If My Plate Could Talk: “Emotional Avoidance”

Hello, kadrasphere. Welcome to the Zenden. It's Fridays and if you're here, it's time for if your plague talk. I'm doctor Charryse Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist, mindfulness practitioner and author. And on Fridays we gather in this space from all around the world and focus on all things. Life, health, grief, trauma, and the intersection of how that shows up on our plate, both metaphorically and tangibly. Come on in. Grab whatever. Preferably non alcoholic libation is yours of the choice or your choice of the morning, I should say.

I have doused myself in water, so I'm gonna pause on drinking. Anything else now? Welcome to today's post workout look. Just added some earrings for effect yesterday's last night's makeup. But hey, this is a space where all are welcome as you come in, say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending upon the time that you listen to somebody. Hello, Carlette. Hello, Alexis. Hello, Jules. As always. Hello. Speak wonder, let me know where you are in the world. Hello, Beth Taylor. It's good to see you.

Because it's a beautiful opportunity for us to be reminded that here we are all around the world. What's up, Buffalo? What's up, four quay? Am I saying that right? I always say that wrong, but a beautiful reminder that we are all across the world, but united and joined here in this moment. I'll give everybody a moment to kind of come in. While you do. Let's do two things. What's up, northern Minnesota? Hello, Georgia. One, rate your week. Even if you were with me on Wednesday, remember, our focus is where was my rating on Wednesday and where am I on Friday?

Am I holding steady? Am I seeing improvement? Hello, Erie. Hello, Birdstown. Hello, be more Audrey. I hope you're having fun there, but rate your week, let me know where you are. Then the other thing that I want to check in on, for those of you who were with me last Friday, or you're kind of all caught up on lives. Last Friday we talked about asking for help and being able to ask for what you need and the vulnerability behind that and the benefits and the fears that we have. So did you do your out of session work?

Because it works if you work it. But knowledge is not power without application. So if you just listened and you didn't do anything, where's the growth? Make it make sense. Did you actually take intentional time to practice? Oh, I'm so sorry that you woke up sick, Audrey. And I hope that you feel better and that it is just something very temporary. There is a lot of sickness going around. Hello, New York. But that being said, did you intentionally work on asking someone for help? And when I say work on it, it doesn't even mean that you necessarily had to go through it.

It. The work sometimes is contemplating where can I ask for help? Should I ask for help? I'm afraid to ask for help. Being able to identify which fear you had in asking for help is all a part of the process. So even the dynamic of awareness of your resistance to ask for help is part of the work. So don't feel like, oh, I'm not going to say anything because I didn't do it perfect. I just want to say if it's something that you can do and oh my goodness, so many of you are sick. Great to see your ratings.

My rating on Wednesday for those of you that were with me was a five. Because it was, there was a lot going on. I am happy to say that we are definitely up to a solid nine. Typically, I don't have that kind of progress within a few days, but that is happening. Yes. And keep working on asking for help because that's a big thing and it ties us into what we're going to talk about today. I want to spend a few minutes today on emotional avoidance. It is something that we rationalize in our head for numerous reasons.

Sometimes it's temperament, sometimes it's habit. Sometimes it's our role in life. And believing that due to the roles that we play in life and the people that look up to us or the responsibilities that we have, that there are certain things that we shouldn't deal with or can't deal with. And we're very smart, intelligent beings, and we will rationalize, which means we'll come up with really highly intelligent excuses for where we can avoid facing a situation, whether that's something with ourselves or a situation that we have with other people.

So the first question I want to give you for reflection, kind of off to the side, is to ask yourself, is there any area of your life where you can acknowledge, I'm avoiding doing some work here or I'm doing work here. But once I get to a certain point and I get overwhelmed by what I hit or what I face or what I see, I back away from it. I'm just giving you examples. Are you the person that you're so busy helping everyone else through their life that you have some little bits and pieces of your own life that you have put on a shelf and that you're not fully facing because you don't want to?

Because it's uncomfortable. Let me out myself right now and say, I can do the same thing. As much as I spend time working with other people through their emotions, you know, there are certain spaces in my life that I'll go to on my own, but it feels very different when I hit a wall and know, oh, in order for me to get to the other side of that, I'm going to need to kind of bust through that wall, which means facing some very uncomfortable things. Here's why challenging emotional avoidance and recognizing when it's in place in any area of your life is so important.

When we hold on to unexpressed or unresolved emotions or emotional situations, it waves on us ways. W e I G h s. It grieves us. So also imagine if you are going through grief, loss, change, transition. Whether it's good grief, good loss, you're losing something that you need to lose. But a good change, all of those can create stressors on us and then the hard ones. And then you can complicate your grief loss, change transition process by still not dealing with the things that are happening in your life.

I was in a conversation with a close friend this morning, and this friend came at me this morning. I was like, why are we having these kind of deep conversations? It is way too early for this. I'm the therapist. And they were like, I'm sorry. Things just went there really quickly, you know? Are you okay with this conversation? I'm not trying to tear you down, right? Because they were asking me some really pointed things about an area that I opened up to, and I had a thought in that conversation, and I feel like it already fits what we're talking about.

I said, you know what? No, I don't love this conversation. It is uncomfortable. But sometimes in order for things to be rebuilt and repaired, things have to break up down so that you can see where things are weak. I want you to just think about that for a moment. When we emotionally avoid all of the things that we don't want to handle because they're uncomfortable or because it feels like too much, then as a result of that, we are completely unaware of where the cracks are in our foundation. And when we don't know those cracks are there, it sets us up so that we're in situations and we feel.

Feel stronger than we really are. Yes. Oh, we're matching in camo today. You'll have to send me a picture, Beth. And yes, it is always easier to help other people because we can distance ourselves from our own stuff. Well, today's the day that I want you to take the time. You may not take the time right here in this minute. You may not be able to identify something. But my gut says when I ask, where do you need to face you? Where is it time for you to rebuild and repair and look at some things head on in your life that you know exactly where that area is.

A few people are coming into the chat and giving examples, and please continue to do that. Sometimes those moments of what we need to emotionally face are absolutely connected to our grief. Things that are coming and going in our life. Second question that I want you to reflect upon. What in your life is beginning and what in your life is ending right now. And I'm pausing here for true emotional impact because I really want you to consider there's always something beginning and ending at any given time.

And the exchange of both of those places is going to impact how we calibrate how we feel. Not to say that any of you that are sick are sick because of a physiological or psychological dynamic, but let me also say, just because sickness was something that we talked about, when we come out of situations that have been highly emotional and heightened us and we're concerned or we're focused and working through something, there can be a physical aftermath one, two to four days after we get out of that situation.

So I always want you to consider, is it a bug? Were you around somebody that's sick? Have you just been running and going too much? Or are you having a joint physical and psychological reaction to something that you have been facing, something that you have been considering, something that you have been contemplating and something that you have been nurturing. But if we are emotionally avoidant, we overcompartmentalize. We spend too much time thinking that that one area over there or that area over here.

Oh, that. That didn't have any bearing on me. I got through it well. And yes, Miss Mary, I love that it's an emotional hangover and it looks different for every person. Here's the thing about emotional avoidance, and I'm totally going off script. I'll make this a two part session. And next Friday I'll actually give you all the technical dynamics of emotional avoidance and the pieces in which you can use to challenge it. But I want to stay in the flow of where I am right now. Emotional avoidance always catches up to us.

Always. We cannot run away from the emotions that we ignore. If we think about the concept of what's on your plate, it's going to show up in your appetite, whether that's overeating or under eating. It's going to show up in your cravings and the choices that you make. It's going to show up in your physicality and your energy. I don't know about you, but in the moments that I have an emotional hangover, I am no good energetically. I will out myself again. Monday was the beginning of my kind of grief storm around a certain situation in my life, and I was a hot mess.

Now, you would have looked at me, thought I was fine, but internally I was nauseous, could not eat that day, worked out, or attempted to work out that day, and got through a third or fourth of what I could normally do because the emotions of that situation were so physically overwhelming that I was not functioning at my baseline. It changed what was on my plate. I couldn't stomach food on my plate and I pushed everything metaphorically off my plate so that I could only deal with bare minimum because I did not have it in me, which then encouraged me and forced me to address that situation head on, which was massively uncomfortable.

But it was through that process of facing what I wanted to avoid due to the level of discomfort that things were able to come back to a baseline. And it was wild because two days later, after working through what I was trying to avoid, I was like, I feel like a new person. There I am. Oh, my gosh, I forgot how good I feel. So you cannot outrun the things in your life that you are not dealing with. Now, granted, I get in the khadi sphere, we want to, as much as possible, to bring you hope, to bring you encouragement and to motivate you.

But, you know, if you're here with me, you know who I am. Sometimes the hope, the motivation and the encouragement is I need you to slow down and I need you to face the things that you're ignoring before they have further impact on your life. I need you to pull back from trying to save everyone else. I need you to pull back from being hyper focused on that external goal that's driving all your attention and slow down and check in to and just be real. What am I not dealing with and where is it starting to impact?

The way that you're talking to yourself, the way that you're engaging with other people. Where is it starting to impact your physical body, your mental nature, your inner critic? And hey, maybe you're in a place today where you're like, I'm good, I'm golden, I'm fine. That's phenomenal. But still pay attention and step back and ask yourself if my plate could talk. What is it telling me? What is your level of engagement in life telling you right now about what you need? What is your food choices?

What are your food choices saying? What are your energetic movement choices saying about how you truly feel? Because remember, our mind can talk about big game, but your body, your body is going to out you. It's going to say you're not as good as you're trying to make everyone else believe. I don't care how good you look in that photo that you post. Doesn't matter how great you look in your fit, how fit you are. This is about congruency. My goal in your life is to find this congruency on your plate where what's happening internally and what's presenting externally are in harmony.

But it won't happen unless you're willing to look and do things head on. So I gave you two bold questions that I want you to take and reflect on in preparation for our time back together next week. Continue to work on asking for help because that is also a part of pushing through emotional avoidance. And then we'll get back together next Friday and continue this topic and I'll give you some more nuts and bolts, some subtle signs and some very explicit signs of emotional avoidance and then talk you through what are some ways that you can challenge emotional avoidance.

If you know that's me, that comes up for me. I don't always know how to handle it or get past it. Until we meet again. Love on yourself. Be compassionate with yourself, but be real with yourself. Remember, it works if you work it. But you have to be willing to face both the good, the hard, the bad, the ugly, all about yourself. That's what makes us real and that's what makes us human. There is no shame in your humanness. Most importantly, I want you to also remind yourself daily that you are enough.

You have everything you need to face everything that is happening right now in your life and everything that is coming your way. Trust yourself. I love you all. For those who want to accept my love, if that statement made you uncomfortable, just pretend I wasn't talking to you. But for those of you that are okay with that, you know my heart when I say I love you. I love your nature. I love who you are. I love you through everything that you're going through. And not because you're on the top of the mountain, but just because you're you and you chose to show up today.

I never take it for granted that you choose to spend time with me and I honor that time and hope that you found a little something that you can take and kind of chew off of as you go throughout the week, and we will see each other soon. Until then, have a phenomenal rest of the week. Bye.