Greeting our Monsters: Addressing Avoidance as a Physiological Defense

The back of the closet,

the trunk of the car,

under the bed…

Where do you hide the thoughts and emotions you don’t want to face? I’m talking about those thoughts and feelings that make you flinch, cringe, or shake your head when they come to mind. I’ve heard all sorts of metaphors from clients: Pandora's box, a black hole, the junk drawer. Maybe you’ve locked those emotions in a chest and thrown it to the bottom of the ocean. 

We all know the truth. Even if you’re able to forget them for a moment, the thoughts and feelings are always there. And somehow, the avoidance makes them even more powerful. Just because the closet door is shut doesn’t mean we aren’t still terrified of the monster that lurks within. We go about our lives the best we can. Still, they follow us like ghosts. Maybe they show up in our dreams at night. 

Avoidance is not a passive act. It’s a highly active strategy that we use to protect ourselves from feelings that are too much. Maybe the thoughts, emotions, and memories ignite intense fear, shame, grief, or anger. We tell ourselves that we’ll deal with this all some other time. Today is too busy. 

Our bodies, with all their wisdom, have built-in mechanisms that allow us to use the strategy of avoidance. Often, we constrict our muscles and hold our breath, keeping everything tight to prevent the feelings from moving through us. Alternatively, we may numb ourselves by inhibiting our muscular system, finding ourselves flaccid and low energy. These abilities are necessary and adaptive when we are facing situations that threaten our lives. Emotions are set aside and all of our energy is channeled into navigating the present situation and ensuring survival.  

You and I both know that we don’t only use these strategies when we are in real danger. Fear, shame, grief, and anger are difficult to tolerate. It makes sense that we would be motivated to resist these unpleasant emotions and prioritize more positive feeling states. Often, this is the best we can do, and sometimes it truly is the most skillful approach to dealing with overwhelming emotions. 

If this becomes our main coping strategy, however, we may begin to experience its consequences. Chronic constriction or numbing of the body disrupts respiratory and cardiovascular functions as well as the flow of information across the nervous system. In addition to disrupting physiological systems, the strategy of avoidance keeps us stuck; the monster still lurks about, and he’s not going to magically disappear.  

So, where does that leave us? As you’ve probably guessed, we have to greet the monster. 

Clinical psychologist Raja Selvam wrote: “To complete an emotional experience such as heartbreak, so that we are not constantly defending against it by shutting our own heart down as soon as it rears its its ugly head from the unconscious, we need to get ahold of that experience and process it to the point that we have a sense that we can bear it. At that point we can get to a sense that we can live through it or we have lived through it, it is behind us, and we could live through it again if it were to happen again.”

If you’ve been avoiding the monster, the trunk of the car, or the locked chest at the bottom of the ocean, there is a reason. Usually we are in need of resources and support before we can face what has been avoided. As we expand our resources and support, we are also expanding our tolerance to hold what we fear will overwhelm us. The emotions do not shrink, rather, we become large enough to contain them. 

In the end, we may find that what we feared is not a monster at all. Painful, yes, and scary, certainly. But these emotions are sacred parts of the vast spectrum of human experience. If you’re ready to take a flashlight and look under the bed, we can do that together: slowly, gently, and safely.

Reference: The Practice of Embodying Emotions (2022) by Raja Selvam, PhD

Lou is a queer, autistic, multiply neurodivergent therapist in California.

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