Aug 28, 2018
Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.
They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan and they've managed their time, changed habits and experience greater success both at work and at home.
So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose and organization and joy?”
That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…
Hi! Welcome back to another wonderful balance redefined topic. Today I am talking about the gift of avoidance…
Why is that a gift? Because you typically would think avoidance is a bad thing, but I have found for myself as in this very morning once again that we all go through this avoidance process.
We all go through this feeling when we're faced with something, either something really good or something really hard or something really bad that we have this avoidance reflex that makes as shutter hesitate an outright run.
Think Jonah in the Old Testament. Alright, so we have this sort of trigger reaction, and I really kind of have to laugh at myself because you would think that you can see this coming a mile away, but it always sneaks up on me. It always surprises me.
So this morning I have this beautiful new course that I'm putting out and I'm so excited about it, like literally giddy...
However, there are some other pieces that I need to put in play in order to make this happen on the right timeline. And so what do you think I'm doing avoiding this morning?
I had a small window of time that I needed in order to do some recording because then the house was quiet, and I could do it. I was really looking forward to it, totally preparing for it for the few days before, so I wake up this morning on time, ready to roll and what do I start doing?
I start tidying the house. The clock is ticking on this window of opportunity that I have this morning to record. So I realized what I'm doing and I sit down and I go, “Wait a second. Nope. I need to get prepared for this recording.”
And then what do I find myself doing? I'm doing the dishes.
I'm getting ready for the day. I'm checking emails and the clock is ticking like what is wrong?
I don't know why I find myself back at the same spot and it got to a point. I knew. You know when you know cerebrally what you're doing, and yet you watch yourself do it, and you're still sort of having this shoulder angel fight with yourself of why should I not be doing this, and why am I doing this, and stop doing this. I don't know what was going on.
Anyway, finally I got wise and realized I needed to call my very own coaching director, which I did and said, “You know what? I think I need a little bit of coaching girl.”
So she worked me through it and I said, “Here's what I'm doing. I'm not sure why, and even those cerebrally I can help somebody else know, for your own stuff it's so hard sometimes to do that because you're going along, all self-sufficient, feeling fabulous, got this in hand, working with God, doing your thing…
Then suddenly you hit a wall and say, “Oh wow, I need the same advice that I dispense to others out.”
So I'm talking to her and she said, “You know what I'm thinking is happening. This wonderful course that you've wanted to do forever is finally happening, and guess what? It's not a vision anymore, it's real. Now you've written the ideas, you've got all this stuff prepared, and now it's deadline, and you’ve got make these certain things happen, and now it's very real. So of course you're going to have this avoidance.”
I'm feeling that zone of genius sort of, you know, talk coming into my mind with the big leap and everything and I'm thinking I know what it is.
It's my fault. It's my upper limit problem. So she says, “Do a Mel Robbins count to five.” She said, “Just do this backwards countdown where you do five, four, three, two, one, take a deep breath and go. Just do the thing you need to do.”
So I needed to do this preparation for this recording. And what was interesting is that after she talked with me and kind of talked me down from the ledges, I found myself being able to see it for what it was, and then get to a place of neutrality.
And then the last place was a place of motivation…
Suddenly, I literally couldn't wait to do the very thing that I was avoiding just a few minutes ago.
Have you been there before where it doesn't make any sense?
My coping skill is verbalizing and not everybody does that, but a lot of women do where we just need to verbalize it with someone, and as we speak the words we hear, the ridiculousness of it.
We hear and see our behaviors in our words and we're able to go, “Oh, I can put a picture to this, and I know what's happening. Now I am anxious to solve it,” because usually we women are anxious to help other people solve their problems, sprite, whether they want it or not.
So when we hear ourselves say it, it's almost like we're coaching ourselves in a sense and we're able to sort of self-diagnosis little bit better than when it's just up in your head. So after she said that, I decided to do that very thing and I did.
And so I had this wonderful animation script that I needed to do and I needed to record that and in order to make this piece work for all of this online course. And so I literally sat down, went through it with a fine tooth comb super quick, and then boom, I hit the record button, took some deep breaths, do the five, four, three, two, one, took some deep breaths.
And boom, I just started. And guess what I did it in one take. It was up...
And so I am here to tell you there is a gift in avoidance if we'll see it for that.
In fact, after I was ruminating on that later on this morning and sort of reveling in that successful moment that you feel after you've overcome one of your own fears or quirks, something that you've had to get over, you have this moment of satiation, this moment of fulfillment, this moment of triumph and that felt good.
And then you sort of sift through that and think, “Why did I do that? Where can I go differently next time so that I don't get to that same spot or stop it earlier?”
And as I ruminate on that, I started thinking that this is something that we all face. So why is this part of the package deal of doing something?
Especially when it's something that we love or want to do, so why is that?
I was reading this sort of tongue and cheek article I looked up, “Is this just me or is this everybody?” And in psychology today, very interestingly, I found an article that said The Benefits of Avoidance by Gregg Levoy, and I thought that was hysterical because I had already made a title for this podcast, “Having the Gift of Avoidance.”
When I was going through this, I thought this is a perfect podcast, and I will use this perfect title and in this article that was kind of tongue in cheek, a little bit of just “Go ahead and stay stuck.”
Go ahead and avoid it. It's good. Brings good things. He actually said this wonderful thing, this one sentence that I thought was fantastic.
Well a couple of them, and he said, “Procrastination and resistance can be part of the path that helps you awaken…”
“You can resist, but you can't find the release…” And then he said, “Desperation finally says, we have to get to the existence of the note where we finally will say no or will finally say yes.”
So I love that. “The procrastination resistance can be part of the path that helps you awaken…”
Have you found that?...
While I am doing this sort of avoidance factor of remember, I was doing all this kind of stuff, like tidying up, doing emails, doing that kind of stuff, instead of getting down on myself for that, I had to ask myself, why do I do that? What's the payoff?
And the payoff for me when I went through the guilt gateway and said, “I'm not gonna, make myself feel guilty for that.” It wasn't that I was shaming myself or doing something negative. I was actually processing, is this something that I should do?
Is this the right way to do it? Is there a better way for me to do this? Am I comfortable with what I had set out to record? Is there something else I should be doing?
Once I went through that process and said, “I'm going to ask myself these sort of core questions.” And I answered them for myself, I realized that what I was doing is what I call monotonous therapy.
When I'm doing something in my mind that I'm processing questions, but I don't really say them aloud...Sometimes I verbalize and that's what I said earlier, but sometimes I do monotonous therapy, which is I will do monotonous routine tasks and so this monotonous therapy is that when I go into this sort of zen state of vacuuming or doing dishes that don't require me to think and they're very automatic familiar and comforting rituals that I've been doing for 30 years.
Then what happens is that my subconscious and my deeper core thoughts can actually have time to sort of think through things, process how I'm really feeling, what I'm really thinking about something.
So rather than thinking that avoidance is such a bad thing or that it's such a negative or, “I'm being a wimp because I'm not facing what it is I'm supposed to be doing.”
Actually, you could ask yourself, “Is there a purpose? In my avoidance, am I doing monotonous therapy?, Am I doing something that is actually a benefit that is making me process something sort of more actively than just sitting there right before you go to sleep or just kind of sitting vegging on the couch?”
For me, I know that I get my best ideas vacuuming, I really do. When I'm really in that zone, in that sound goes back and forth, that kind of white noise.
I get all kinds of awesome ideas. That's where I've had some of my best book ideas and chapter ideas over the years.
So when you're hitting that sort of avoidance barrier and that hitting that wall, then consider for yourself, is this a positive or is it a negative? Is it really that sort of upper limit problem?
I really just need to take the leap and do it and maybe do a five countdown Mel Robbins thing where I go five, four, three, two, one, take a deep breath and go.
Or is it a positive?...
Am I positively processing some things that my mind and solar trying to get to before I do the big thing that I need to do?
So just a little food for thought. The power of avoidance and the gift of avoidance that you may not have previously considered...
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