These avoidance strategies that ruin our daily lives

Defenses, this way of resistance that allows us not to face our worries, we find both big and small. The first are related to phobias: claustrophobia, agoraphobia, social phobia… If I’m scared on the plane, I’ll travel by train. If I’m afraid of elevators, I’ll travel by stairs.

These defenses are conscious: we know why we don’t work, we know the fear we are running from.

Small daily precautions

But small, everyday avoidances are more insidious because, most of the time, we don’t even realize it. Damn it, I “forgot” to double-check my bank balance, respond to that invitation, make an appointment with the doctor. Or maybe I “didn’t have time”.

However, the question is not about our agenda or our memory, nor our conscious intentions. It is a strategy, a form of magical thinking, that our unconscious implements to avoid facing fear.

great unconscious anxiety

As long and difficult as it can be to overcome a phobia, it is also possible to discover, understand, even accept it in ourselves, which fuels our daily avoidances. To bring awareness to one’s avoidance is to confront the reality principle. If I fear that I have gained weight and I don’t check it, I take refuge in an imaginary world where I can keep convincing myself that it’s not true. But why am I so scared of the fact that my weight has increased by three kilos? What history of my body does this anxiety tell me? What am I running away from by running away from the scales?

In addition to keeping us away from our realities, avoidance also has another major effect: it reinforces our fears and, therefore, our resistance to facing them. The more we try to avoid the problem, the bigger it becomes. And so, gradually, a little worry turns into a big worry.