Which of these Avoidance Strategies do you Identify With?

3 minutes

Contents

As we see time and time again in our work with clients, people often unconsciously avoid or suppress their emotions in a variety of ways. These avoidance strategies are usually developed as coping mechanisms, and often as a result of our early life experiences. Over time though, they can prevent emotional healing or growth and negatively affect our health and wellbeing.

Identifying the ways you personally avoid or suppress emotions can play an important role in your journey to improve your mental and physical health and wellbeing. Understanding yourself better by doing this can help you move on as you learn how to become more emotionally aware and to not only identify, but be able to safely acknowledge and express, emotions. By doing this, symptoms that have been protecting you from what have been perceived by your brain to be ‘dangerous’ emotions, aren’t required any more.

Below is a comprehensive list of common unconscious ways people avoid having to feel emotions. Why not note down any you feel are relevant to you and in the next part of this blog we will consider ways to help you address them.

Mental Avoidance Strategies

These are more cognitive and thought-based:

Judging – Criticizing oneself or others to deflect attention from inner feelings.
Comparing – Measuring oneself against others to justify or invalidate emotions.
Rationalizing – Explaining away feelings with logic (“It’s not a big deal”).
Intellectualizing – Analyzing emotions rather than actually feeling them.
Minimizing – Downplaying one’s emotional experiences (“Others have it worse”).
Blaming – Shifting focus by blaming others for how one feels.
Catastrophizing – Amplifying external problems to overshadow emotional pain.
Distraction through overthinking – Getting stuck in loops of worry or planning.

Behavioral Avoidance Strategies

Actions taken to avoid emotional discomfort:

Busyness / Overworking – Filling time with tasks to avoid stillness or introspection.
Procrastination – Putting off tasks that might trigger uncomfortable feelings.
People-pleasing – Prioritizing others’ needs to avoid one’s own emotional needs.
Perfectionism – Trying to control outcomes to avoid vulnerability or failure.
Scrolling / Phone Use – Using devices to numb or escape feelings.
Avid reading – using fiction to escape how we’re feeling
Compulsive exercise – Over-exercising to avoid stress or anxiety.
Shopping / Spending – Seeking external gratification to suppress inner voids.

Substance-Related Avoidance

Chemical avoidance of emotions:

Alcohol – Used to numb, relax, or escape emotional discomfort.
Drugs (recreational or prescription misuse) – To escape reality or dull pain.
Caffeine / Nicotine – Used compulsively to manage mood or energy related to feelings.
Food (emotional eating or restriction) – Eating to soothe or distract from emotions.

Emotional & Relational Avoidance

How emotions are deflected in relationships:

Withdrawing / Isolating – Avoiding people to avoid emotional confrontation.
Aggression / Anger – Using anger as a shield for more vulnerable feelings like hurt or fear.
Sarcasm / Humor – Making light of things to avoid deeper emotional content.
Caretaking / Fixing others – Focusing on others’ issues to avoid one’s own.
Codependency – Losing oneself in another to avoid personal emotional pain.
Avoiding eye contact or touch – Physical signs of emotional disconnection.

Spiritual or Existential Avoidance

Using beliefs or philosophies to bypass emotional work:

Spiritual bypassing – Using spiritual ideas (e.g., “everything happens for a reason”) to avoid feeling grief, anger, etc.
Toxic positivity – Overemphasis on positivity to repress real, valid emotions.

Recognizing them is the first step to becoming more emotionally aware and developing healthier ways to feel and process emotions.

Read Part 2 of this blog to find out ways you can do this.