Are you running an Avoidance Loop? Do you need to Deliberatately Depattern?
The Avoidance loop takes opportunity and squashes it! Starting with avoidance of the opportunity, it ends with avoidance of oppotunity. In between the avoidance and the avoidance there is fear, shame, and hopelessness as well as a lot of cognitive distortions that justify the outcome as being a good thing to our human brains, even when it's not.
I've mapped out the loop in the diagram above.
Avoidance can look like procrastination or overindulging in distraction, or passivity (waiting for someone/something other than our own will to pull/push). It can look like withdrawal or isolating, pulling back or simply not being 'in' the space/conversation that would provoke the invitation to the opportunity. It can look like not talking, not moving, not engaging, not contributing, not asking, not saying yes, people pleasing, looking away or looking in another direction, or just simply not being in the room.
The Avoidance Loop is the pattern that came up the most in my research and perhaps that is for several reasons.
Firstly, this pattern is easy to identify as a hindering pattern. We often know when we are avoiding tasks, emotions, situations, people, conversations, changes, opportunities etc. And...we know the impacts.
Secondly it is probably the 'easiest' pattern to acknowledge. When most people think of fears or anxiety, this is the version they think of. It makes a lot of sense to avoid things that are tricky or new. We 'get it' conceptually and it's familiar.
The simple reason we do it is because of our evolutionary need/desire to stay comfortable - our greatest survival technique and the reason we have been so successful as a species.
As with all the patterns, the point of plotting it out in the picture above, is not to say it's a bad loop or even that it's a bad response to the opportunity to do 'the thing'. Sometimes this loop is absolutely the 'right' thing to do. The purpose of recognising the loop and the stages in it is so that we can check how consciously we are stepping through the loop and how much it is serving us in each coming opportunity. Being the best version of ourselves means we consciouslly check whether we are we running on auto in a way that is working for us, helping us achieve our goals. And if not, where we want to step off?
Essentially we want to evaluate, is this working for me? Where and when is it helping me with my goals, my ambitions, my values, my connections, my health, wealth, love....my life.
Some times or some places, or with some people, the opportunity is worthy of a different strategy and here are my tips to #Depattern #Deliberately.
Some tips for Avoidance Looping and how to depattern deliberately. Sign up for #Silverlinings (or message me on here and I'll do it for you!) to hear more tips and tricks to managing avoidance and to recieve next week's Silverlinings on the pattern of a too tight grip/control: The pattern I identified and is so far called Absolutism Grip (I'm seeking feedback on all of this please!)
Challenge the cognitive habits such as 'I can't do this', 'I can't handle this discomfort', 'Avoidance works for me', 'I'm not the sort of person who can do this'.
Challenge the behaviour in an experimental way e.g. 'what happens if I don't avoid the discomfort'; 'what happens if I do the thing'
Challenge your overidentification with the behavioural habit e.g. 'what if I just haven't learnt how to do the thing?'; 'what support do I need to make me the sort of person who does the thing?'
Experiment with pulling forward different emotions that help you build not criticise your progress e.g. excitement, hope, love
What are your thoughts?
I'm still playing with these concepts; I'd love you to message me let me know how it's landing with you?
