While avoiding your strong emotions may allow you some peace for the short term, you will definitely pay the price for this strategy over the long haul. By choosing to avoid your pain or discomfort now, you end up masking or numbing your strong feelings over time, which leads to destructive and unhealthy behaviors you must continue to repeat if you want to continue to avoid your difficult feelings.

By avoiding these challenges that life hands to you, you are also inadvertently narrowing your future options, as you work hard to avoid any future pain or unpleasantness.

Avoidance can become a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps you from exploring new options, taking risks, or exploring new places because they may result in difficult feelings.

Avoidance will just lead to more avoidance, which narrows your path even further, leading to a life void of experiences and opportunities.

QUESTIONS TO REFLECT ON:

Thinking

Are you actively thinking about understanding your emotions?
Are you thinking about all the the things that help you break your destructive cycle?
Are you thinking about how you can further develop how to break destructive cycles?

Talk – New Language

Do you actively remember the things that make you feel good?
Do you speak of all the good and positive things that make you feel good and help break destructive cycles?

Behaviour