Transcription
How do you distinguish between healthy avoidance and unhealthy avoidance? Like sometimes it's good to quit a job, break up, and sometimes not. I'm going to simplify. Avoidance is bad. There isn't a healthy avoidance and an unhealthy avoidance.
Avoidance is usually subconscious or conscious, just like moving away from something. You can make a decision to quit a job, end a relationship. But that's not avoidance. Like psychologically, these two things are very different.
Working through your feelings, feeling your feelings, and then deciding that this is no longer the right thing for you. That's not avoidance. That's like moving towards something that's positive. It's not just, "Oh my god, like I can't handle this."
I'll give you all a simple example. Let's say that you decide that a relationship is not good for you anymore. So, the avoidance route is, "I'm going to block. I'm going to pretend that I don't like this person. Eventually, I'm going to slowly decrease the frequency of my responses until this person gets a hint." That's avoidance.
Whereas telling the person, "Hey, you know, I found that we've really drifted apart over the last couple of years. I really appreciate the friendship that we used to have. I don't really feel invested in this anymore. I wish you all the best." There's a difference between like ghosting someone and like breaking up with them. And that's what I would say is the difference between avoidance and like healthy disconnection.