Avoiding Living: 5 Ways To Do, Not Be

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Hello dear reader!

Today I would like to start by saying that it is important not to do, but to be. I will explain this incomprehensible phrase. In the mind of a person, there are several forms of being in this world. I'm talking about the spheres of feeling, sensation, activity, thinking. In these ways, you and I interact with the world. And everything seems to be available to us, but upbringing, social norms and self-esteem narrow them down to one or two. And then instead of BEING (possessing and using all the ways), we begin to DO (use what is permitted to us). What is the end result?

It turns out a person who sees the only form of his existence as an alarming haste, the need for constant activity … and at the same time he does not stop at all to live. For him, DOING becomes more important than BE.

The modern world offers us thousands of ways to avoid. Today I invite you to realize only 5, the most catastrophic in my opinion. They are also often called "psychological defenses" or "defense mechanisms"

1. Rationalization

This is a great way to avoid your own feelings and the feelings of other people. I myself have lived in this method of avoidance for a long time. It is beautiful in that it makes a person intellectually developed, restrained in emotions and incredibly detached.

Agree, it is very difficult to be frank with those who find a logical explanation for all your feelings. It smacks of depreciation that stifles all interest in the bud.

In innovation, there are many ways to avoid contact with yourself. It seems to you that you understand everything perfectly. But this is an illusion, because understanding = thinking, and thinking is only a quarter of our stay in the world.

You can avoid living your life even more cunningly - being in a spontaneous relationship. People with a need for relationships, with a feeling of inner inferiority, emptiness and imperfection have one big problem - they do not enter into relationships, but fly in. The slightest hint of acceptance from another person is perceived as fate and an invitation to a relationship.

We were also taught to think well. For example, seeing our tears, we were asked: "What are you thinking now?" - and we instantly switched from feeling to thoughts. It's easy to get used to this.

Rationalization is a way of avoiding feelings by withdrawing into thoughts. And this is not to live.

2. Trainings and coaching

Those who attended my trainings know that I am against "skill leveling". I am for self-exploration. I say this to the fact that endless walking on developmental events can also be harmful. Because "pumping" without awareness is a way to cripple the psyche. Psychological training is knowledge, not experience.

The idea to write this article came to me after communicating with several people who, in an attempt to work out their personality as quickly and efficiently as possible, traumatized it even more. It is scary and painful to see how people with great potential are looking for new new ways to strengthen their life scenario and continue to move unconsciously, albeit quickly.

The tragedy of such people is that in the pursuit of skills, they lose awareness and the ability to experience their feelings, feelings and thoughts. They know a lot, but they forget about how to live. They find thousands of ways to effectively deal with their feelings, instead of just one way to understand and experience them.

Why is that? Because we all need this magic pill. And let us understand that one training will not solve, but we CHOOSE to believe. It's good when we go to training for information and tools. And it's bad when we go for a panacea.

3. Spontaneous relationships

You can avoid living your life even more cunningly - being in a spontaneous relationship. People with a need for relationships, with a feeling of inner inferiority, emptiness and imperfection have one big problem - they do not enter into relationships, but fly in. The slightest hint of acceptance from another person is perceived as fate and an invitation to a relationship.

This is very sad and painful, because acceptance is a norm of interaction, not an obligation to be there. Usually, a person with this pattern is very hot and strongly enters into contact too close for the initial stage and frightens the partner. The partner "bounces" back, and the one in need of love is injured.

The saddest thing is that no one is to blame. This need is really that strong, and the feeling of loneliness is really so unbearable.

This happens because at an early age, instead of contact and presence, a person received emotional hunger and rejection. And this hunger is stronger than a healthy need for another person. It makes you idealize a person, fly into a relationship with him, get traumatized by reality and go into loneliness again.

An escape into a relationship is a way to fill a bottomless well.

4. Insulation

There is another extreme - in an attempt to avoid reality and living, one can isolate oneself from reality and people. There are a lot of ways to do this. There are people who unconsciously (this is very important) "cultivate" social phobia for themselves, there are people who go to the mountains for several years or swim to the island, there are people who deliberately become antisocial and create a vacuum around themselves.

The tragedy of this method is in the catastrophic sense of insecurity in the real world. This is not a fantasy, it is the result of experience. This is a very strong and very terrible memory of how he once failed to cope with reality. We see such people as freaks and regularly bump into their needles. This is a preemptive strike, in which it is better to push off than to bump into pain.

Very often these people did not fully survive the age of identity formation and were unable to cultivate this very integrity of the self in themselves. Therefore, they are frequent participants in informal groups and easily fall into sects. I'm not talking about teenage rebellion or self-expression. I'm talking about men and women in their 40s who are overgrown with cats, grumbling and protesting against everything related to reality. In a relationship, such people instantly dissolve when mundane problems arise. But they do an excellent job with matters of life and death.

Isolation is a way of avoiding reality.

5. Flight to work

The fifth and equally popular way not to live without dying is to become a great professional. You probably know people whose whole life revolves around their work. They are really great professionals and move forward quickly. They are the favorites of the bosses and the hope of the collective. They save projects and fulfill the triple rate in a day. But … they don't live.

These people suffer when they come home. They are covered with unbearable loneliness and pain. They can sit for hours and stare at one point until they go to bed. In their life, there is no one and nothing but work.

A characteristic trait of workaholics is the inability to switch to other activities. They cannot rest and talk about the weather. These are people, like air, demanding professional implementation.

There is such a way of adapting to reality because they can receive vocation and acceptance only through success. They chose an outlet that understands the algorithm of actions and has a guaranteed reward. This is the path of a person who does not know unconditional self-love, but desperately needs recognition of his worth.

It is these 5 ways of avoidance that most often appear in my Clients. I respect and accept them, because thanks to this method of adaptation, they managed to survive in their family, society and reality. But it is extremely important to understand that it happens differently and that this “different” is available to everyone equally.

If you have thoughts or feelings about how else it happens - write! Your experience is very valuable. I also ask you to share this article on social networks:-)