4 Ways We Avoid Emotion

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When was the last time you felt your body braced and on edge? It could have been when your partner was late coming home and you couldn’t reach them on their cell, your computer crashed just before a deadline, your child had a full-on tantrum in the grocery store, or you were waiting on medical test results. In that moment, how did you respond?

Maybe you grabbed a bag of cheese puffs, or had a sudden impulse to tidy the kitchen, or found yourself online shopping for that incredibly useful cauliflower corer. Maybe you noticed your racing heart or shallow breathing and started to worry about having an illness. Or you had an irresistible urge to watch endless TikTok reels of dancing cats. Or maybe you started telling yourself threatening stories: “What if they’ve been in an accident?”; “There’s something wrong with me”; “I can’t cope”; “I shouldn’t be feeling this way."

In my experience as a psychologist working with clients for 30 years, what is happening in these moments is that we are escaping from our inner lives—and this happens when we are confronted with vulnerability. We are triggered by uncomfortable sensations in our bodies heralding emotions stirring beneath, and we will do anything rather than face them.

The High Cost of Avoiding Emotion

Many kinds of suffering can arise from this. Indeed, research suggests that people who avoid emotion tend to have higher pain levels, increased cardiovascular risk, and higher cancer rates, as well as increased depression and anxiety, and more problems with relationships.

Instead of avoiding what we feel when we are vulnerable, we need to shift our approach. We need to slow down and truly feel our bodies, so that we can soothe our nervous systems and access our underlying emotions. When I guide clients to do this, they are able to let go of the urgent need for certainty and control that leads to anxiety problems, release the self-criticism that leads to apathy and depression, and remain present with their vulnerability and benefit from the healthy power of emotion. This is something you can learn to do, too.

Unrest is the key to accessing emotion. Unrest is a precious signal letting you know you’re vulnerable. It heralds emotion meant to help you face the truth of your human limits, so you can grow. Calming your nervous system allows you to reap the benefits of emotion. (For more, see my book, Embracing Unrest: Harness Vulnerability to Tame Anxiety and Spark Growth.)

4 Ways We Avoid Emotion

To help you quickly identify when vulnerable emotion has triggered an escape from the moment, consider four categories of emotional exit that you may use at different times:

1. Minimizing and distracting. This is when we are suddenly overcome with an urge to get busy, shop, eat, drink, or scroll. We direct our attention away from what we feel inside, often automatically. We may (consciously or not) brush off vulnerable inner experiences as “no big deal.” We ignore and neglect our bodies’ signs of stress and may push through our limits until we risk exhaustion, burnout, depression, or physical illness.
2. Control and worry. This is when, often without meaning to, we reject ourselves in the reality of our vulnerability. We look for certainty and control in a world that offers neither. We notice that we are uncomfortable and then try to control the world or ourselves to stop the feeling. We worry and run scary movies in our mind with the hope of planning for every eventuality. We ask, “What if?” and try to imagine all the ways things can go wrong and how we can fix them. This is ultimately exhausting since the world has more variables than our minds can ever fully account for.
3. Self-attack. If self-criticism is a deep-seated habit, you may have learned in childhood that your vulnerability leads to abandonment, after being left alone in moments of strong emotions. So you tell yourself that if you tried harder or were smarter, a better person, more lovable or attractive or stronger, or not as gullible, or more patient, or you acted sooner, then things would go better. These lies create a harsh inner environment that can lead to flattened emotional experience, low self-worth, and potentially depression.
4. The emotional masquerade. If it looks like sadness and walks like sadness and talks like sadness, is it sadness? No. Sometimes other feelings are employed to remove you from pain. If anger was not OK in your childhood environment, you may get weepy and look sad when you get into an argument with your partner. If sadness was regarded as weak, you may appear angry and push people away when you feel sad. You may feel guilty when you feel angry toward someone you care about. These “faux feelings” can keep you stuck if you don’t access the emotions underneath.

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The Value of Feeling Your Feelings

Getting in touch with your emotions like this can enhance your relationships and deliver profound mental health benefits. Research indicates that accessing emotion deepens our experience of life's meaning, buffers stress, aids in decision-making, and is a key factor in improved mental health. As well, experiencing emotion is growth-promoting, leading to higher levels of resilience and authenticity.

You are not meant to detach, go numb, avoid, or distract from the pain and beauty of life. You are meant to care deeply without clinging, controlling, or being overwhelmed. Your vulnerability is your strength, and it will grow you. Your emotions are the energy that will transform you and propel you toward your richest, most authentic life.