Avoidance is Not Safety, it is Self-Abandonment by Pablo Giacopelli
http://www.identitynetwork.net/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&view=post&articleid=Avoidance-is-Not-Safety-it-is-SelfAbandonment-by-Pablo-Giacopelli-&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
By Pablo Giacopelli
The career you chose because it felt safe. The relationship you stayed in because you were afraid to be on your own. The version of yourself you perform because it's what everyone expects and you believe they love. It all works on paper. But inside, you start to feel hollow. The worst part is that you're not even sure when it happened. When you stopped listening to yourself. When fear, obligation, and other people's voices drowned out your own. This is what avoidance does.
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The career you chose because it felt safe. The relationship you stayed in because you were afraid to be on your own. The version of yourself you perform because it's what everyone expects and you believe they love.
It all works on paper. But inside, you start to feel hollow. The worst part is that you're not even sure when it happened. When you stopped listening to yourself. When fear, obligation, and other people's voices drowned out your own.
This is what avoidance does.
It doesn't just keep you from feeling the hard thing. It keeps you from living the true thing. Avoidance isn't passive. It's not just what you don't do. It's what you do instead. Every time you avoid the wound, you build a structure around it. You create routines, relationships, identities, and an entire life designed to keep you away from what hurts.
These structures require constant attention. Constant energy. Constant management. You avoid vulnerability, so you can control your relationships. You avoid failure, so you play small. You avoid your grief, so you stay busy. You avoid your anger, so you people-please.
The irony is that what you're avoiding ends up ruling you.
I've seen people spend decades building a life around avoiding one moment of pain, and in doing so, they create years of it.
A lady came to me at fifty-three. Successful. Put-together. Deeply unhappy. In our first conversation, she said, "I don't even know who I am anymore." As we worked together, we uncovered the truth. At sixteen, her father told her she was too emotional. That her feelings were too much. That she needed to toughen up. So she did. She built a life around never being too much. She became efficient, reliable, calm. The person everyone could count on.
Yet sadly she disappeared in the process.
Thirty seven years of avoiding the wound of "I'm too much" had stolen her voice, her desires, and her sense of self. And the cruelest part? She'd rejected herself first. This is what avoidance does. It doesn't protect you. It exiles you. From yourself. From your life. From the very freedom you're longing for.
You can't heal what you keep trying to outrun.
I know this is hard to hear. Because maybe you too have spent years building a life that feels stable, that looks good and appears to keep everything under control. Yet is it really your life or just a well-constructed avoidance strategy?
Pablo Giacopelli
http://www.identitynetwork.net/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=Fear-Is-Not-Your-Enemy-It-Is-the-Guard-at-the-Gate-by-Pablo-Giacopelli-&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
There's something most people don't realize and that is that unprocessed fear is the barrier between you and your wound. You have a wound. Something that happened in your life. Something that shaped how you see yourself, how you move through the world, what you believe about love, safety, and belonging. The wound is real. It lives in you.
http://www.identitynetwork.net/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=235793&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
"God is on my side" I heard someone say the other day as they shared about a dispute they were having with someone else. As I sat there listening to this person give me all the details about why they thought God was on their side and not on the other party's side I began to wonder. So many of us are so quick to say that God must be on our side because of what we have read and others have told us. Clearly when it comes to the way he feels towards us as our father this is indisputable – He always has and always will be on our side. However, can this be also said when we fight and argue with each other about what after all often only amounts to egotistical pettiness?
http://www.identitynetwork.net/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=234366&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
I have driven on many third world countries in my time. South Africa is one of these which I happen to often visit. Without fault every time I have been in a car at some stage of my visit, I have had to experience the impact that the regular power cuts have on the traffic signals in this nation. I remember last time I was there when once again while having to endure along with everyone else another blackout, I noticed something that I had never seen before when I came to a non-working traffic light. There is never an accident when the lights are not working whereas when they are working correctly there are plenty. How can this be? Well here is what my heart showed me.
