This habit is robbing you and the people you care about of all the magic you’re capable of experiencing in your life. It keeps you prisoner of your own thinking and behavior. It keeps you in your own mental jail. It. Is. AVOIDANCE.

And not to be dramatic, but reading this could literally save your life.

It’s so sneaky how avoidance creeps in. If it’s hard we avoid it. I can see now that avoidance is everywhere in my life. And I bet it’s everywhere in your life. 

You’re avoiding responding to an email, dealing with your bills, or having that hard conversation, or getting that screening because you’re afraid of the diagnosis.

Dr. Launa Marques, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard and author of Bold Moves, explains why we avoid, how to identify it and what to do about it. 

Here are the cliff notes.

People come to me looking to fix their anxiety. But the problem really is not anxiety. The problem is fear.

Anxiety is the physical result of fear – racing heart, sweaty palms, panic attacks, upset stomach, blushing and on and on. The fear is in our head. And what we do when we feel those anxious symptoms is avoid. We focus so much on getting rid of the physical discomfort of anxiety which is like putting a bandaid on it. But if we manage the fear then we manage the anxiety.

The only way to manage the fear is to stop avoiding. We can’t get rid of fear, but we can get rid of avoidance. That we can get rid of.

Two Ways to Stop Avoidance

 #1. The solution is to approach it and get more comfortable, because avoidance is triggered by uncomfortable situations.

It’s not about getting rid of the fear. That won’t ever happen. Let’s stop having that expectation. Instead of avoiding the thing that’s scaring you, you have to approach. Yes, approach instead of avoid. You have to go against that avoidance to go towards the things that matter. 

I was blown away by how prevalent avoidance is in everybody’s life. It’s just so easy to opt out, to not go, to not try. It’s our default. We do it all the time. We rationalize a way to avoid.

I’m not gonna ask for this raise because I just haven’t worked hard enough or

I’m not going on this date because I’m afraid of dating.

It’s everywhere. And if what we do is walk away from the things that are meaningful, if what we do is avoidance, then we are robbing ourselves from our best lives. 

Avoidance is not just an anxiety response. There’s so many things we feel this pull of wanting to do, but we’re scared of doing it. It’s not anxiety. It’s like a wall. 

II remember when we took a family trip to Mexico and everyone wanted to go swimming with the dolphins. But I was scared. What if the dolphin turns on me? What if I panic and forget how to swim? What if I look like a fool?

I wanted to avoid it. But I didn’t want my girls to remember that Mom chickened out and didn’t do it. So I watched other tourists swim with the dolphins. Then I got up close to the dolphins and looked in their eyes and pet them. Then I put my feet in the water and let them swim around me. I approached.

And then I did it! It was so fun. After I did it, I realized I made my fear so big and it really wasn’t scary once I was doing it.

Avoidance is anything that we do, or don’t do in response to a perceived threat that we designed. 

We avoid things that we’re nervous to do, but why? Why do we avoid even the simple stuff like replying to an email from somebody we actually know? 

We are biologically wired to avoid. The brain cannot differentiate real threat from perceived threats. Our brains are wired to predict and protect. It’s protecting us from danger and it’s predicting danger based on past information.

It’s predicting and then it’s making a call on how to protect you based on its prediction. That’s it. And that call is avoidance. 

Maybe you avoid opening bills because you don’t  have the money to pay them. 

If you get that mammogram it means you’re going to get a horrible diagnosis – which is the reason you SHOULD get that mammogram.

Or here’s one I do. I know I have to go through the clothes in my closet because half the stuff in there doesn’t fit because of the way my body’s changed with menopause,

I don’t do it. I haven’t done it. I just close the door to the closet and I don’t deal with it.

Or I didn’t go back to my barre class after Covid because I was so out of shape. I avoided how painful that first workout was gonna be and the realization of how out of shape I was.

When you avoid you are inducing fight, flight or freeze which leaves you behaving one of 3 ways. Here’s the 3 R’s of avoidance

Retreating is moving away from discomfort. That’s that flavor of avoidance. Ever not gone to a social event because you’re afraid of someone or saying something wrong? How about avoiding a hard, honest conversation you know would clear things up but you hide instead? 

Reacting. For some of us, avoidance is reacting. Ever yell at your dog when he’s barking too much? He startled you and when he barks it could be a warning that something or someone dangerous is lurking. Perception of a threat. 

Remain This is the deer in the headlight. It is staying in a situation that no longer works. You’re in a job you dislike, but the fear of another job is petrifying. Or, you stay in a relationship that you don’t like. 

So the remain of avoidance is you’re frozen in place. You know it’s not working but you’re not moving away. You’re just literally frozen.

Stop avoiding and start approaching. Avoidance is not a joke. The long term costs are high. It can cost you a relationship, a job, getting into law school, helping others, your physical or mental health, joy, peace, money, your self-esteem, your life

Okay, you know the first way to stop avoidance is to approach. But there is one more thing you want to do to start kicking this habit. 

#2. Change the narrative in your brain.

You are responsible for the narrative in your brain. You can believe what your brain is telling you, or you can change the narrative in your brain. 

How do you do this?

First you need to create a pause. 

But how do you get yourself to pause? 

Use Mel Robbins’ Five Second Rule. Because when you count backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, what you do is you interrupt that death match in your mind. And the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, creates a pause and it’s in that pause that you can then choose what you think or do next. In five seconds you can choose to go towards a life that matters or you can choose avoidance. And it’s a choice. 

And in that pause you need to do a couple things. 

Start with understanding what was the situation that triggered any kind of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I actually call this the think, feel, do cycle. 

Take a piece of paper and literally write down your thoughts. Link them to your emotions, link them to specific behavior. 

For example if your thought might be “I don’t want to go to this party because Susie doesn’t like me.” And that thought makes you feel nervous. And that feeling makes you want to stay home. 

Science tells us that writing activates the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps us organize and execute. It is always competing for energy with our amygdala – the fight, flight of freeze part of the brain. When one is on, the other one tends to quiet down. So if you’re in your anxious brain, get out of there by writing your thoughts, emotions, and behavior cycle.

Next, you need to interrogate these thoughts and find the evidence that Susie doesn’t like you.

What is the evidence that you have right now that Susie doesn’t like you?
She never talks to me. I feel like she always looks at me with those judging eyes. 

Okay. Has Susie or anyone else told you that Susie doesn’t like you?
No. It’s just a feeling I have. 

So you have no proof that Susie doesn’t like you or is judging you?
No.

What will happen if you go to the party and see Susie?
Probably nothing. Like I said, it’s not like she talks to me.

So what can you say to yourself based on your past experience that might change the narrative in your brain?
Well, just because I think Susie doesn’t like me doesn’t mean it’s true. If I start to feel judged I can tell myself it’s only in my head. Susie has never said a mean word to me. I’m just intimidated by her and I don’t even know why.

Remember, this is the beginning of changing your perspective and shifting your thinking so you don't believe right away because there's so much history of anxiety driven thoughts. You don't need to believe it. What you need to do is be able to say that to yourself over and over again.

Positive thoughts alone do not work. In fact, fake positivity can be toxic. We have to reframe, we have to rewire our brain and it takes time. It’s the first step towards a better life.

Wrapping it up

Avoidance is a big lie that we’re telling ourselves. I believe if you’re really honest with yourself, you’ll see that avoiding the hard stuff, avoiding the things that you fear, avoiding taking a risk, that’s actually more uncomfortable because you know that you’re selling yourself short.

The discomfort that we feel facing things is so much less than this monster that we create in our head while we’re busy avoiding. When you do the thing you want so badly to avoid it’s incredibly  liberating to overcome a fear.  

If you want to jump out of a plane, you’ll feel some fear jumping out. But then notice when you land, your feet on the ground, your whole system calms down and you’re like, oh my God, I’m living my best life.

Little approaches towards the things that matter the most can start to really change our lives. And that’s how we get more happiness. That’s how we feel better. 

I know that in moments that I myself am having the hardest time, it’s because I’m avoiding. Think about the dream life. What are the things you want to do? And then ask yourself why you’re not doing that. What are the things that are getting in the way? And you’re gonna pretty quickly identify your avoidance. 

• I’m not doing this because I’m afraid of heights.
• I’m not doing this because if I ask for a raise, they’re gonna find out that I’m not good enough.
• I’m not going on this date because I don’t think I’m pretty enough. 

All this avoidance is simply us not being able to tolerate our own uncomfortable emotions.

This is really about creating a baseline of emotional peace.

What you want to create is a comfortably uncomfortable world. A world where you’re just enough out of your comfort zone towards the things that matter the most. And be sure that you’re fighting the real enemy here, which is avoidance.