get anything done, and it just goes on and on forever,” and then I skip the meeting once to stay back and get some work done, that’s not the end of the world. But I’m definitely going to want to get that thought process under control. If I constantly tell myself how much I hate the meeting and label it as something undesirable, I’m going to believe that it’s something I need to avoid. I’m going to make it pretty hard on myself to motivate when it’s time to go to the meeting. The more difficult it is for me to find the motivation to go, the more I’ll probably find ways to get out of it. That becomes a problem with both my thinking and my doing (behavior).

I’m not saying avoidance is bad or that we need to manipulate or trick ourselves out of feeling it. I’m saying we need to be curious about it. If I’m curious about why I don’t want to go to the meeting, what makes me so uncomfortable, I’ll probably learn something. I might learn that I need to speak up about it. I might learn that I can effect change by using my voice. Maybe I’ll see that I need to talk about it with my boss and we’ll both discover that my time is better spent doing something else. Upon further inspection, I might find that this is a much more chronic problem than I realized and discover that it’s time to look for a new job. If you allow yourself to contemplate why you’re often late with assignments, maybe you’ll discover that it’s because you don’t want to be in the field you’re studying. Maybe you’ll even find that you don’t want to be in school at all right now.

This is one of the gifts of avoidance. “If I don’t think about it, I don’t have to deal with it.” We can just keep skipping the meeting rather than thinking about training and searching for a new job. We can continue not to get credit for late assignments and focus on that problem instead of risking what it might be like to tell our parents that we don’t want to be in school right now. We can come home to our partner after a long day and sit in front of the TV with our phone in our hand and not think or talk about the fact that we haven’t felt very connected lately. When we avoid, we don’t have to do the thing, and we don’t have to think about why we’re not doing the thing.

I like to use mindfulness when I’m dealing with avoidance, my own or someone else’s. Give it a try. Ask yourself what you notice about the situation you are avoiding. What’s it like to do it? What’s it like to avoid it? What are the sensations associated with both? What does it mean to do the thing you are avoiding? And what does it mean to avoid it? What meaning are you making out of the sensations? How are you labeling them?

Bringing a little mindfulness is a good start to hearing what your avoidance is trying to tell you. You deserve to know.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Come Out, Come Out Whoever You Are

Come Out, Come Out Whoever You Are

Expressing our authentic selves can be terrifying. We risk rejection, disappointment, loss, and sometimes even violence. On the other hand, we stand to gain a life lived in integrity with who we are, more intimacy with our loved ones, acceptance, joy, and satisfaction. If we choose to stay closeted about who we are, we risk living our lives imprisoned.

There are a million ways in which we “come out of the closet” and, although they’re not all comparable, they’re all challenging to make known. We can come out as Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, GenderQueer, a survivor of abuse, polyamorous, religious, having a criminal history, a sex worker, nonreligious, an addict, recovering from an illness or disease… There is no limit.

Some closets are harder than others to come out of due to prejudices, culture climates, and phobias. It’s not always safe to make ourselves vulnerable and come out of our closets. If we live in a culture or an environment where we could suffer violence and abuse, coming out might be dangerous for us.

When we keep important parts of our identity secret, we keep a chasm between the people with whom we are in a relationship and us. There is so much we don’t share- our thoughts, our feelings, our wishes, our goals… ourselves. A part of us lives unseen and silent. Having to deny or invisibilize such important parts of ourselves often leads to isolation, depression, anxiety, low self- esteem, self-injury, and suicide.

We feel caught dangling from the precipice of the chasm. If we take the leap and reveal ourselves will we plummet and end up in the void or will we make it to the other side? Many of us spend years, decades even, dangling from this edge, afraid to make a step in any direction.

There is so much to consider when we reveal deep parts of ourselves. Will my support network continue to support me? Will I be safe? Will I be accepted? Will they still love me if I let them see who I am? Sometimes it feels like we have to give up important parts of ourselves to keep the love and support of the people close to us.

Coming out, making ourselves visible, being vulnerable is a painful process by definition. It’s the act of opening ourselves up to attack and harm, scrutiny and judgment. It’s stripping our souls of their protective cloaks and allowing ourselves to stand naked.

Ultimately, all any of us wants is to be loved and accepted. We want to know that our loved ones see us, that regardless of their agreement with and understanding of our choices they want to understand us, and that they love us. We want to know that we’re ok.

So, I want you to know that you are ok. No matter who you are, who you love, what you’ve done, who you want to be, how you want to live, as long as you are not hurting or oppressing anyone, you are ok. You are worthy of love and acceptance, and you are ok.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Having Thick Skin: It’s Not What You Think

Having Thick Skin: It’s Not What You Think

Has anyone ever given you the (often unsolicited) advice, “You need to learn to be thicker skinned”? Yep. A lot of us have been given that tip. It’s not necessarily a “bad” recommendation. I’m just not sure it’s always a helpful encouragement for a lot of the situations in which it’s been given. I usually hear that phrase being communicated to people who are sad or mad. And it sends the wrong message.

Being thick-skinned means being resilient. For example, say someone applies for a job, interviews, and doesn’t get the job. If they are thin-skinned, they will take it personally and assume it’s a direct statement about their worth as a person. Maybe it will even affect the effort they put into looking for other jobs or the confidence they exude during future interviews. If the person is thick-skinned, they will feel disappointed, and maybe a slight sting, but know that there are various reasons that explain why they must not have been the best fit for the job. Because they have resilience, they will try again with hope intact.

There are many reasons for a person to exhibit qualities of having thin skin. Different types of trauma can have an impact on someone’s ability to tap into the power of their resilience, (but this is an entirely different article). Those who can access their resilience, those who seem to have thicker skin know that, though it might add to their grit factor, adversity doesn’t define them.

So, what are a few signs that you’re accessing your own thick skin (resilience)?

You know and respect your boundaries. People who have thicker skin can hold and maintain a boundary with others. They can identify when, for whatever reason, something does not feel right for them. They know that they have a right to protect their time, their energy, their needs, and they know they have a right to do so. They don’t feel that they have to say yes to everyone for everything all the time to feel worthy.

You take responsibility for yourself. This requires a certain level of self-awareness. Those who have thick skin can assess when it’s time for them to call in the reinforcements (ask for help, take a break, delegate, etc.) without feeling like it’s a huge blow to their egos. They can see how they impact people and make adjustments when necessary.

You can say the words, “I don’t know.” When someone is aligned with their thick skin, they don’t have to have all the answers to know that they’re worthy. They can sit in the unknown without watching their confidence and self-trust diminish.

You employ acceptance. This is what helps you respect your boundaries. You have flexibility. You accept when you need help, when you need a break, and when you need a change. You don’t fight with your pain or hardship. You understand that it will pass and give way to new emotion, new circumstance. You know that your present state does not define you.

You show up for yourself. This means you take care of your mind, body, and soul. You know what you need to do to care for yourself, and you do it. When you need alone time, you take it. When you need to spend time with loved ones, you reach out. When you need to go to bed, but you’d rather watch another episode of “The Office” you go to bed. When you need to take a sick day, you take it.

 

You might notice that, in no way, have I said, “to be thick-skinned, you must not be in touch with your feelings,” or “You don’t cry or get upset.” Right, because having thick skin is not about cutting yourself off from your feelings; it’s about being in touch with those precious feelings and being honest about them, respecting them, managing them, and using those feelings as part of your guide.

We all have these qualities already inside us. Sometimes, it’s hard to feel them. The more we work at practicing these things, the more resilient we will be.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie          

Learn How to Change Your Thought Pattern

Learn How to Change Your Thought Pattern

Think about what you know. How did you come to know this?

Now think about what you believe. Is it different from what you know? Why or why not?

What we believe and what we know (and what we think we know) organizes our philosophy on life- our paradigm, our mindset. It is why we behave the way we do, have the kinds of relationships we have, and it informs our level of satisfaction with our lives. Essentially, our mindset is… us. And we are our mindset.

Within our mindset each of us has a set of assumptions, which creates our operating system. We have methods to address, work within, and challenge these assumptions. This creates the impetus for us to make particular choices on every level- how we behave in our relationships, what we do for work, how we interact, how we manage conflict, everything. It provides us with a motivation to accept or not accept.

When I ask people how they’ve come to know or believe things about themselves, they often tell me stories of interactions they have had with others, gains and losses they have experienced, and how they’ve interpreted such experiences.

It’s easy to see how some of us create a particular meaning out of the information we receive. For instance, if I experience a lot of mismanaged conflict with my family, I might believe/”know” that they don’t appreciate me. If I believe or “know” this to be true, it will impact most of our interactions, and I might begin to feel defensive around them. This might cause me to behave in an aggressive, hostile, or otherwise distancing way during our interactions. Our relationship will start to feel unsatisfactory, and that experience will fuel my belief that my family doesn’t appreciate me. At this rate, I will feel increasingly alienated from my loved ones. That mismanaged conflict will have taken a stronghold on my beliefs, my relationships, and my life.

What would happen if I start to ask questions about the conflict I am experiencing, if I wonder about the information rather than ascribe meaning to it? What if I allow myself to be curious about this experience, allow myself to challenge beliefs that I have adopted? This complicated pain will begin to shift to transparent contributing factors. I will have a better grasp on the information and what it might mean. I will be able to reorganize what I believe is happening within my relationships. My perspective will begin to change.

What if you became more curious about what you know and believe? What would happen if you challenged how shy you think you are, how smart, how needy, how sensitive, or how mean you are?

Eventually, you will feel less dependent on what you have incorporated as part of your philosophy on life because you will have begun to trust yourself. You’ll start to feel safer challenging your beliefs, less defensive when others challenge you. You’ll equate these challenges with increased learning and development. You will find that failure is not a threatening statement about your capabilities, but a chance for refinement. Where you once felt a sense of safety in defining yourself with various restrictive proclamations (“I’m… smart stupid, bad/good at relationships, a good athlete, shy, Type A, mellow, easy/hard to please, socially inept, charming,“ – whatever.), you will realize how dangerously confining they are.

You don’t need them.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie