Unlock the hidden patterns of your mind as we venture into the realm of experiential avoidance—a concept far more prevalent in our daily lives than we might realize. Have you ever noticed yourself shying away from uncomfortable tasks or conversations, only to face a mountain of stress later on? Our latest episode peels back the layers of this psychological behavior, revealing its deceptive allure and the subtle ways it can undermine our mental health. We dissect procrastination, a classic example of experiential avoidance, and discuss the irony of how seeking immediate relief can spiral into anxiety and chaos as deadlines loom. This enlightening journey into self-awareness promises to offer you a fresh perspective on the coping strategies you unwittingly employ and how they may be impacting your life.
Your support matters to us! Please give us a follow on each of our platforms to stay updated on what we're doing at PsychologistSay.
Unlock the hidden patterns of your mind as we venture into the realm of experiential avoidance—a concept far more prevalent in our daily lives than we might realize. Have you ever noticed yourself shying away from uncomfortable tasks or conversations, only to face a mountain of stress later on? Our latest episode peels back the layers of this psychological behavior, revealing its deceptive allure and the subtle ways it can undermine our mental health. We dissect procrastination, a classic example of experiential avoidance, and discuss the irony of how seeking immediate relief can spiral into anxiety and chaos as deadlines loom. This enlightening journey into self-awareness promises to offer you a fresh perspective on the coping strategies you unwittingly employ and how they may be impacting your life.
Your support matters to us! Please give us a follow on each of our platforms to stay updated on what we're doing at PsychologistSay.
Bonjour, welcome to Psychologist's Day, a podcast where we talk about the psychology of everyday life, and I'm your host, dr Tammy. Today we are going to be talking about something called experiential avoidance. I think this I know that word experiential sounds like a big word. Basically, I want you to break it down and think about experience, that when we are engaging in something that's called experiential avoidance, this is a term to really get down to the root of what we do as humans, where we try to create something, do something, whether it be conscious or unconscious, to avoid an experience, and so you just put those two words together and we have that term, those terms experiential avoidance. As humans Remember, I've said this in several of the podcasts where we talk about it is our human nature to avoid unpleasant or to want to avoid the unpleasant. We want to avoid suffering, the uncomfortable feelings that we may have anything that is worth anything in this world. We have to work, we have to suffer, yet oftentimes we want to delay this type of suffering, we want to postpone it, we want to numb it, we just do not want to feel it, or maybe we can feel it, but not at this moment. So that's where experiential avoidance comes into play, and I think it's an important conversation for us to have, because if you're ever working with a therapist, this is something that they may be talking to you about and maybe not totally labeling what it is, or it's something if you're at home and you're listening and it can resonate with you, which I'm sure for many of our listeners at will. This is something that we all engage in and through our talk today you'll see that there's different levels in terms of the level of dysfunction or interruption that can come with the amount of avoidance techniques that we're using and the type of behavior where it can be very hurtful and harmful to ourselves to engage in this type of avoidance over the long haul.
Speaker 1:
So when you think about this term avoidance experiential it's really an unwillingness to remain in a distressing internal state, so it's really a big reluctance to feel the feelings of being uncomfortable, and this can take many forms, but it's essentially trying our best to insert something or do something to avoid having to feel our feelings in that situation. And this could even be thoughts, if there are certain thoughts that come across as painful to us. So we may not even be in a certain situation or time or place, but it may be a thought that that really results in us feeling uncomfortable or struggling, having some pain or difficulty processing, or feeling that we may do something to avoid having this thought, to replace this thought, and these are the types of things that, when you're dealing with experiential avoidance, you're doing something to suppress and to hold down this thought. So oftentimes it's something that is unhealthy for us, that we're inserting into our lives to control and block out this uncomfortable experience that we could be having. And these type of avoidance behaviors can be very sneaky, they can be difficult to spot, they can be part of your way of living. That it's just. This is the person I am, this is how I do things, without really examining the level of disruption it could be creating in your life or even the internal back and forth of if you're living in accordance with your values and your goals and the way you want to be living versus how you're actually behaving. And so it's a really deep dive into our own types of thinking and behaving and our level of feeling comfortable with uncomfortable feelings, and so it's a really good talk. It's a heavy talk, I think, and so today we're just going to get into it just a bit so you have that terminology and that you can start to relay this and relate it to other parts of your life. Or maybe you're engaging in certain behaviors that you really want to tackle. Maybe you know, you're aware of some of these types of avoidance behaviors that you're doing, and an example would be If you're struggling with completing an assignment or you have a project that's due and instead of facing and working through that anxiety, that stress, having the discipline, maybe even some of the boredom, whatever feeling is tied to you, having a deadline, procrastinating is one of those ways that we suppress, we avoid, we put it off until later, because that uncomfortable feeling of having to work, maybe not having that control over your time and what you want to do with it or your motivation, may really put us into a state where we experience and we start to do things that are purposely procrastinating.
Speaker 1:
Now, when I say on purpose, it's because we want to avoid this feeling of doing the work, because, like those reasons I just said, that the work could be frustrating, it could be time consuming, it could be the type of work that you know kills your brain versus enhances it. These are all things that, individually, you have to define, because when we procrastinate now, you can see it as part of this feeling of experiential avoidance. I am doing something to avoid an uncomfortable situation or a deadline, something that is activating my system and I want to avoid it. So I will delay it, I will put it off, I will engage in other activities that are more maybe reinforcing to me at that time, and so that's where we start to have that dilemma internally of maybe some of that self-talk, where we're starting to question why we procrastinate, why do we put ourselves through almost extra pain?
Speaker 1:
And part of this avoidance is that it does work for people. It works in the short term so you can have some immediate relief, some immediate gratification by releasing the uncomfortable feeling of not having to do something and then increasing that positive feeling of having that stress released. So that's very reinforcing. But in the long haul you may find that it brings more discomfort when you may have the project do and you only have one day to get this project done. You may be the type that is now working on adrenaline and working under time constraint and then almost creating this kind of chaos for you to get this done, and that can have a long-term effect on how we function in everyday life. It can affect how our body can regulate stress because we are overloading it with cortisol, adrenaline because of that procrastination. And in the long haul we learn how to continue these patterns of procrastination because maybe they work for us. So in the short term, we have that delay, we have that relief and that release of doing something to avoid the feeling, or even doing something to avoid taking the action that may feel unpleasant to get our task done, and so that's how we start to see this, how these can become patterns for us in our lives.
Speaker 1:
So I want you to think about other things, such as putting off going to a social event or being in a social event, and maybe you are not physically. You're physically present, but your mind and your body even feels distant. You're having trouble, maybe, connecting with the people around you Because your mind may be so preoccupied with fears of being judged, being ridiculed, your own self-esteem issues, some inadequacy, and so you may want to then avoid those situations. That's part of this. Like when I said, this type of avoidance can be tricky and it can be very subtle Because maybe you're not, you don't think you're actively doing anything to self-sabotage in that situation, however, you are engaging in a preoccupation with worry and fear in your mind, and that preoccupation then becomes part of this experiential avoidance, where you're so preoccupied and caught up with a worry dialogue or fear dialogue in your brain that you're physically and mentally and psychologically unable to connect with anybody meaningfully in that environment. So it makes you feel even more socially isolated, when maybe that's the exact thing that you went to the social setting to get was some kind of social interaction. And so some of you may be thinking okay, this is some of the things that I do.
Speaker 1:
Maybe I wasn't so aware of this, and so these are things that are common, but some people do it to a point where it starts to create so much more depression and anxiety, and it can also lead to a lot of other behaviors where using alcohol or drug use, eating I just said an episode on emotional eating. So these types of behaviors, these are things that we can try to use to escape and avoid by doing something external to try to cope with our internal feelings of suffering, pain, inadequacy and some resistance, of not wanting to feel that. So anytime that we are adding something, to take something negative away, and so you can think of this as simple as taking a painkiller when you're in pain. You want that relief of pain, so you're adding something to help you feel less pain, and so, when you think about this, it's adding. It could be a person that's adding alcohol to decrease their anxiety or inhibit their response so that they can be more interactive, that they can maybe quiet that voice in their head and then eventually maybe they're able to interact. But see, these are all part of avoiding and blocking out the feeling and the experience to try to create something that they're having difficulty doing without this type of coping or this defense mechanism. So you can see where this can become quite dangerous for people.
Speaker 1:
When you're using a substance or you're using food or you're using something that's very harmful and hurtful to yourself, even just pushing down a thought or a feeling for so long that eventually your body will need to process this. It's something that is uncomfortable and learning how to sit with our comfort, identifying it, accepting pieces of it, can allow us to start to be okay with the feeling of uncertainty, that feeling uncomfortable or having this internal doubt. It's natural, it's part of our life. We were designed to be able to handle our suffering, believe it or not, and so part of that is making friends with your suffering when you're experiencing it. This is also part of our survival, that we have these feelings also to keep us safe, and so allowing yourself to feel some of those emotions or even track them, understand why you're doing certain behaviors to avoid now can make you feel much more empowered to decrease some of that avoidance and step into some of that feeling or step into some of those behaviors that help you feel rewarded in a good way. And so those are some of the things that I just want you to start thinking about today, and we'll be talking about this much more, because it's a very big topic and it's one that I'm very fond of in the work that I do with the individuals that I work with, and I believe it's something that, individually, we all have to define what our internal motivations are and when you're trying to understand how can I become less rigid, less avoidant in my thinking and behaviors?
Speaker 1:
When I'm feeling uncomfortable, how can I go into a situation or go into a conversation or work with myself in a way that can help me be less avoidant and more present, more accepting, and so part of that, there's a term called psychological flexibility, and this is something that some people are just born with. More of this trait, they don't have a lot of difficulty, they're kind of go with the flow. They may not get too uptight or worried about things. They may be able to keep their body calm and relaxed for the most part and they may be able to really just learn and know how to navigate social situations and cope and deal with uncomfortable feelings. And so these are the people that have been able to develop these skills and many of us have not. You know that we may do some good in some situations, yet feel ourselves really struggling many times with these emotions.
Speaker 1:
So, trying to work towards being able to understand the circumstances that you're under and try to add something a little bit more creative and accepting about what you're going through and this takes a little bit of time to sit and think and be aware of what a situation is triggering inside of you. It's becoming your own detective and you're not worried about what's going on for everybody else. This is focusing on you and your level of what's being triggered inside of you and what's important to you in terms of your values, your needs, your wants. Where do you want to see yourself, what are you avoiding, what are you trying to push away with certain behaviors? And then you want to just start to keep track of these, journal these, process them. If you have a good friend or if you have a therapist, that would be really great and take your time with it, start off small and then look at things that you, where you've done maybe some confrontation or experiencing successfully in life.
Speaker 1:
We don't do this all of the time. There are times when we've had big successes in our lives, where we've confronted our fears, we've worked through the pain. We had the excitement and the reinforcement and the recognition of finishing something or doing something, or challenging and confronting and handling something in a good way. You always want to find that, even if it's just one time in your life. I want you to write that down and always remember that that's within you to be able to do that. And so we don't want to look at this as if we're failing in life. We want to look at this as though we're meant to succeed or we are designed to be able to handle and cope.
Speaker 1:
Yet we have to take these baby steps into figuring out and having these conversations and starting with these small steps, but always focus on the times that you feel you did it well, because that's the way to feel that empowerment and that's the way to model for yourself how you're able to do it the next time. And so just working on being a little more loving and compassionate with yourself is a huge step in the right direction to start to be able to accept and make friends with this piece of us that may feel uncomfortable, insecure, worried, maybe want to isolate versus socialize and integrate. The piece of us that may want to withdraw because we're uncertain, we're scared, but yet we want to connect, because we want to feel that meaning, we want to have meaningful and healthy relationships with people. We want to be able to confront and work towards our fears versus letting them bring along more avoidance and anxiety, because eventually that's what manifests as more of the unhappiness of what we're not doing and the internal belief that we know that we could be doing it.
Speaker 1:
So I hope that today was a great conversation. It's a huge topic and one that I will be able to now that I've brought it up, I'll be able to bring it up many more times throughout the podcast and keep building on these talks that we're having. Thank you for checking in. I hope that you're able to go to the psychologist's seat and listen to other episodes, because we're really building blocks to be able to have deeper conversations with each other, and I know that the listeners are definitely ready and they want to have these conversations about everyday life. But we want to bring them up to another level and be able to really understand and talk about things that people just are not having conversations about. So, again, thanks for checking in. Ps, it's human nature to want to avoid the uncomfortable, yet it's well, with inner ability and capacity, to be able to tackle these situations. So thank you for checking in, mi goch.
