If you ask people “what do you want in life?” their answer is often “to be happy”. The pursuit of happiness seems to be a strategy to avoid suffering. In order to be happy people have shut down their feelings and become numb as a form of protection and avoidance of emotional tension or pain.
The Strategy of Avoidance
These strategies can be commonly observed in everyday life in that people go to great lengths to avoid, minimize, or distract from pain. Some people distract from their negative states by becoming absorbed with television, continuously listening to podcasts, immersing themselves in music, creating a fantasy world in their mind or become addicted to gaming and screens including mobile phones. Others numb their pain by consuming too much sugar, drinking alcohol, taking drugs or various types of over the counter or prescription medication. Athletes can become obsessed with exercise to avoid emotional pain. There are an infinite number of ways people can avoid discomfort, and these types of avoidance strategies are effective only in the short term.
In the long term however, these types of strategies can rob you of your freedom to live your life. When you become addicted to alcohol, drugs, screens, food, exercise or sugar you are not free. Every day you find yourself obsessed with repetitive behaviour that you find compelling to the point where you forget what life is about. Children often become aggressive and sometimes violent when screens are taken away. Over time children and teenagers stop engaging with family and friends. They isolate themselves in their rooms obsessed with screens. A tragic example of this is depicted in the true story of a 24-year-old young man who found himself addicted to the dark web for over three years. He confined himself to his bedroom and his parents left his food at his door. Three years later he finally snapped out of it and was shocked to realise he had forgotten how to engage with people and didn’t remember the basics of life. He didn’t know how to go about getting a job.
If you want to test your level of dependence on your mobile phone, see how long you can go without checking your phone. See if you can go out shopping without your phone. You may be surprised that your anxiety increases, or you feel agitated, or you find yourself pacing up and down or you speak faster than usual. Research suggests, on average, Australians check their smart phones more than 85 times per day.
All of this activity to avoid feeling anxious. The paradox is that many of these avoidance strategies are increasing people’s anxiety not reducing it. For example, people often say they need to ‘veg out’ in front of television after a hard day at work. Contrary to people’s expectations that vegging out in front of television helps them relax, it doesn’t. People become more anxious and irritated. It’s a paradox.
An Alternative to Avoidance – Feeling
An alternative to avoiding anxiety is to feel it. When we talk about feeling, it seems simple enough. It can be captured in a short sentence like “I feel sad”. That is easy to say, but are you really feeling or are you thinking about feeling? When you have been avoiding feeling for a prolonged period of time, it is challenging to feel anything at first. You might feel quite numb. With practice however, you will start to feel various types of sensations in your body. You might feel an ache in your stomach; pain in your knee; feeling your buttocks as you sit in the chair; feeling sad for no obvious reason; tightness in your chest and so on. Being prepared to feel these feelings in your body is a risk because sensations may hurt. With practice it gets easier. Being connected to your body and your sensations paradoxically reduces anxiety as a byproduct of being in your body. Feeling is directly felt in your body.
Feeling at this level takes you out of the sympathetic nervous system into the parasympathetic nervous system where you feel more in control. Your breathing changes from shallow breathing in your chest to deeper breathing in your diaphragm or stomach. Your tone of voice softens, your language becomes clearer, your body relaxes, and your posture improves. You start to reflect and gain insights, and you find yourself engaging again.
Vulnerability
This process is the beginning of building Emotional Strength® in everyday life. Emotional Strength® is the “ability to respond in an open and vulnerable way in the face of intense emotional experience” (Faye & Hooper, 2018). Vulnerability is used here as a strength not a weakness. When we allow ourselves to feel vulnerable, we find it easier to engage with others.