All mental or personality disorders have a common component: having a dysfunctional relationship with emotions through experiential avoidance behaviors such as escape or avoidance.
In this article I explain the concept of experiential avoidance, how it works, what consequences it has, why it is the most used strategy to try to control emotions and why it does not work in the long term.
To have a good relationship with your emotions, it is important to adopt the opposite strategy: stay with them, understand them use them to your advantage and be able to relate in a healthier way.
Experiential avoidance (EE) is a phenomenon described from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that encompasses all those attempts to control private events (for example, emotions, thoughts, memories, behaviors, bodily sensations) with the aim of trying to alter their intensity, frequency or form.
Trying to protect ourselves from what “harms us” is a biological act and has to do with the survival of the species. But today it is not just something biological, but this way of dealing with emotions has been learned socially for years. Historically, this “primitive” part has been belittled and sensitive people have been classified as “weak.”
We have grown up hearing and incorporating into our internal dialogue that “feeling unpleasant emotions is terrible”, that our natural state is to be happy and we tell ourselves things like “if others see me cry they will think badly of me”, “I can’t stand negative emotions”, “I have to be well as soon as possible”, “if I feel bad something bad happens to me”…
Experiential avoidance is very powerful and effective in the short term, and that is why it is the most used strategy All attempts to control emotion work in the short term: if I am very anxious about being in social situations and I don’t go to a party, the anxiety automatically disappears. The drawback is that this emotional control lasts a very short time and soon the discomfort reappears, surely with more force.
In the long term the problem intensifies and spreads to more and more areas If avoiding a situation has eliminated my anxiety, it will increase the likelihood that I will avoid more and more situations that trigger that emotion.
Furthermore, it is most likely that invalidating thoughts such as “I am not capable of dealing with those situations”, “I am not socially skilled”, “I will never be” will begin to appear.
Main steps to relate in a healthy way with your emotions.
From ACT and positive psychology they propose learning to relate to emotions in a different way. If trying to escape, control, belittle emotions doesn’t work… **Why not learn to live with them? **
These steps are key for this relationship to be healthy and to feel like you are not constantly fighting. The 4 main steps are used when the emotions are within the tolerance window, and if the emotions have overwhelmed us we will include step number 5 that I add at the end.
1. Recognize emotion (detect and classify)
In every situation that we try to avoid, we feel an unpleasant emotion: it can be sadness, guilt, anger, anxiety…
At this moment it is important to stop and observe how we feel that emotion, what bodily sensations we have when we feel it (pressure in the chest, knot in the stomach, hot flashes, tachycardia…). All emotions have their physical part.
Once detected, we give it a name and classify: it is sadness, anxiety, anger, guilt, shame or secondary emotions such as frustration, disappointment, abandonment, loneliness, humiliation…
This answers the question: What am I feeling? Giving it a first and last name will help us in the next step.
2. Validate the emotion
Validating is “giving value.” We allow ourselves to be with it, we analyze the situation and the thoughts that are causing it, and we allow ourselves to feel it: “It is normal that you feel this way in this situation for which you think you are not prepared, nothing happens. Alright”.
It’s good to feel emotions, it’s human. With this step we answer the question: Why am I feeling this?
3. Ask the purpose
Asking why shows us the origin. But In Psychology it is not so important where the emotion comes from but rather the function of that emotion and answer the question: Why am I feeling this?
When we learn to identify the purpose of the emotion, everything is much easier. All emotions have a function For example:
4. Act without using experiential avoidance
If you have followed all the previous steps, your emotion has probably decreased its intensity, since simply staying with it and analyzing it “without fighting”, or judging allows it to be regulated naturally.
The next step, therefore, is act to solve the triggering situation We will expose ourselves to situations that we previously avoided, such as having uncomfortable conversations, expressing an emotion, setting a limit, negotiating, resolving a conflict, attending events…
It is very important to expose yourself little by little and increase the level of complexity (intensity of emotion) that you can manage. With each step you will gain confidence and self-assurance.
5. An extra emergency step: Emotional Ventilation
In the case of being in the zone of hyperarousal and noticing that emotions have taken control it is very important to add this step at the beginning.
Emotional Ventilation is the expression of the emotions that are oppressing us: cry if we feel like it, scream if we need to… Try to channel that emotion outwards (without harming yourself or other people) and not leaving it trapped inside. “The emotions that are repressed accumulate until you explode.”
Crying is the most effective Emotional Ventilation mechanism and the social norm usually urges us to “not cry”… we throw stones at our own roof.
You may be interested: “What is Emotional Intelligence?”
In conclusion
Being able to maintain a healthy relationship with your emotions is vital to being resilient people and achieving well-being and tranquility.
If you do not feel capable of acting to solve the conflict that causes the emotion, you do not know where to start, you believe that you lack the tools to achieve it or you have tried but it has not worked, I encourage you to contact a psychologist to be able to make these changes with support
