3 Subtle Ways You Might Be Avoiding Your Problems

Can Productivity Be Avoidant Behavior?

We typically picture avoidance as something obvious and intentional. It often looks like procrastinating, ignoring messages, or pretending everything’s fine when it’s not.

But avoidance can look deceptively productive. You might fill every moment with work, over-exercise, or become “the strong one” for everyone else. It can even look like excessive self-improvement, podcasts, affirmations, new routines, all while never sitting still with what actually hurts.

Avoidance is our nervous system’s way of protecting us from discomfort. But when we overuse it, it delays healing and keeps us feeling stuck.

Do You Keep Busy to Avoid Stillness?

Do you feel anxious when you have nothing to do? Constantly needing distraction, scrolling, cleaning, or planning is a common way to avoid being alone with your thoughts. Stillness can bring up emotions you’ve been suppressing.

To help being still:

• Schedule “quiet check-ins” with yourself for just 5 minutes.

• Ask, “What feeling am I trying not to feel right now?”

• Practice breathing or journaling without judgment; discomfort doesn’t mean danger.

Do You Rationalize Everything Instead of Feeling It?

When something painful happens, do you immediately say, “it’s fine, everything happens for a reason”? That quick mental escape might sound healthy, but it often bypasses your emotions and jumps into avoidant behavior. You can’t heal what you don’t allow yourself to feel.

To help feeling emotions:

• Replace logic with compassion: “This hurts, and that’s okay.”

• Notice where emotion shows up in your body. This can be tension in the chest or heaviness in the stomach. Try breathing through it instead of analyzing it away.

Do You Numb Through “Healthy” Habits?

Avoidance isn’t always unhealthy on the surface. Overworking, cleaning, caretaking, or even exercising can become ways to escape pain. The avoidance isn’t in the activity itself, but the intention behind it. Are you doing it to connect with yourself or to distract yourself?

To help connect with yourself:

·        Reflect: “Is this activity helping me heal or helping me hide?”

·        Choose grounding habits like walking without music, journaling, or stretching.

·        Give yourself permission to rest instead of performing.

Why Does Feeling Your Emotions Matter?

Avoidance promises temporary peace but delivers long-term tension.

The more you suppress, the heavier it feels, and your body always keeps the score. Facing your problems doesn’t mean forcing yourself into pain, it means creating space to process it safely.

Therapy can help you do that. A therapist can guide you through the emotions you’ve been avoiding, help you understand their roots, and teach you coping tools that feel safe and empowering. At Herr-Era Mental Health, we’re here to help! 

You don’t have to face everything alone! Healing happens one truth, one breath, one session at a time.