I was talking to a client the other day about how we all have different ways of numbing, distracting, of running away from certain feelings. Some people eat, others watch television, others scroll through their phones mindlessly. Some may overwork, overspend or rush around bouncing from one thing to the next. Most likely it's a combination of some version of the above. It doesn’t matter what you do. What is similar between all of these activities, is that in themselves there is nothing wrong with them, but when done regularly to avoid some emotion, they can feel bad.
Anything can be medicine and anything can be poison. The difference lies in the quantity and the intention. Too much water can kill you. Too much sex can be an addiction. Anything can be healing or harmful.
It’s not about cutting these things out. Who wants to cut out sex and water? It is about getting honest with ourselves though and asking ‘Are we using these activities as a way to feel good? Or are we constantly trying to escape ourselves or escape from some uncomfortable emotion or situation?'
Now, don't get me wrong, coping skills aren't all bad and are in fact necessary. Life as a human involves discomfort, anxiety and hurt and so of course we’ll at times want to lean on various coping skills to get ourselves through the day or to take the edge off certain situations. We don't always have the time or skills to 'feel our feelings' and so providing ourselves with a bit of comfort and self care in the short term can in fact be a loving or necessary thing to do.
And at the same time, in order to live a rich life and to meet the depths of our needs properly, we need to not always numb our feelings. We need to learn how to be with ourselves and to get curious about all of our emotions as they could actually be highlighting some valuable information for us.
You see, behaviours such as emotional eating or randomly scrolling through your phone are not the real problem. These are actually the symptoms. They are the gentle signpost or alarm bells telling you that something else is up. They are the invitation to come back inside of yourself, get curious and ask yourself what is really going on? What emotion are you having trouble feeling? What situation is upsetting you or are you trying to avoid?
So often we make the coping style the problem and then spend our lives trying to stop that specific behaviour only to find ourselves stuck in a vicious cycle of let down and regret and never actually getting to the core of what is really going on.
So my invitation to you is to stop seeing whatever numbing behaviour or coping style you engage in as the problem and start to see it as a gentle tap on your shoulder bringing you back to yourself and your life. You do not have to give up these behaviours anymore than you have to give up sex or water. But start to curious about the pain underneath and what it is you are trying to avoid? What are your real unmet needs underneath it all?
