Monday, June 5, 2017

What Pain Are You Trying To Avoid?

                                                  "When you try to avoid the pain,
                                                         it creates greater pain."
                                                            - Jennifer Aniston

A lot of people are trying to run from pain and their problems with some form of addiction.

We can never run away from our pain and our problems.
In life, we will all will have good days and also bad days. Good times and bad times. We will feel good, but we will also feel bad. We will have setbacks and smooth sailing. It is completely normal.
No person has only good days. It doesn´t matter who you are..... you will have problems, you will feel bad and you will have setbacks in your life. It is part of living.

Society has told us for years that we should not have to feel bad, and if we do there are so many ways of avoiding it or fixing it. If it is only for the moment.



Some people don´t ever want to feel bad, sad or to feel any kind of pain. They always want to feel good in the moment. In order to feel good at every moment of your life you might have to turn to some kind of addiction or addictive behavior to be able to create the desired feeling or avoiding the feelings that you don´t want.

We have become a society filled with pain relievers. Drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, food, sugar, gambling, sex, shopping, relationship hopping, endless complaining and gossiping, always helping others or busyness..... just to name a few.

All these methods are a way of disconnecting and avoiding pain. (if done excessively and with the intention to escape reality)
Maybe you tell yourself....."I don´t want to feel this way right now so I will numb out and escape from the moment." And off you go digging through the refrigerator for something to eat, even though you are hungry. Or you go shopping, gambling or get busy checking emails and FB.

Don´t postpone your pain to the future.
The disconnect from the pain is only temporary. You don´t want to feel the feeling right now so you are postponing it to later.

What is underneath the feeling? What is it that you are avoiding by numbing out?

By disconnecting and continuing to disconnect with things like addiction you are slowly but surely isolating yourself. It is like an endless black hole or bottomless pit. The more you feed it with some kind of addiction the more it wants. There will never be enough stuff to fill up that black hole from the outside. It must be filled from the inside.

What pain are you trying to avoid?
If you are trying to avoid it today, it will come back knocking on your door tomorrow, next week or next month. You can never get rid of your pain by ignoring it. But you can deal with it by accepting it.

Addiction is the easy way out. The more pleasurable way. Trying to avoid pain by adding pleasure.

Instead try to find the root of the problem. Find the original wound, clean it out and then heal it.
It will take a lot of work to discipline yourself and your mind.
It is so much easier to disconnect from yourself with some addiction or addictive behavior.

Learn to self-sooth because anything you reach for out there won´t help you to fix your problem and the emptiness on the inside.
Tell the truth....what are you trying to avoid?

Accept the situation, instead of running from it. Sit in your pain and your discomfort. Don´t fight it.
Instead ask.....what is this pain teaching me? Learn from it.
Now.....what can you do and how can you take the right action?

It is painful to tell the truth. It´s painful to tell people who we really are. It is easy to float the truth.
It is easy to tell ourselves that we will think about the problem tomorrow. Pushing it forward to the next week, month or year.
It´s addictive, but it´s only an escape from the real problem.


                                                   Karin Glannstam - Personal Success Coach
                                                     www.karinglannstam.com





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