{"id":27863,"date":"2013-09-24T18:34:52","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T18:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverpathcolorado.com\/2023\/why-avoiding-your-issues-are-hurting-not-helping-counseling-riverpath-counseling-colorado\/"},"modified":"2013-09-24T18:34:52","modified_gmt":"2013-09-24T18:34:52","slug":"why-avoiding-your-issues-are-hurting-not-helping-counseling-riverpath-counseling-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/riverpathcolorado.com\/2023\/why-avoiding-your-issues-are-hurting-not-helping-counseling-riverpath-counseling-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Avoiding Your Issues Are Hurting, Not Helping | Counseling | Riverpath Counseling Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you realize that you have an imaginary pet tiger? No, well I\u2019m about to tell you about it.<\/p>\n<p>Before we get to the pet tiger, though, it\u2019s important for us to talk about something. You are your own worst enemy at times. You try to deal with issues that come up as best you can, but it doesn\u2019t always work. In the outside world, outside of our minds, when we have a problem we get rid of it. Got a flat tire? Get a new tire. Got a stain on your clothes? Wash them out. You have a problem and you do what you know that you need to do to make it go away.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for us, this doesn\u2019t work in our brains. Got anxiety\u2026 don\u2019t..<a href=\\\"\/\\\" class=\\\"ui-editor-link-external\\\">have anxiety<\/a>?! No, that doesn\u2019t work. How about I pretend that I\u2019m not feeling anxious? That doesn\u2019t work either because by telling myself to NOT think about something, I have to think about it by default. Our problem solving strategies that work outside of our heads don\u2019t work well here. So how do we end up coping, then?<\/p>\n<p>One of our tendencies is to cope by avoiding the issue. Let\u2019s reflect on the college student, for example. Lets say she\u2019s got a test coming up soon that she needs to study for and she has anxiety about the whole thing. After all, this could determine her grade for the semester. She\u2019s been putting it off though; something we call \u201cExperiential Avoidance\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Now, this is where we get to talk about the tiger. The tiger in this analogy is the <a href=\\\"\/\\\" class=\\\"ui-editor-link-external\\\">student\u2019s anxiety<\/a> about the test and I\u2019ll elaborate on the metaphor in <span style=\\\"color: #339966;\\\">green<\/span>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\\\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\\\">Early on in the process, the student opens her door and and finds a cute baby tiger.<\/span><\/span><span style=\\\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\\\">She brings it in to her apartment and it begins purring at her, looking for something.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\\\"color: #339966;\\\">The student recognizes a little tinge of worry<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>She feeds the little tiger a bit of red meat, knowing that this is what tigers like, and it seems happy.\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\\\"color: #339966;\\\">The student \u201cfeeds\u201d her anxiety with Experiential Avoidance. She does something to avoid doing the studying\/feeling the anxiety and feels a bit of relief.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>This goes on for days and days, maybe even years, until one day &nbsp;the student realizes that she\u2019s caring for a full-blown tiger growling for food.\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\\\"color: #339966;\\\">After avoiding the anxiety the first time she felt relief and so she continued to avoid the task every time, looking for that relief. Meanwhile, the problem grew bigger and bigger; as the test gets closer, her anxiety grows.&nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>At a certain point, she has to keep feeding the tiger so that it doesn\u2019t eat her, even though she is concerned by how large the tiger is.\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\\\"color: #339966;\\\">At a certain point, the anxiety becomes too overwhelming for our old strategies to work and we can\u2019t handle it.&nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can see that it\u2019s not really likely that this strategy will work to make something go away, yet we all engage in it because that\u2019s how we\u2019re built. It\u2019s an unfortunate consequence of being a language-based people. What can you do instead, then?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\\\"line-height: 12.997159004211426px;\\\">Give yourself a break and accept what\u2019s going on.&nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Accept what you can have responsibility for and take care of it, be compassionate to yourself about the things you can\u2019t actively do anything about.<\/li>\n<li>Let go of control. (Hah. Easier said than done).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\\\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\\\">These are all just steps on the path to living more presently in your life and having a new relationship with your emotions. If you liked the information presented here, I strongly recommend you read the book \u201cGet Out Of Your Mind and Into Your Life\u201d by Steven C. Hayes. After all, it\u2019s where this information comes from.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I hope that as you\u2019re reading this, you\u2019re in a good state of being and that you\u2019re successfully on your path to where you want to be. If you need help, <a href=\\\"\/contact-us\/\\\" class=\\\"ui-editor-link-external\\\">we have the map.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>By <a href=\\\"\u201dhttps:\/\/plus.google.com\/105182342113293066704?rel=author\u201d\\\">Alex Michaud<\/a>. <em><a class=\\\"ui-editor-link-external\\\" href=\\\"\/\\\">Counseling Denver<\/a> for a Better Life.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you realize that you have an imaginary pet tiger? No, well I\u2019m about to tell you about it. Before we get to the pet tiger, though, it\u2019s important for us to talk about something. You are your own worst enemy at times. You try to deal with issues that come up as best you &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/riverpathcolorado.com\/2023\/why-avoiding-your-issues-are-hurting-not-helping-counseling-riverpath-counseling-colorado\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why Avoiding Your Issues Are Hurting, Not Helping | Counseling | Riverpath Counseling Colorado<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Avoiding Your Issues Are Hurting, Not Helping | Counseling | Riverpath Counseling Colorado - Riverpath Counseling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/riverpathcolorado.com\/2023\/why-avoiding-your-issues-are-hurting-not-helping-counseling-riverpath-counseling-colorado\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Avoiding Your Issues Are Hurting, Not Helping | Counseling | Riverpath Counseling Colorado - Riverpath Counseling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do you realize that you have an imaginary pet tiger? 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