The result is a swirling storm of anxiety.

https://www.prohealthclinic.co.uk/kneearthritis

We still have our original anxious thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, but in feeling guilty about avoiding people and situations, we add a mess of new anxiety. Often, this occupies our thoughts during the day and long into the night. We view the upcoming hours with dread and try to plan to get out of what we can. Guilt about avoiding things like family events, work or school obligations, and more can be overwhelming. It prevents healing because when we ruminate over guilt, we’re not allowing ourselves to transcend it, move forward, and work on reducing anxiety.

Some ways to decrease guilt include:

• Acknowledge it. Facing it helps you stop trying to push away feelings of guilt or, conversely, ruminating over them. Notice guilt about avoidance, then shift your attention mindfully to the present moment. Repeat because guilt is one of those emotions that that demands your attention. The more time you spend attending to the present moment, the less intrusive guilt will become.

• Separate from past avoidance. You were doing the best you could, and now you’re learning how to stop avoiding so you can move forward.

• Change your self-talk. Belittling yourself, telling yourself that you “shouldn’t” increases anxiety and makes guilt stick. Removing harsh labels and commands and replacing them with positive self-observations helps reduce both guilt and avoidance.

As you work to let go of the guilt, you free yourself to reduce avoidance.

63. Stop Avoiding Your Life

IT’S TRUE THAT AVOIDANCE DOESN’T warrant guilt. Avoiding what exacerbates anxiety doesn’t make you a terrible person, partner, parent, or employee. It’s a coping mechanism, and sometimes by avoiding certain things, we can handle others without completely shutting down.

While avoidance isn’t a character flaw, it is an unhealthy coping mechanism that limits lives—sometimes severely. Further, avoidance is a paradox: skirting feared situations may temporarily reduce anxiety; however, doing so reinforces the idea that those things should be feared. Worries continue, and anxiety skyrockets. Often, avoidance makes us remain in a state of high alert, and it expands to other situations and people. Soon, avoidance is our go-to response whenever we feel anxious, and we feel increasingly anxious because we are avoiding things.

The tragic aspect of avoidance is that it is restrictive. It limits how we live our lives, what we can (or can’t) do for fun and enjoyment, and how we spend time with the people in our lives. It keeps our anxiety high and quality of life low.