WORKWORK27: The Avoidance Tendency // Lines of Communication
Four ways we avoid facing our inner challenges and what strong communication looks like.
Inner Work: The Avoidance Tendency
I often say that people who engage in Inner Work are courageous — they are willing to face the most difficult thoughts, feelings, beliefs and habits about themselves. But if we’re being honest here, there always comes a time when we are avoidant and fearful of facing the challenges within. The purpose of this edition of Inner Work is not to provide a solution to our avoidance, but rather, through the pragmatic nature of the discussion on this page, recognize that this could bring enough awareness to light a fire within and face ourselves. We’ll explore how various teachers view avoidance, looking at writings from Dr. David Hawkins, Steven Pressfield, Oliver Burkeman, and Byron Katie.
Avoidance of Feelings
People are terrified of facing themselves. They dread every moment of aloneness. — Dr. David Hawkins, Letting Go
Dr. David Hawkins says that “we have three major ways of handling feelings: suppression, expression, and escape.” What he really means when he says “handling” is avoiding. Let’s break it down.
Suppression + Repression.
This is the most common way, and sometimes we get off the hook because we don’t even know we are doing it! Suppression is pushing down feelings consciously, while repression is when this happens unconsciously. Repression is largely built on the layers of unconscious programming we gained during our childhood. Often times “there's so much guilt and fear over the feeling that it is not even consciously felt at all.” While we might be tempted to excuse ourselves of fault here, we need to be cautious of projecting the feeling we are repressing onto others. “Projection is the main mechanism and used by the world today. It accounts for all wars, strife, and civil disorder.”
Expression.
This is when we vent, verbally or physically communicate, or act out a feeling. A lot of people think that expressing their feelings frees them but it’s actually the opposite. First, expression gives the negative feeling more energy which can strengthen it. How many times have you vented to a friend only to have them reply by affirming your negative feelings? Secondly, expressing negative feelings can force the recipient to have to determine what to do with them via suppression, expression, or escape, ultimately straining your relationship.
Escape.
“Escape is the avoidance of feelings through diversion.” Escape leads to addiction, of which, workaholism is included. (Yes I’m guilty here) “We can avoid our own, inner selves and keep our feelings from emerging by an endless variety of pursuits, many of which eventually become addictions, as our dependency upon them grows.”
Hawkins suggests we ask ourselves: what is the basic feeling that I've been ignoring? The only way to get rid of negative emotion is to take responsibility for our own feelings, neutralize them and surrender.
Avoidance of Facing Finitude
Whenever we succumb to distraction, we are attempting to flee a painful encounter with our finitude. — Oliver Burkeman
I’m in the midst of reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals where Oliver Burkeman makes the case that when we avoid, we are likely avoiding our finitude. I mean I get it. Who doesn’t want to avoid the reality that we are going to die, we have a disturbingly short time on this earth, and we can’t possibly accomplish all that we want to within that span of time? It’s a quite sobering read so far, to say the least, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. He says, “When you try to focus on something you deem important, you're forced to face your limits, an experience that feels especially uncomfortable precisely because the task at hand is one you value so much.” It’s true. When we are faced with something really important to us, we have to run through all the other things on our plate like a subconscious checklist: be a loving partner, be a caring friend, accomplish multiple career successes, explore that creative pursuit, take care of our health, attend all those events and still find time to relax and enjoy the present moment. It’s far easier to avoid the painful truth that it’s quite impossible to do all of those.
His solution? You guessed it: facing our finitude head-on. Sure it’s easier to redirect your attention away from the meaningful but challenging task at hand (and that list of other things you want running in the background), but avoiding it now will only delay the inevitable encounter in a couple of months…or tomorrow.
Avoidance of Truth
Reality is always kinder than the stories we tell about it. — Byron Katie, Loving What Is
Some of you may know by now that I’m a big fan of The Work by Byron Katie. We have some new WORKWORK readers these days, so if you aren’t familiar, please check out WORKWORK 11, 12, 13 and 14. The Work by Byron Katie involves taking a thought that causes us pain and questioning whether it’s true. The most challenging moment, however, often lies before we even get to the point of practicing her framework of self-inquiry. It’s the moment that we acknowledge that there is something different than the painful thought we are experiencing that is more true. She often says that we have to be willing to get to a more truthful thought in order to practice the four questions successfully. How much easier it is to bask in the pain of that thought, reliving the pain over and over in our minds until we just about burst? …Or is it? Avoiding the inquiry necessary to get to a more truthful thought only perpetuates the pain. I love the following excerpt taken from an example of someone having the thought, “Paul is unkind.”:
“When Paul insults you, for example, how many times do you replay that scene in your mind? Who is more unkind – Paul (who insulted you once today) or you (who multiplied his insults over and over again in your mind)?”
Avoidance of Creative Pursuits
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
The great author and writer, Steven Pressfield, understood the impact that avoidance can have on one’s ambitions, so much so, that he wrote an entire book about it. He labels it as Resistance. He warns us that the more important an endeavor becomes to our soul’s evolution, the greater the resistance we’ll feel toward doing it. In the War of Art, we learn that resistance is fueled by fear, and it only fights against us as we work our way toward success. It will happily move aside if we decide to give up or avoid the challenges involved. This makes sense: of course, we want to avoid fear. Fear of being seen and judged as we gain recognition for our work. Fear of failure. Fear of facing our vision and the grand effort it will take to go from here to there. Fear of the mean voice inside our head or in the words of others. Pressfield’s solution to all this avoidance of fear is through.
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
So we show up every day no matter what. We don’t take things personally and we self-validate. We are patient and we seek support from the muses.
As you can see, from the four different forms of avoidance we covered, avoidance gives us nothing in return. I hope that today’s read can be a reminder of the courage you have deep within to face your innermost challenges and inspire you to reflect on the rewards you’ve received when you have done so.
Outer Work: Lines of Communication
I found this graphic from Johnny Rodgers’ site that really made the complexity of communication super palpable for me. As you can see, the more people involved, the exponentially more lines of communication are needed. This was especially interesting to think about as it relates to startup team growth as that’s an environment where ideally everyone is communicating with one another. You’ve grown to ten people? That means you have 45 lines of communication, a substantial difference from the 15 lines that exist for a 6-person team. As someone who currently prefers working from home, I can have much more empathy for forming a culture of strong communication within a startup organization with 20+ people all working remotely. I can also see more clearly why some startups feel in-person, in-office is so critical to productivity.
The cool thing about this is I can also see how this graphic could be applied to other areas too. Building an omni-channel marketing strategy? Remember that adding a marketing channel creates significantly more dots to connect. Building a community? Consider this web when thinking about how you want to allow your most loyal members to interact. If you do it well, you could have a dense, strong net of members that form the foundation for much looser connections to flourish.