This thing called "Avoidance"

 I smile at the paradox of my situation because there are so many things that need my attention including contracts that are time sensitive, and here I am writing a blog about avoidance! I have pondered this topic for weeks now and these are the thoughts that have floated to the top of my consciousness, extracted out of the muddy waters of my thinking.

Avoidance seems like a plague that overtakes the strongest minds and characters of our day. From school going children to top level executives we skirt around and dodge anything that makes us uncomfortable or that seems unpleasant. Strong feelings are being evoked in me as I think of some looming deadlines. While my head compels me to bite the bullet and start my projects there is this foreboding in me that anchors me internally and steals my emotional energy  leaving me with this internal inertia. Try as I may I cannot comprehend this contradiction that irritates me yet fails to energize me to action.

As I investigate my emotions and thoughts, I find a familiar pattern emerge, a well-worn path in my responses to the things that I hold out on. It is as if I am playing chicken on a busy highway hoping that I won't get hit by a vehicle as I try to cross over to where I need to be. The reality is that highways are made for vehicles that are going somewhere.

Chickens get killed; stunned and disoriented on highways ... few make it out alive. The realization that I must get in a vehicle to travel from point A to B dawns on me in a sobering heavy water kind of way and this nuclear reaction takes place that shifts me and tips me toward that place where my internal person loses anchor just enough for my head to take over and lead me out of my locked state. I take a faltering step towards this thing that I have been recoiling from and as I take that next step I come to full stature and I begin to recognize that strong decisive productive me again. It is as if all my faculties return to strength and I see the mountain as a molehill and peace returns to my core. Suddenly what I thought I was incapable of doing I do with ease and where I thought there were no solutions creativity flows and light fills my world.

I cannot help but analyze this tumultuous process. Why was I so afraid, why did I second guess my abilities and how can I make sure that this does not happen again? Does avoidance start with fear which is a known paralytic force, is it fueled by thoughts of failure and rejection and maintained by fatigue? I am answering my questions and making a mark in the sand as I ready myself for the next time avoidance comes knocking at my door. 

How about you? Will you take the time to analyze your internal inertia? I have a strong sense that if avoidance is triggered by fear then only courage can confront it!