Damn, I am embarrassed at how much time has passed since I have written a blog post! I mean, to be honest, virtual school, working three jobs, and engaging in self care has been my life since September and I give myself grace for putting things on the back burner. This actually goes well with what I wanted to write about today…….good ol’ AVOIDANCE! This has been a common theme lately in my own personal life as well as many of my clients. It’s interested, often times there are themes to what is occurring with my clients throughout the weeks and sometimes I mirror that myself. The reason why I wanted to tackle avoidance is because I feel like people often view it as “coping” when in reality it’s not. Take for example, vegging out watching movies/tv all day instead of having a conversation with someone about something that has upset you. Or opening up Instagram or TikTok to scroll mindlessly for hours instead of getting up to workout or be productive. PLEASE hear me when I say, there is nothing wrong with doing either one of those things. HOWEVER, those behaviors become persistent, consuming, and deter you from participating in life, then it’s avoidance.
Recently I have had more than one client tell me they had gotten to a point in their healing journey where the emotions became too much and they shut down. Healing, self-exploration, and mindset work is HARD AS FUCK. It’s exhausting, it can feel “gross” and it can bring shit up that perhaps we aren’t ready to accept or willing to explore. But let’s think about that for a second, is avoiding it going to heal it? Is avoiding it going to help you process through what those things mean for you? Is avoiding going to deter the thoughts from consuming you? I am assuming you can guess the answer….NO. In order to heal things from your past, you have to allow yourself to feel those emotions, ride that wave that feels fucking scary, and know that you are going to come back down to shore just like the ocean. Learning to feel your feelings is scary when all you have done is avoid or compartmentalize. Everything feels like a tsunami and like you’re drowning with no help in sight. Know that no matter how overwhelming the thoughts and feelings are, they.re exactly that, thoughts and feelings, which are fleeting and CAN be changed. The next time you find yourself wanting to avoid a task, a thought, a feeling, or a memory, I want you to do me a favor and do the complete opposite of that. DO the task, FEEL the feeling, THINK the thought. Experience it, accept it, and let it go! And remember, you fucking got this!
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