Exactly this. It's so difficult as an emotionally driven person to motivate yourself, because "I don't feel like it" is genuinely such a huge blocker. You'll spend hours, days, hell maybe even years trying to convince yourself to finally start doing that thing you've been wanting to do, but you just don't, because as much as you know logically that if you don't do it then it's never going to happen, you don't feel like doing it, and that's what gets the deciding vote
Everyone is emotionally motivated, thats human nature. It’s just that people who are highly motivated care about something else more. Like steveo for example who said he cared more about getting attention than about getting hurt. Or people might care about providing for family more than about not wanting to work. There’s nothing inherently different or wrong with you. You just haven’t found your North Star
@@limyohwanthis is true..that’s where discipline, that other unfun concept comes in.. The awareness & ability to motivate yourself to do things you don’t *feel* like doing.. unfortunately in the age of technology & instant gratification with so many ways to disassociate, avoidance is more prevalent & a harder habit to break than ever. Just about Everyone is avoidant to some extent
I've never seen someone who can so clearly explain what I'm feeling. Wasted my entire twenties living "stuck" 31 now and I've been finally stepping out of my comfort. I'm still stuck, but a little bit less stuck 😀
The thing too with avoidance is that the feelings and experiences you're avoiding are often not as bad as you think they're gonna be. I've found that when I force myself to do something I don't want to do, it really isn't as scary or difficult or painful as I envisioned it would be.
@@powerstation0872 Yeah, it's pretty ironic because the avoidance is the worst part of it lol. Spending days, weeks, months, with a weight on your chest, and then having that weight lifted once you do it... It's such a a paradox.
I always thought so too, but something strange happened and I don't know how to manage it. I forced myself to do a lot of things I didn't want to do when I was in a high pressure Situation back then. I wanted to teach myself how to be disciplined. Now I have this weird feeling, I can't seem to understand where it is coming from. It's there almost all the time and when I think of doing normal everyday stuff before I do it it's like as if my life dependet on doing this task. I still do it, I just feel unconfortable for no reason. I have really weird ticks (almost like tourette) and it has impacted my life drastically. I don't know what is tge right thing to do is anymore.
This is very characterisic of people with C-ptsd and avoidant personality disorder. It absolutely sucks. You have to force yourself to do most things which others consider mundane or not that stressful, or you end up avoiding literally anything that scares you...which happens to be a huge list of things for people struggling with such disorders.
in my teens i constantly had to force myself to do the most mundane stuff and kept forcing and pushing and forcing and pushing till one day burnout joined the party and ever since my life is being a blob in a room capable of nothing unless i randomly feel like it
I just watched a video about cptsd folks having to be in survive and protect mode so long growing up that the mind and body is operating from there vs taking action and initiative. I get it.
Just recently dove down the rabbit hole of "fawning" as a trauma response. Basically fawining is chronic, fearful people pleasing as a way to avoid confrontation or stressful situations. Fawning is a form of self abandonment as it almost always involves inauthenticity and acting contrary to your truth. I'll definitely be applying your three rules going forward as i try to put myself first more.
There it is. Placation, checking to see if I can get the right answer from their mouth and then being swift to agree, and otherwise trying my darndest to please--impress, even. We fell out on a certain point of contention, where I don't necessarily think his beliefs were wrong, but the way we communicated was not going to work.
Sadly I have been fawning my whole adult life too and it’s led to issues with allowing men to just keep being pushy and getting too physical and then they explode with anger when I finally put my foot down because they read my signals as “green light” when really I was frozen and fawning until the last possible minute.
From a kid addicted to getting out of my comfort zone to a now lame avoidant. Children are born with curiosity but then life happens and your mechanism solely turns to survival mode. I don't want my childhood back. I want the strength, curiosity and blissful innocence that my infancy had. After 7, life fell down hill. My kid self would be happy to see where I'm now but I'm comparatively failing due to how I stifled my own growth.
I don't know. I have avoidant behavior partly because I just don't have money and have problems that will be solved solely by money. I'm just kinda tired of making friends because like things I say years ago, like Biden doesn't need to be the candidate, he's clearly in cognitive decline (5 years ago I said this) and up until 3 weeks ago they were still pretending there wasn't an issue. Everyone is so gas lit. I can't talk about anything because 99% of the games coming out I wouldn't play if they were free on PS plus, assuming you don't make the mistake of trying to talk to an Xbot, or a PC master racer. It's like all the versions of earth that could exist all got merged into one and you are trying to make friends but like not the people from Earth 3 where the population was taken over by Planet of the Apes, or Earth 400 where Nazis won WW2. I have cats and dogs, I get my external love and validation from them.
It seems our school system and slave job money obligations have terrorized our ability to be who we are. We will do things necessary for survival but when it comes to things we really want to do, the smallest negative thought can stop it in its tracks
@@makaisenkiI wouldn't generalize all gamers like that, "Xbot" and "PC master racer" I've seen nasty PlayStation players as well. Either way there is no superior group. I wouldn't overgeneralize by saying everyone is so gaslit now, sure alot of people are but not everyone. Quite hyperbolic You know if all you look for is the negatives, all you're gonna see is the negatives. There's good games coming out among the terrible ones. There's good gamers in each of the platforms, Xbox PlayStation and PC- you're just focusing on the bad apples and also being one yourself by labeling entire player bases just because of your experience with a few players.
@@The_Questionaut TL:DR version, if you just read the headline and not a reasonable portion of the article before posting is all evidence, you are both gaslit by false headlines and gas lighting because you are posting stuff based on a headline that probably isn't supported in the main article. Everyone is being gaslit constantly. Don't gaslight me by saying people are smart and not lazy as an aggregate group. You will not win that argument.
My brother called me avoidant the other day, and I was like no….wait…sh*t…actually… It was interesting because it came as a shock since I never considered myself avoidant before. Like Dr. K says I act on emotion, I charge in, I don’t plan…I do stuff, buuut not if I have time to think about it. I get in my head and nothing I want to do happens. Stuff just kinda happens on its own based on my emotions and that’s not a really stable way to live.
Yes , I got told this in a different way. I got told by my brother that I "[only] do what I like" even though I am kinda productive, he probably noticed a pattern like if he wants me to do something, and if I didn't agree with it silently, fat chance I would ever do it unless I came around Now I can come up with many reasons why I might not do something for someone else, but how would I know that it's good for me if I didn't try? I also understand that if I feel like someone is low-key berating people for a quality and I feel like one of those people I work secretly hard to erase that from my record Well. That is only the avoidant in Anxious-avoidant hehehe. Oops
I find little things like checking email or texts to be very stressful, so I'll avoid. Avoidance has something to do with the inability to hold a difficult feeling in your body, so you do anything to prevent that feeling from coming up.
So what is the solution?! He never gave advice😂 I’ve tried to explain this feeling like butterflies in my tummy all the time. It’s so annoying and draining. 😢
Fighting negative feelings chronically is exhausting. It steals you energy to have social life, hobbies, enjoy simple things like being in nature. After fighting all day, you just want to distract yourself. I have anxiety issues and although I pushed myself for a long time, anxiety didn’t resolve by achieving things. You hope to find security and safety by getting to a certain position but your brain is still fighting something no matter how good you do in life.
This can change over time btw. I used to have a great deal of discipline. If something had to be done or I wanted to be done, I would simply do it. Whether I looked like a fool or not. But over the last four years I've regressed. I can't even help people when they need it for fear of getting embarrassed. If there's even the ghost of a hint of negative stimuli, I won't do it.
@@janny.p Probably a combination of things really. Losing a long term relationship at the beginning of 2021, and then basically never bouncing back. Working for the last 5 years in an industry where I work closely with contractors and homeowners, and the normal reaction for them not hearing what they want is to scream at me until they're redfaced, but the money is good so I stay. Basically even if my intentions are good I generally get met with people calling me weird, laughing in my face, or screaming at me cause the color of their door isn't how they wanted it. If that's 60% of the interactions you have with people outside your family/friend group, you tend to start avoiding outside stimulus as much as possible.
@@powerhouse6165 oh, that really sucks... It seems to me that you gotta find a new type of job cuz that one may pay well, but makes your self-esteem crap and that is trauma that affects any aspect of your life. I wish you the best
I have also become an avoidant in the past few years because of a combination of things, and one of them was a breakup too! It was a couple of very difficult years but I'm bouncing back this year, making a lot of effort to get well, mentally too, not giving up, asking for help (even if it was to God) etc, now I started therapy and I'm more optimistic
Pretty much my exact situation as well. I was a hard working, near straight A college student, but the moment I graduated, along with all the covid stuff going on, it's like I became a completely different person. Without living around the forced structure of school, I'm just this person who lies in my bed feeling bad about how I'm lying in my bed
Here I am sitting in a hotel room in a city 4000 miles away from home, avoiding to go out and explore. I feel overwhelmed, everything is so different here, people and things. I am gonna try to step out.
I mean, if you know that the new situation overwhelms you, forcing yourself to step into it like that can be so much worse than avoiding it. There's a difference between needing rest and some time to get used to something new, and habitually avoiding some action that would be beneficial to take, but it triggers negative emotions. Do you get what I mean? Dr. K doesn't want you to be like: "Oh, I'm feeling something negative and that's why I'm not doing something? Guess I'll go do that thing now". All emotions are information. It's perfectly fine to sit in your hotel room for a while. Take yourself seriously, take in all of the information about your situation that you have, and then decide what you want to do about it. It's ok to rest. It's ok to push yourself. It's ok to change your decision halfway through. You are the one who decides on that.
Yep. This is me. I’ve known this for many years but this is a very nice and simple explanation of it. A lot of people refer to it also as having an “addictive personality type” because avoidance can quickly become addiction when you find a very effective method of avoiding (whether it’s drugs or social media or whatever it is). I have maladaptive daydreaming disorder since I was a child because I find it so difficult to sit with an uncomfortable emotion
Me too brother. Had that daydreaming thing going since I was in preschool. Always zoned out dreaming at school or really anytime when I got bored. Still have it. Sometimes it's really terrible "rumination" over the past and all the opportunities I missed, by being such an avoidant and dreamy instead of living like most other people manage to do. 😔🥺
There are people who do things without having feelings about it? ….people who do things despite how they feel about it? I want the off button that they possess. No fair. Why have I not been granted access to the “ignore feelings” option? I need to speak to the manager.
I feel mixed ways about this. It boils down to discipline. Studying is painful. Getting out of bed used to be hard, but now it’s all habit. It still requires effort… Discipline, discipline and more telling oneself what to do, not “What do you want to do” so often……. There are no magic prayers. -Brain tumor & stroke survivor at 18 y/o, so yes.. Really real problems.
No off button… you just have to get used to being uncomfortable. I always think “will I regret not doing this in the future” that works 99% of the time. The other 1% I think of making myself proud. My biggest fears are being regretful on my deathbed and not living up to my fullest potential
@youtubeviewer4127 people’s biggest mistake is having the assumption that everyone experiences reality in the same way as them. Not everyone is even capable of doing things the way someone else does because their brain & energy & even the way they have thoughts is different, some people don’t even have an inner monologue.
This is such a good explanation for procrastination. I usually tie procrastination to my perfectionism, but the underlying reason is exactly this. I don't want to do something, when I don't feel inspired (because the result will be better, if I am inspired) but also I just want to do something only when I am inspired because it feels good and otherwise feels bad. PS: Idk, if what I wrote makes any sense to others.
Perfect sense. But, is that controllable within myself, can it be articulated? Or am I just weak and willful? She sighs because She is made of Sigh. Can I cancel my subscription? 😅
I find that I’m happier when I go outside on my bike, and just ride around. When I started biking to school, I felt more motivated. I felt happier. I did better in class. But now it’s summer, and although I know how good it is for me, I can’t take myself to go outside without a reason and objective. Even if I tell myself “the reason is for me, being outside is good” it just feels wrong somehow. I can’t explain it However, if a friend or family member gives me even half a reason to go do something with/for them, I am out in an instant. Even if it’s super small and insignificant. “Oh you’re out of paperclips? Well let me just bike to the store and get you a box.” But doing it solely for myself? I just can’t. Then I sit in bed all day feeling like shit. I know the solution, but I can’t bring myself to do it
I believe the ideal solution is a reframing such that you create positive emotions that make the negative ones bearable. Such as doing labour for someone you love. It might be difficult but that difficulty is far outweighed by love. Similarly, if we remind ourselves why we WANT to do the difficult things and sit there and imagine all the good that doing the difficult thing will bring, we can start to feel more positive about it and be able to stand up with dignity and strength saying "I choose this path, i give my informed consent to myself, and my life will be better for it as I understand the implications." This perspective is helpful under tyrannical conditions as well. "No, life shouldn't be this way or be this painful because of bad people in power, however recognizing this, I will continue with the best path that is available to me even though it is difficult, of course giving myself opportunities to heal and recuperate where i need them or where they are available, maintaining that one day, I hope to be freed from these conditions."
Furthermore, this perspective is essential for helping us identify whether we are even choosing the right path. If we give ourselves the opportunity to question whether our discomfort is an accepted necessity for progress or is a warning sign of, for example, holding bad company (interacting with the wrong people), we can then recognize that a better path might be available.
As an overarching idea, the effect of this perspective is to give power and dignity back into your own hand by realizing that you are not just taking actions because you "have to" as though you were some subservient (and therefore devalued) slave. It is your life and you work to better it for yourself and those you care about, intimately linking to the idea of self love and confidence, and love of your fellow man and family. As kids we may have been told to just shut up, not question something, and just do it. For difficult situations, I believe this can be highly damaging. If instead we were at least given an attempt at an explanation and treated with patience and love, being led through the difficulty, we might have learned to treat ourselves this way in adulthood as well; To be able to hear what our emotions are telling us, listen to their worry about the situation and think about the best approach, and then treat ourselves with self compassion and hope as we take on the difficulty if we have determined that to be the best course.
I had to move a dead bug. I live alone. It took me an hour to move it. (I'm fine with living bugs, but dead ones are too much for no good reason). Had to talk myself through it.
@@steggopotamus Well done, bug corpses are nasty haha. Yeah, what is trivial for one person can be very uncomfortable or scary for another, so we shouldn't compare to invalidate that pain. Patience and compassion are important.
I'm avoidant. But I do painful, hurtful things I don't want to do. I procrastinate like everyone else. My emotions don't control me, but I'm hyper aware/focused on ppls potential for loyalty or lack of. Fleeing when I get the inkling that the person might be impermanent
I've been an advocate of 'feelings arise for good reasons, listen to them carefully', I guess what Dr K is trying to say is not 'ignore the discomfort' but 'listen to your negative feelings when you take certain actions but think about why before you shy away. The discomfort may or may not be a sign that you're in a situation you should REALLY avoid.
Best advice I’ve gotten for this is “Don’t think, just do” if it crosses your mind start doing that thing or prioritize it for a time that you can do it.
It’s interesting that these shorts are essentially just the listening role of a therapist without any of the guidance; the engagement shows that a lot of that time that’s really all someone needs to have the courage to fight for themselves
I see this happen in real time just before I go to bed. I don't want to wash my face and brush my teeth because I'm tired, but I know what happens if I don't. That's where I'm stuck. I feel the pleasurable desire to avoid brushing my teeth and washing my face to continue my current act of inaction towards sleep, but there is luckily a disdain of discomfort in my gut that reminds me of the acne, tooth decay, and more importantly the bills to fix both of those that arises that supersedes the pleasure and instead propels me to action instead. Plus I always remind myself, even though the desire to sleep is now, it will come back again when I'm done, it always does.
what you did there is really smart, instead of avoiding brushing your teeth and washing your face you decided to avoid having to deal with acne and paying bills to go to the dentist, that's literally what cognitive reframing is all about
I hate myself because of this, among other things. I know I have the power to just do ANYTHING, but resign myself to doing nothing out of fear, fatigue or flat out laziness. My whole life could change for better or worse based on one single decision, and my track record with failure and regret paralyzes me
Same. I tried, the social anxiety is far too painful and I am not going to take any prescription medication for it.. people are mostly insufferable and make me feel terrible and awful and lonely, so I'll continue to isolate and I have never been more happy.. sure I have my moments of sadness or whatever but it pales in comparison to being with other humans
This is 100% amazing advice. When you try to counteract that emotion by performing the action anyway it does 2 things. 1) it forces you to confront your true feelings and understand them and 2) you build resiliance and willpower to do what needs to be done for you to accomplish things regardless of your feelings and no one ever talks about part 3 where it gets easier with time because you just laid the foundation to become the person you want to be and you can make a habit out if being the person you identify as, not the person you are this minute.
Constantly trying to push through that discomfort ruined my college experience. I started having panic attacks and stuff and completely lost motivation to do the things I love. I would only have the energy for things that were urgent and necessary, or mindlessly fun. Anything that took effort felt like too much.
Yeah. I’ve become this. Even going to the grocery store gives me anxiety. It’s so dumb cuz I was never like this. But every time I move back in with my parents I become this anxiety filled house hermit. And not every time is actually moving in. Currently I’m just selling my old RV and buying a new one and needed space to do so. Yet it still feels like I’ve trapped myself again. When I live with them I feel like I have blocked opportunities. Like dating cuz who wants to date a guy in his parents house or getting a job I want cuz I don’t like the area so why would I want a job here or finding the right area to live cuz how am I supposed to find it when I’m not out there looking. I know the answer too. I have to get out there. Do things. The more things I do, the more comfortable I’ll be with being out and about. But as someone who’s been alone for a very long time, doing things alone has become more saddening than just being alone doing nothing. I’ve been to amazing places and done really cool things. But I had no one to share the experiences with nor talk about the things with. And after years of just looking at that empty car seat next to me, doing things alone just became a reminder in itself of how alone I really am. Which all of this destroyed my interest in things. So now when I say “I’m going to go out today” I counter myself with “and do what?” I feel like I’ve created a life to punish myself.
What are you punishing yourself for? No, seriously, why? Could it be your environment and family that's triggering this behavior? You know, it doesn't have to be this way. It seems you're a nice person. You think and introspect and put your thoughts out there. You watch Dr. K, so you are working on healing and self-improvement. That state of isolation is heartbreaking. You don't have to limit yourself and your possible connections by societal expectations. There are people who can still see you through all of these superficial materialistic layers. Just your mere existence gives you immeasurable value. I'd like to encourage you to reconnect with old friends or maybe make new ones and spend time together in real life. They need you just as much as you need them, I promise.
Same. I’ve never had friends and I’m 35. I get agoraphobia when I feel I can’t help myself and feel disempowered like living in a small azz town like now 😂 I have to force myself to do everything and have no intrinsic motivation. You’re not alone 😊
@@elsagrace3893Emotional regulation is something a lot of adhders struggle with. Please educate yourself on what adhd really is and how it affects those who have it. Happy ADHD awareness month.
I have that feeling a lot of times when I’m lacking motivation to do something, even if it’s something I enjoy or want to do. At first it feels like I’m being “lazy”. Only way I can describe it. But if I force myself to do it, I then enjoy myself.
This is exactly what I've been working on for about a year now and really seeing growth in thankfully. I've noticed that I've gotten a lot of emotionally reactivity from my parents and have struggled with anxiety a lot through my life, but I've made so much headway the last year by reminding myself that A) things aren't usually as scary as I assume they will be B) even when things are scary, I am still capable of doing them C) doing these things will be good for me, and i will be glad to have done them I've asked someone out for the first time, I've pushed myself a lot at my job, it's been great. Now I'm trying to focus on more than just anxiety and use similar logic to help me with time management/productivity. But instead of working on stuff I'm wasting my time writing this comment! Oh well, it's a process.
One thing my CBT therapist told me about this that was helpful for me is to accept that the feeling will always be there. When I am in stalling mode I have the perfectionistic mind state of waiting until it is the 'right time' to do the thing - when the emotion isn't there. This time will never come. You have to do it, knowing it will be there. This is not easy and I myself have a long way to go. We will get there, good luck to you 💚
something I've been trying to do as this kind of person is to accept and understand life is uncomfortable a lot of the time. if it isn't, I'm doing something wrong. obviously not ALL the time, read this with nuance, but as an avoidant person I find myself crashing more hard things when I begin to teach my subconscious that getting through things that feel bad is an AMAZING thing because I got through the bad thing, and it means I'm not being avoidant.
Facing your feats is a great way to overcome them. I did and am grateful. ADHD here. Found my calling and following my intuition that shows up as a feeling. 😊
Me 100% and I realized it already. I get this sense that if I do a certain thing it's going to be negative (cause me to feel bad). I do end up doing it a lot of times just so that I'm not letting mt emotions control me, but can I say I'm mostly usually right that it ends up being not a good experience.
I just reflected on this. Going to gym one day is easy so his argument is disarmed. Yet if I tell myself go to gym for 360 consecutive days. Well, I guess he’s right 😂
That is true, but Dr. K has also said countless times that you can't go to the gym 360 consecutive days, you can only go to the gym today. Thing is, thinking ahead and imagining all the effort and time you might end up pouring into something is crippling, which is one of the reasons it is best to spend most of your time mentally in the present, rather than in the past or the future. Just focus on what you can do today, without worrying about tomorrow or yesterday, and you will be golden :)
@@Riwillion this is true. The problem I think of is how do you "frame" your goals. I am a 40 year old man. I have gone to many different gyms with no success. You know at one point when I was 30 I succeeded! I lost 40 lbs of pure fat and gained strength (not really muscle) to do 6 reps of pull up on bars about 3 sets. I came to realize not only did I need discipline but I also needed to be consistent. Many people go to gym and don't succeed for those two reasons, in my opinion: They believe they should see results in less than 365 days AND they have no discipline. That was what I learned when I finally broke the cycle of paying gym memberships for no results. I do believe at one point we have to battle our own selves and tackle that issue. For example, lets say you want to buy a Chipotle franchise. If you do that you can't just expect to only focus on what needs to be done today. You also have to consider the losses that will incur in the days ahead. You have to think intuitively and strategically. Or else it will punish you and THEN you will become avoidant lose confidence and get ahead of yourself and ultimately stop working. (because you lose that sense of control) Idk maybe I'm just making this more than it should be lol
Also, going to the gym 360 days in a row isn't good for you. You need rest. Otherwise you just break down your body, then the next day you go back and break down your body and then you go back and break down your body and boom, injury. You NEED rest between visits at the gym.
@@Classified141 you are technically right, but if you do cardio everyday or in between strength sessions that's not the case and you can have a streak of 365 days
This is why I think that there are 2 parts of myself that don't get along and struggle to get their shit together and end up doing nothing good. On one side a meticulous planner that sees many possibilities of any given scenario without being anxious about anything and know what to do, and the other part is the one that acts based on feeling, instinct and does what feels good and tries to avoid bad situations by making them worst. The problem is that the part of me with the controler is the avoidance part for most of the time and then the other has to come and try to salvage a bad situation but it doesn't work
I used to be the opposite of this, doing things not bc I wanted to but more to reach an end goal. But the end goal would end up being something I didn’t like. I am much more emotionally driven now. Both have pros and cons. I think being non emotionally driven is typically better for people with a more masculine essence, while being emotionally driven may be better for the feminine essence.
Wait. I thought this was how all of our actions are dictated? Are you telling me there are people out there who do things not based on emotion or feelings? That's wild. I would like to meet them one day.
Yea Andrew Tate..as much as I don’t like him he said he doesn’t let his feelings dictate his actions.. so I get out of bed and exercise 5 days a week. 😂
You can't let feelings run the show..A lot of people don't want to go to work..bad feeling about work...but we most over ride that bad feeling...because we have bills to pay responsibility... your feeling most not DICTATE your life...Some things most be done PERIOD..don't care how you feel about the task Like children they would love to eat candy for every meals because eating candy is a good feeling...but we know that's not healthy...
Am i avoidant? yes do i act on emotions? no, but after watching the video yes. I even thought to myself how could that be if i have problems recognizing my emotional state, but yeah. 100 true for me
Like even trying to journal about why I'm avoiding smth or what I'm feeling about it, I find my self stuck, like I don't know what that emotion is or why im feeling it
@@juwanwilliams3400 Yes this short made me realise that. But I don't know what I feel. I either feel bad, good or like described in the video kind of stuck.
The joy is in the doing, in the process, not the other way around. Thank you Dr K. A while back someone told me I was probably avoidant. Now I know I'm not.
Please consider doing a video with the antidote for being avoidant. Having the solution to resolve the problem can help some of us evolve to healthier thoughts, and a healthier way of living.
I've been struggling a lot with this lately. I've done anything and everything that is good for me for years with nearly no result, which is why I now spend 10 hours sleeping/in bed, 3 hours of playing games and another 3 watching RUclips. It also produces no results but at least requires little effort.
lol after it all, this is what hit me the clearest. Fascinating! Understanding the roots of things helps me to form more concrete attachments and make real choices for myself
Yup! I was diagnosed with ODD when I was 4, and as i've gone into my 10's, i've been learning about this new thing called PDA; Pathological Demand Avoidence. It very much is just that, and it makes it hard to just do the things I should be doing and not hyperfocusing on this other thing instead.
I heard about PDA too but I know it doesn't apply to me even though at first I thought it could. I don't always react negatively to a demand. It depends on who's asking. And my current mood, what I'm doing, what I'm thinking about, the alignment of the planets, etc. And sometimes I *want* to do something, but the discomfort in moving forward or getting to that point can stifle me in the same way a certain demand might.
What is scary is how long I've avoided the problem. It makes me feel that to get into it, I need to revert the avoidance timewise, that I will need as much time as I have been avoiding it to get started with it. Can't fix yesterday's problems today.
Oh come on, this is the story of my life! I find it difficult to be disciplined or do things that are out of my comfort zone because I let myself get carried away but how I feel about things at the moment. Maybe I sorta trained myself the wrong way lol. Thanks Dr K!
Avoidance of something specific, as I see it, is often based on negative experiences when doing something specific. With enough experiences in this way you will adapt to these by avoidance. If not by any other reason so as a way to protect your self.
I have severe & multifaceted avoidance issues in my struggle with C-PTSD. It's so counterintuitive, and it makes me nuts. Feeling uncomfortable means it's time for growth and change. I'm also AuDHD and constantly get overwhelmed. Mindfulness has helped. Studying neuroplasticity and Buddhism has helped. It is difficult to be patient with myself. I am working on it.
Cause you can’t know what happens in the future. You can never know. And mistakes are our biggest teacher. Comes from a man who even thinks about getting up and playing a videogame cause I’m already thinking if I have a fun, if I’m to tired, is it even worth or should I just go watch a movie. And this is for everything in my life. But the truth is, our perception is lying to us all the time. If I’m in a depp depressive episode, I only recall the negative experiences, NEVER the good ones. In that moment it’s a fact that going out will suck cause I had bad experience in the past, no matter if I actually had a lot of good experience, they just don’t come in my mind. A little thing I’m trying to do is think about what your actually worried about in the most objective way you can. You can’t know if a date goes wrong, or if you have the time of your life for a couple of hours cause you met the right person. Pair this with another video from dr.k about how tiredness comes partly from emotions and you will find yourself engaging in many more activities. It’s those 2 that kill every motivation if I let them. And doing only the stuff I know I’m compfortable and good with will give you only so much joy. Moving on, and every fiber in my body hates that sentence, will give you true motivation and happiness, not the short term "happiness“ stuff that for example video games/Drugs or apps like TikTok give you if you did nothing else for weeks/months. But learning a new sport or meeting new people for example gives other known activities way more fun and enjoyment than before. It’s very hard, i know very well! But you gotta ignore your head for a bit.
Because situations can change and your conditioning doesn't; second option it's a numbers game. Let's take the example of singing while playing "happy birthday" on a piano from never touching a piano before. You'd need e.g. 45min of practice with detailed instructions, and those 45min you feel like an absolute disgrace of a human being that you're too incompetent to push a key right. And if you have experience or personal history that within the first minute you are bullied and name called for meeting realistic expectations instead of a Hollywood movie inspired delusion of entitlement, then you avoid. Other thing that are numbers games are e.g. seeking employment - let's say you have a 10%chance of getting an interview per job application and 3% chance of getting a internship per interview and 20% chance of getting a year contract after the internship and a 5% chance of getting a stable employment... That's a 0.1×0.03×0.2×0.05 chance of getting a stable income per job application =3e-5 or 1/33,333 job applications (I MADE THOSE NUMBERS UP TO MAKE A POINT), 1/1.67k to get a year contract, 1/333 to get an internship, and 10apps to get a job interview. So effectively you go in with the expectation that it'll take you over 33k job apps to get a stable income. It's saddening and maddening but there's the grindset and the mindset and the sum total of both 😔. If you try the (made up statistical) chance is 1/33k, if you don't try it's zero.
I've always been propelled by my emotions. I feel like I was formated to respond and act according to my environment to make a place for myself in it. That is, when I still had value in my parent's eyes. To simply be wasn't enough, you had to have a meaningful purpose to them. So when I stopped being useful, dare I say indispensable, they stopped caring. When they did, I stopped acting. I dont think I've lived since then. I've just been alive. It's truly incomprehensible to me that people can live for themselves, I've *been* trying to figure out how to do so myself.
Okay yeah. I know I do. But what do you combat first? The action you're avoiding or the emotion you'reavoiding? Cuz it seems to me that if you address the emotion you're avoiding, you'll be more compelled to do the action you're avoiding.
I wasn't expecting to be read for filth today, but here we are. I struggle with executive functioning and intrinsic, on-the-spot motivation my whole life. I also have ADHD. I hope this reframe helps me.
It’s ok to have some avoidance. I HATE dancing in a group setting. Clubs, weddings, bars etc. it makes me feel very uncomfortable and shitty. I’ve forced myself to dance at dozens of functions because “that’s just what you do” and now I refuse because it takes away any enjoyment and gives me persistent anxiety. I never really enjoyed dancing anyway so I’m super ok with avoiding it altogether.
Yeah, of course. You don't have to force yourself to "avoid avoiding" something if it's not something you want to do, or a necessary step you must take toward something you want. It also depends on your values: perhaps you want to spend time with your friends but they go out dancing every weekend and that's the only regular chance you get to spend time with them all at once. So you'd work on decreasing that discomfort in dancing with other people in whatever ways necessary, and pushing past the remaining discomfort, ignoring the dread, in order to do something fun with your friends.
Ok that's dancing...Thats not really important!!! Unless you are a dance teacher for a living then you will go broke and lose customers because you have anxiety when dancing with others
Reading the book Stop Avoiding Stuff helped me a lot with this it's still absolutely a struggle but it really helped me gain much more of an understanding of how my brain works
I used to not follow my emotions in the past and I'd be doing things even if i don't want to/don't feel interested into it, it broke me. I started following my emotions and doing things that are right with how i feel and it made me happier, yes i noticed I'm also avoiding things, but it's letting me work on it, ask myself, Why am i avoiding this task? It always leads to some traumas and emotions i need to understand better It's not a bad thing to follow feelings It's not even necessarily following feelings, it's about doing what's right with your emotions, not doing things that you don't want to, and understanding why some things make you feel certain ways. if i know i need work to earn money yet i feel avoidant towards working, I don't tell myself i have to work, doesn't matter how i feel. I ask myself why is something that should be a normal thing for me, making me feel this much discomfort for me to avoid it, and it leads me to past traumas related to being forced to work at farm by family. It's therapy, doing things against your own emotions is the worst thing you can do. Your emotions are part of you, they are there to tell you what you need i really don't like the way you're portraying feelings influencing your actions as the problem here, when in actuality it's the effect and not the source of problem. source of problem might be ranging between our body being too exhausted and needing rest to traumas to bad teaching from home/ lack of emotional teaching. which in current times is a major problem, parents don't teach children how to understand and deal with their emotions
Emotional can be pathological and in which case not acting on them or dwelling on them is best. Let’s take extreme fear of social situations for instance. Sure understanding your fear can help, but not everyone has trauma and psychodynamic work that needs to be done. Theory can only get you so far. Some people just need to put themselves into more social situations, that is the most effective and quickest method to not having the pathological fear anymore. In fact, trying to over analyze the fear and dwell on where is stems from can be a defense mechanism used to avoid the situation even more. Trying to intellectualize your fear.
This is me. I am very reactive, highly sensitive, and mostly ruled by my emotions. I’ve recently been learning about childhood emotion neglect, loss of emotional regulation, dissociation, etc. My life has felt like a struggle to understand and survive. I honestly couldn’t even understand where some of my emotions and actions stemmed from. I lived alone a very long time. I am mostly hoping to get to a better place emotionally just to feel and function like “normal.” It’s also very frustrating that no one in my life can understand because they don’t have this issue. What usually drives me to action is fear, desperation, anger and sometimes guilt. I even avoid family parties unless it’s just me and my siblings.
Oooo yah. When I go to conferences I tend to feel awful midway thru. Then I want to leave. I don't leave, but I also can't really engage successfully with others after that point cause I'm done inside.
this is about me, too, and I don't feel judged because of this; I can understand what drives me and that I can take a breath in between and pause to help myself.
I had an enormous trauma being so ill with so much mind- numbing pain for three years i could easily have gone down this path. Instead i put the trauma in a compartment and i visit it when I want to. I dont want to a lot of the time because im too busy enjoying my newly found incredible life. Happiness can definitely be a choice.
For this of you that are avoidant, just know when you leave someone who cares about you and give them no closure it hurts them more than you can imagine. I’m a victim of an avoidant blindsiding me and ghosting me. Don’t avoid a negative feeling by just giving it all to your former partner because you are emotional. Especially if they were good to you
nah, your actions will always be controlled by your emotions... you just learn to find meaning in larger things than just how you feel in the moment and it changes the way you feel so that it's possible to approach challenges idk maybe that's just my anxiety ridden ass speaking
When we feel that negative emotion, it is linked to a subconscious belief we have about ourselves, so the question to ask is, what would I have to believe about myself to feel this way? E.g, You try to go and meet new people, but you feel that discomfort that stops you. "What would I have to believe about myself to feel this way?" Do you feel you will be judged? That you are not good enough? That you may be rejected? Somewhere in this questioning if you go deep enough you will find the root subconscious belief that is holding you back.
Emotions interfere with performance. So it's not stupid to align your best self with the right circumstances and vice versa. Actions have consequences and failure scales. That's why you must catch the waves of success and good spirits and not push through mindlessly when you are down and trying to force yourself to perform well during bad psychological conditions. This is why toxic players corrupt and sabotage their team by negatively influencing them with curse words, blaming, by black balling teamates, etc. It's self-sabotage to sabotage a teamate. It's really self-destructive and irrational.
Just realizing this is me. I thought this is how everyone else operates so I’ve spent way too much time trying to adjust my feelings and internal world to create action… rather than making actions to create feelings
So how does one overcome this? I tried to access the full video but it shows it's unavailable. Does anybody know any resources on how to overcome this? Please and thank you!
I feel like there’s a distinction to be made between actions tied to risk management and inaction linked to avoidance. In the former, there is an element of intentionality that brings with it a modicum of conscious awareness and control, whereas in the latter those qualities are largely absent.
@@doggedmeerkat7785 i thought the same thing but i think it becomes detrimental when your emotions hold you back from responsibilities or growth. like for example you feel discomfort when talking to people so you avoid interacting with others. its okay to act on emotions but its good to recognize whether your reaction to the emotion is healthy or not
Oh hey, that's me. I have such an incredibly hard time doing things I don't want to, it's like I'm tied to a weight, I'd have to drag everywhere. The ADHD meds help a lot with that and therapy definitely helped, too. But it's long ago and I still feel stuck in a way.
Everyone goes through this. We get tired, exhausted, demotivated. We are motivated to choose based on our feelings. Ive tried to do something that I dont feel.. no satisfaction and fulfillment after. I just do it for the sake of doing it.
guess i'm not just that. i try very hard to do what i love to do, but i also don't avoid things that has to be done because i have a strong sense of responsibility and obligation to my responsibilities. i do get a lot of negative emotional feedback, but i realized that the better i become at doing those things, the less negative my emotional feedback is. a lot of times i end up learning to like or at least feel neutral about those things.
I've known I'm like this for quite a while now. And what I've discovered that works pretty well with me is that if I manage to manipulate my own emotional space into a favourable state, then I can do whatever the hell I want. But if I fail to do so, I can't muster the will to do too much about it. At most I'll manage to squeeze in a few spaced out minutes of work here and there if my emotional state isn't there. Which is why I absolutely despise anything that messes up my delicate emotional balance, such as conflicts at home, or any unnecessary drama anywhere.
Most of the time I live like this, and the curiosity is strong, so I know a lot of random stuff which is great, but I also have a lot of indecisiveness and struggle with loneliness at the different jobs I've had. I also struggle with finding jobs when I don't have a job. I do get out of my comfort zone, but it's hard.
Literally me, sometimes it's great because I get to do things I feel like doing that most people overthink because to them "it must be difficult" but way more often it stops me from doing things exactly because of that discomfort.
I'm sure I do. Just don't know how yet :/ I could benefit from therapy, but it's near impossible in my area, even if I could afford it. I wish BetterHelp didn't suck. It's probably my best bet, but it looks like I'm just gonna have to wait until I can afford to move 😆 maybe it's a good thing I'm so detached, at least right now. I can't imagine having to face everything I'm dealing with under a constant barrage of feelings.
Im the same way…one thing that helps is putting a 15 minute timer. Idk why but i hop up and start doing whatever task. cooking,cleaning, creating… that way if you get motivated during the 15 mins you can continue after the timer goes off but if youre over it you can stop at the timer.
my guess is act based on your needs and goals, rather than your feelings. Sometimes you have to do things that make you feel bad in order to maintain your way of life
My notes from the original livestream: . Practice awareness. . Detach 'doing the right thing' from 'feeling good' (eg going to the gym fcking sucks for a while) . Focus on the action, NOT the goal (similar but different from the above point) Original stream's link on the description.
@@spanzotab What goals are there that are not based on emotion? I think a lot of them are based on becoming happy even what seems like something for the community. I think, when you reach nirvana or moksha, only then can you start on making decisions not based on emotion, so that's the *first step*.
I am not an avoidant, but I stopped playing this video as soon as I started feeling bad about myself.
truuuue
Not diagnosing you, but the biggest step is awareness
Trust me don’t get comfortable doing stuff like that. It’s dangerous
It's just a joke, guys 😁 thanks for the concern though. This shows Dr. K has a very good community with people who care about each other 👍
I'm also avoiding being avoidant
Exactly this. It's so difficult as an emotionally driven person to motivate yourself, because "I don't feel like it" is genuinely such a huge blocker. You'll spend hours, days, hell maybe even years trying to convince yourself to finally start doing that thing you've been wanting to do, but you just don't, because as much as you know logically that if you don't do it then it's never going to happen, you don't feel like doing it, and that's what gets the deciding vote
That’s me. I don’t know what to do about it
This is a really nice way to reframe "I don't feel like it" - a phrase that's often paired with a lot of shame, or is ridiculed by others.
My logic is telling me I should, but my emotions are telling me otherwise. I am torn
Everyone is emotionally motivated, thats human nature. It’s just that people who are highly motivated care about something else more. Like steveo for example who said he cared more about getting attention than about getting hurt. Or people might care about providing for family more than about not wanting to work. There’s nothing inherently different or wrong with you. You just haven’t found your North Star
@@limyohwanthis is true..that’s where discipline, that other unfun concept comes in.. The awareness & ability to motivate yourself to do things you don’t *feel* like doing.. unfortunately in the age of technology & instant gratification with so many ways to disassociate, avoidance is more prevalent & a harder habit to break than ever. Just about Everyone is avoidant to some extent
I've never seen someone who can so clearly explain what I'm feeling. Wasted my entire twenties living "stuck" 31 now and I've been finally stepping out of my comfort. I'm still stuck, but a little bit less stuck 😀
Same here. It gets better, bro. Keep going! 👍
Yup same except started stepping out of that comfort zone at 32
Good luck man in about the same spot
me too friend, me too
like, literally same situation lol
Thank you for sharing this. Knowing others are in a similar situation gives me strength to keep trying to overcome fear. We can overcome this
The thing too with avoidance is that the feelings and experiences you're avoiding are often not as bad as you think they're gonna be. I've found that when I force myself to do something I don't want to do, it really isn't as scary or difficult or painful as I envisioned it would be.
@@powerstation0872 Yeah, it's pretty ironic because the avoidance is the worst part of it lol. Spending days, weeks, months, with a weight on your chest, and then having that weight lifted once you do it... It's such a a paradox.
Excellent comment. Useful reminder, thank you. Emotional, avoidant, ADHD person, here. 👋🙃
True... 🤔👌
I always thought so too, but something strange happened and I don't know how to manage it. I forced myself to do a lot of things I didn't want to do when I was in a high pressure Situation back then. I wanted to teach myself how to be disciplined. Now I have this weird feeling, I can't seem to understand where it is coming from. It's there almost all the time and when I think of doing normal everyday stuff before I do it it's like as if my life dependet on doing this task. I still do it, I just feel unconfortable for no reason. I have really weird ticks (almost like tourette) and it has impacted my life drastically. I don't know what is tge right thing to do is anymore.
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” -Seneca
“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” -Seneca
This is very characterisic of people with C-ptsd and avoidant personality disorder. It absolutely sucks. You have to force yourself to do most things which others consider mundane or not that stressful, or you end up avoiding literally anything that scares you...which happens to be a huge list of things for people struggling with such disorders.
in my teens i constantly had to force myself to do the most mundane stuff and kept forcing and pushing and forcing and pushing till one day burnout joined the party and ever since my life is being a blob in a room capable of nothing unless i randomly feel like it
@@RCRobN Well, I don't have an answer, but do know that you're not alone because the very same statement applies to me, and very much so.
I have severe avoidant personality disorder. You explained my life perfectly.
@badidea6034 Thank you! I have it as well. Hope things start getting better for us soon.
I just watched a video about cptsd folks having to be in survive and protect mode so long growing up that the mind and body is operating from there vs taking action and initiative. I get it.
Just recently dove down the rabbit hole of "fawning" as a trauma response. Basically fawining is chronic, fearful people pleasing as a way to avoid confrontation or stressful situations. Fawning is a form of self abandonment as it almost always involves inauthenticity and acting contrary to your truth. I'll definitely be applying your three rules going forward as i try to put myself first more.
I’ve been fawning pretty much my whole life lol. Trying to work on getting out of it but man is it hard!
There it is. Placation, checking to see if I can get the right answer from their mouth and then being swift to agree, and otherwise trying my darndest to please--impress, even.
We fell out on a certain point of contention, where I don't necessarily think his beliefs were wrong, but the way we communicated was not going to work.
Sadly I have been fawning my whole adult life too and it’s led to issues with allowing men to just keep being pushy and getting too physical and then they explode with anger when I finally put my foot down because they read my signals as “green light” when really I was frozen and fawning until the last possible minute.
Which 3 rules?
@@whitneyhobbs8234
I hope someone spells it out here!
From a kid addicted to getting out of my comfort zone to a now lame avoidant. Children are born with curiosity but then life happens and your mechanism solely turns to survival mode. I don't want my childhood back. I want the strength, curiosity and blissful innocence that my infancy had. After 7, life fell down hill. My kid self would be happy to see where I'm now but I'm comparatively failing due to how I stifled my own growth.
Take a step forward, it'll be okay
Introspection is the first key to a better life
I don't know. I have avoidant behavior partly because I just don't have money and have problems that will be solved solely by money.
I'm just kinda tired of making friends because like things I say years ago, like Biden doesn't need to be the candidate, he's clearly in cognitive decline (5 years ago I said this) and up until 3 weeks ago they were still pretending there wasn't an issue.
Everyone is so gas lit. I can't talk about anything because 99% of the games coming out I wouldn't play if they were free on PS plus, assuming you don't make the mistake of trying to talk to an Xbot, or a PC master racer.
It's like all the versions of earth that could exist all got merged into one and you are trying to make friends but like not the people from Earth 3 where the population was taken over by Planet of the Apes, or Earth 400 where Nazis won WW2. I have cats and dogs, I get my external love and validation from them.
It seems our school system and slave job money obligations have terrorized our ability to be who we are. We will do things necessary for survival but when it comes to things we really want to do, the smallest negative thought can stop it in its tracks
@@makaisenkiI wouldn't generalize all gamers like that, "Xbot" and "PC master racer"
I've seen nasty PlayStation players as well. Either way there is no superior group.
I wouldn't overgeneralize by saying everyone is so gaslit now, sure alot of people are but not everyone. Quite hyperbolic
You know if all you look for is the negatives, all you're gonna see is the negatives.
There's good games coming out among the terrible ones.
There's good gamers in each of the platforms, Xbox PlayStation and PC- you're just focusing on the bad apples and also being one yourself by labeling entire player bases just because of your experience with a few players.
@@The_Questionaut TL:DR version, if you just read the headline and not a reasonable portion of the article before posting is all evidence, you are both gaslit by false headlines and gas lighting because you are posting stuff based on a headline that probably isn't supported in the main article.
Everyone is being gaslit constantly. Don't gaslight me by saying people are smart and not lazy as an aggregate group. You will not win that argument.
My brother called me avoidant the other day, and I was like no….wait…sh*t…actually…
It was interesting because it came as a shock since I never considered myself avoidant before. Like Dr. K says I act on emotion, I charge in, I don’t plan…I do stuff, buuut not if I have time to think about it. I get in my head and nothing I want to do happens. Stuff just kinda happens on its own based on my emotions and that’s not a really stable way to live.
can b a superpower if used correctly
Yes , I got told this in a different way. I got told by my brother that I "[only] do what I like" even though I am kinda productive, he probably noticed a pattern like if he wants me to do something, and if I didn't agree with it silently, fat chance I would ever do it unless I came around
Now I can come up with many reasons why I might not do something for someone else, but how would I know that it's good for me if I didn't try?
I also understand that if I feel like someone is low-key berating people for a quality and I feel like one of those people I work secretly hard to erase that from my record
Well. That is only the avoidant in Anxious-avoidant hehehe. Oops
@@justin_camp how then
@@Lily-cx1vo Damn, this description also applies to me
@@justin_camp what do u mean?
I find little things like checking email or texts to be very stressful, so I'll avoid. Avoidance has something to do with the inability to hold a difficult feeling in your body, so you do anything to prevent that feeling from coming up.
So what is the solution?! He never gave advice😂 I’ve tried to explain this feeling like butterflies in my tummy all the time. It’s so annoying and draining. 😢
@@vl1180calming your nervous system helps tremendously.
Incremental exposure therapy w safe attachment.@@vl1180
so realll
Fighting negative feelings chronically is exhausting. It steals you energy to have social life, hobbies, enjoy simple things like being in nature. After fighting all day, you just want to distract yourself. I have anxiety issues and although I pushed myself for a long time, anxiety didn’t resolve by achieving things. You hope to find security and safety by getting to a certain position but your brain is still fighting something no matter how good you do in life.
This can change over time btw. I used to have a great deal of discipline. If something had to be done or I wanted to be done, I would simply do it. Whether I looked like a fool or not. But over the last four years I've regressed. I can't even help people when they need it for fear of getting embarrassed. If there's even the ghost of a hint of negative stimuli, I won't do it.
What happened to you that caused the change?
@@janny.p Probably a combination of things really. Losing a long term relationship at the beginning of 2021, and then basically never bouncing back. Working for the last 5 years in an industry where I work closely with contractors and homeowners, and the normal reaction for them not hearing what they want is to scream at me until they're redfaced, but the money is good so I stay.
Basically even if my intentions are good I generally get met with people calling me weird, laughing in my face, or screaming at me cause the color of their door isn't how they wanted it. If that's 60% of the interactions you have with people outside your family/friend group, you tend to start avoiding outside stimulus as much as possible.
@@powerhouse6165 oh, that really sucks... It seems to me that you gotta find a new type of job cuz that one may pay well, but makes your self-esteem crap and that is trauma that affects any aspect of your life. I wish you the best
I have also become an avoidant in the past few years because of a combination of things, and one of them was a breakup too! It was a couple of very difficult years but I'm bouncing back this year, making a lot of effort to get well, mentally too, not giving up, asking for help (even if it was to God) etc, now I started therapy and I'm more optimistic
Pretty much my exact situation as well. I was a hard working, near straight A college student, but the moment I graduated, along with all the covid stuff going on, it's like I became a completely different person. Without living around the forced structure of school, I'm just this person who lies in my bed feeling bad about how I'm lying in my bed
Here I am sitting in a hotel room in a city 4000 miles away from home, avoiding to go out and explore. I feel overwhelmed, everything is so different here, people and things. I am gonna try to step out.
❤
I mean, if you know that the new situation overwhelms you, forcing yourself to step into it like that can be so much worse than avoiding it. There's a difference between needing rest and some time to get used to something new, and habitually avoiding some action that would be beneficial to take, but it triggers negative emotions.
Do you get what I mean? Dr. K doesn't want you to be like: "Oh, I'm feeling something negative and that's why I'm not doing something? Guess I'll go do that thing now". All emotions are information. It's perfectly fine to sit in your hotel room for a while. Take yourself seriously, take in all of the information about your situation that you have, and then decide what you want to do about it.
It's ok to rest. It's ok to push yourself. It's ok to change your decision halfway through. You are the one who decides on that.
@@itsme0acryingcookie that's a whole lot of words to say absolutely nothing
Go out and explore. Have some fun. You'll regret missing out on a new city if you stay cooped up in a room all day.
The difference is the good part! And since nobody knows you and you will be gone back home soon enough, you can afford being more adventurous.
Yep. This is me. I’ve known this for many years but this is a very nice and simple explanation of it. A lot of people refer to it also as having an “addictive personality type” because avoidance can quickly become addiction when you find a very effective method of avoiding (whether it’s drugs or social media or whatever it is). I have maladaptive daydreaming disorder since I was a child because I find it so difficult to sit with an uncomfortable emotion
Me too brother. Had that daydreaming thing going since I was in preschool. Always zoned out dreaming at school or really anytime when I got bored. Still have it. Sometimes it's really terrible "rumination" over the past and all the opportunities I missed, by being such an avoidant and dreamy instead of living like most other people manage to do. 😔🥺
There are people who do things without having feelings about it? ….people who do things despite how they feel about it?
I want the off button that they possess. No fair. Why have I not been granted access to the “ignore feelings” option?
I need to speak to the manager.
I feel mixed ways about this. It boils down to discipline. Studying is painful. Getting out of bed used to be hard, but now it’s all habit. It still requires effort… Discipline, discipline and more telling oneself what to do, not “What do you want to do” so often……. There are no magic prayers. -Brain tumor & stroke survivor at 18 y/o, so yes.. Really real problems.
No off button… you just have to get used to being uncomfortable. I always think “will I regret not doing this in the future” that works 99% of the time. The other 1% I think of making myself proud. My biggest fears are being regretful on my deathbed and not living up to my fullest potential
What all this time I thought everyone did this???
@youtubeviewer4127 people’s biggest mistake is having the assumption that everyone experiences reality in the same way as them. Not everyone is even capable of doing things the way someone else does because their brain & energy & even the way they have thoughts is different, some people don’t even have an inner monologue.
maybe you're perfectionist? and its not very bad, its maybe better than ignoring everything
This is such a good explanation for procrastination. I usually tie procrastination to my perfectionism, but the underlying reason is exactly this. I don't want to do something, when I don't feel inspired (because the result will be better, if I am inspired) but also I just want to do something only when I am inspired because it feels good and otherwise feels bad. PS: Idk, if what I wrote makes any sense to others.
Perfect sense.
But, is that controllable within myself, can it be articulated? Or am I just weak and willful?
She sighs because She is made of Sigh.
Can I cancel my subscription? 😅
I find that I’m happier when I go outside on my bike, and just ride around. When I started biking to school, I felt more motivated. I felt happier. I did better in class.
But now it’s summer, and although I know how good it is for me, I can’t take myself to go outside without a reason and objective. Even if I tell myself “the reason is for me, being outside is good” it just feels wrong somehow. I can’t explain it
However, if a friend or family member gives me even half a reason to go do something with/for them, I am out in an instant. Even if it’s super small and insignificant. “Oh you’re out of paperclips? Well let me just bike to the store and get you a box.” But doing it solely for myself? I just can’t. Then I sit in bed all day feeling like shit. I know the solution, but I can’t bring myself to do it
Same same same 😢
Literally THIS WEEK my therapist said we’re going to start working on my avoidance!!!! Dr K. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO CALL ME OUT?!?!?!
What did ur therapist say ?
He's not calling you out.
You may be the main character of your story, but not the world's story.
🤔
@@Unsensitiveit's a joke
can you update us on that?
I believe the ideal solution is a reframing such that you create positive emotions that make the negative ones bearable. Such as doing labour for someone you love. It might be difficult but that difficulty is far outweighed by love.
Similarly, if we remind ourselves why we WANT to do the difficult things and sit there and imagine all the good that doing the difficult thing will bring, we can start to feel more positive about it and be able to stand up with dignity and strength saying "I choose this path, i give my informed consent to myself, and my life will be better for it as I understand the implications."
This perspective is helpful under tyrannical conditions as well. "No, life shouldn't be this way or be this painful because of bad people in power, however recognizing this, I will continue with the best path that is available to me even though it is difficult, of course giving myself opportunities to heal and recuperate where i need them or where they are available, maintaining that one day, I hope to be freed from these conditions."
Furthermore, this perspective is essential for helping us identify whether we are even choosing the right path. If we give ourselves the opportunity to question whether our discomfort is an accepted necessity for progress or is a warning sign of, for example, holding bad company (interacting with the wrong people), we can then recognize that a better path might be available.
As an overarching idea, the effect of this perspective is to give power and dignity back into your own hand by realizing that you are not just taking actions because you "have to" as though you were some subservient (and therefore devalued) slave. It is your life and you work to better it for yourself and those you care about, intimately linking to the idea of self love and confidence, and love of your fellow man and family. As kids we may have been told to just shut up, not question something, and just do it. For difficult situations, I believe this can be highly damaging. If instead we were at least given an attempt at an explanation and treated with patience and love, being led through the difficulty, we might have learned to treat ourselves this way in adulthood as well; To be able to hear what our emotions are telling us, listen to their worry about the situation and think about the best approach, and then treat ourselves with self compassion and hope as we take on the difficulty if we have determined that to be the best course.
my first question after watching this reel was what should i do about it, so this was a really insightful comment. thank you so much
I had to move a dead bug. I live alone. It took me an hour to move it. (I'm fine with living bugs, but dead ones are too much for no good reason). Had to talk myself through it.
@@steggopotamus Well done, bug corpses are nasty haha. Yeah, what is trivial for one person can be very uncomfortable or scary for another, so we shouldn't compare to invalidate that pain. Patience and compassion are important.
I'm avoidant. But I do painful, hurtful things I don't want to do. I procrastinate like everyone else. My emotions don't control me, but I'm hyper aware/focused on ppls potential for loyalty or lack of. Fleeing when I get the inkling that the person might be impermanent
I've been an advocate of 'feelings arise for good reasons, listen to them carefully', I guess what Dr K is trying to say is not 'ignore the discomfort' but 'listen to your negative feelings when you take certain actions but think about why before you shy away. The discomfort may or may not be a sign that you're in a situation you should REALLY avoid.
Doc, I need a full episode on this, please 😢.
Best advice I’ve gotten for this is “Don’t think, just do” if it crosses your mind start doing that thing or prioritize it for a time that you can do it.
It’s interesting that these shorts are essentially just the listening role of a therapist without any of the guidance; the engagement shows that a lot of that time that’s really all someone needs to have the courage to fight for themselves
I see this happen in real time just before I go to bed. I don't want to wash my face and brush my teeth because I'm tired, but I know what happens if I don't. That's where I'm stuck. I feel the pleasurable desire to avoid brushing my teeth and washing my face to continue my current act of inaction towards sleep, but there is luckily a disdain of discomfort in my gut that reminds me of the acne, tooth decay, and more importantly the bills to fix both of those that arises that supersedes the pleasure and instead propels me to action instead. Plus I always remind myself, even though the desire to sleep is now, it will come back again when I'm done, it always does.
what you did there is really smart, instead of avoiding brushing your teeth and washing your face you decided to avoid having to deal with acne and paying bills to go to the dentist, that's literally what cognitive reframing is all about
I totally feel u but that feeling of just letting go and falling asleep is the best and doesnt come back after u brush yo teeth😫😫😭
This is the exact way I think about those two very boring tasks, to a t
I hate myself because of this, among other things. I know I have the power to just do ANYTHING, but resign myself to doing nothing out of fear, fatigue or flat out laziness.
My whole life could change for better or worse based on one single decision, and my track record with failure and regret paralyzes me
same here! Exact same situation. I don't know how to come out of it. I'm always anxious
Every time I step outside of comfort zone for a while, it results into really bad things, so I go back.
Same. I tried, the social anxiety is far too painful and I am not going to take any prescription medication for it.. people are mostly insufferable and make me feel terrible and awful and lonely, so I'll continue to isolate and I have never been more happy.. sure I have my moments of sadness or whatever but it pales in comparison to being with other humans
Little by little, my friend, keep at it
He just described me and it was really uncomfortable to admit. I guess I’ll avoid this guy from now on
Real lol
@@ronandynan1228 lol
Now you get it!
This is 100% amazing advice. When you try to counteract that emotion by performing the action anyway it does 2 things. 1) it forces you to confront your true feelings and understand them and 2) you build resiliance and willpower to do what needs to be done for you to accomplish things regardless of your feelings and no one ever talks about part 3 where it gets easier with time because you just laid the foundation to become the person you want to be and you can make a habit out if being the person you identify as, not the person you are this minute.
Constantly trying to push through that discomfort ruined my college experience. I started having panic attacks and stuff and completely lost motivation to do the things I love. I would only have the energy for things that were urgent and necessary, or mindlessly fun. Anything that took effort felt like too much.
Yeah. I’ve become this. Even going to the grocery store gives me anxiety. It’s so dumb cuz I was never like this. But every time I move back in with my parents I become this anxiety filled house hermit. And not every time is actually moving in. Currently I’m just selling my old RV and buying a new one and needed space to do so. Yet it still feels like I’ve trapped myself again. When I live with them I feel like I have blocked opportunities. Like dating cuz who wants to date a guy in his parents house or getting a job I want cuz I don’t like the area so why would I want a job here or finding the right area to live cuz how am I supposed to find it when I’m not out there looking.
I know the answer too. I have to get out there. Do things. The more things I do, the more comfortable I’ll be with being out and about. But as someone who’s been alone for a very long time, doing things alone has become more saddening than just being alone doing nothing. I’ve been to amazing places and done really cool things. But I had no one to share the experiences with nor talk about the things with. And after years of just looking at that empty car seat next to me, doing things alone just became a reminder in itself of how alone I really am. Which all of this destroyed my interest in things. So now when I say “I’m going to go out today” I counter myself with “and do what?”
I feel like I’ve created a life to punish myself.
What are you punishing yourself for? No, seriously, why? Could it be your environment and family that's triggering this behavior? You know, it doesn't have to be this way. It seems you're a nice person. You think and introspect and put your thoughts out there. You watch Dr. K, so you are working on healing and self-improvement. That state of isolation is heartbreaking. You don't have to limit yourself and your possible connections by societal expectations. There are people who can still see you through all of these superficial materialistic layers. Just your mere existence gives you immeasurable value. I'd like to encourage you to reconnect with old friends or maybe make new ones and spend time together in real life. They need you just as much as you need them, I promise.
Same. I’ve never had friends and I’m 35. I get agoraphobia when I feel I can’t help myself and feel disempowered like living in a small azz town like now 😂 I have to force myself to do everything and have no intrinsic motivation. You’re not alone 😊
I feel the antidote in a gratitude practice 🙏
This is something I have always experienced as an ADHDer.
It’s not ADHD. It’s immaturity. You haven’t developed emotional regulation past that of a 2 year old.
@@elsagrace3893 Ig you know better than psychiatrists and scientists who spent years researching about it.
@@elsagrace3893Emotional regulation is something a lot of adhders struggle with. Please educate yourself on what adhd really is and how it affects those who have it. Happy ADHD awareness month.
I have that feeling a lot of times when I’m lacking motivation to do something, even if it’s something I enjoy or want to do. At first it feels like I’m being “lazy”. Only way I can describe it. But if I force myself to do it, I then enjoy myself.
This is exactly what I've been working on for about a year now and really seeing growth in thankfully. I've noticed that I've gotten a lot of emotionally reactivity from my parents and have struggled with anxiety a lot through my life, but I've made so much headway the last year by reminding myself that
A) things aren't usually as scary as I assume they will be
B) even when things are scary, I am still capable of doing them
C) doing these things will be good for me, and i will be glad to have done them
I've asked someone out for the first time, I've pushed myself a lot at my job, it's been great. Now I'm trying to focus on more than just anxiety and use similar logic to help me with time management/productivity. But instead of working on stuff I'm wasting my time writing this comment! Oh well, it's a process.
This is a huge problem for me, but I’m trying to work on disconnecting the emotion from the action
One thing my CBT therapist told me about this that was helpful for me is to accept that the feeling will always be there. When I am in stalling mode I have the perfectionistic mind state of waiting until it is the 'right time' to do the thing - when the emotion isn't there.
This time will never come. You have to do it, knowing it will be there.
This is not easy and I myself have a long way to go. We will get there, good luck to you 💚
@@Jaffa__ Really thank you for the practical information, I didn't know how to deal with this until now
@Jaffa__ so just do it even if you don't feel it's not the right time?
@@lovetrain2701 essentially, yes. In many instances, the “right time” doesn’t actually exist.
i'm scared to lose my intuition, if i disconnect too much from it
something I've been trying to do as this kind of person is to accept and understand life is uncomfortable a lot of the time. if it isn't, I'm doing something wrong. obviously not ALL the time, read this with nuance, but as an avoidant person I find myself crashing more hard things when I begin to teach my subconscious that getting through things that feel bad is an AMAZING thing because I got through the bad thing, and it means I'm not being avoidant.
Facing your feats is a great way to overcome them. I did and am grateful. ADHD here. Found my calling and following my intuition that shows up as a feeling. 😊
Me 100% and I realized it already. I get this sense that if I do a certain thing it's going to be negative (cause me to feel bad). I do end up doing it a lot of times just so that I'm not letting mt emotions control me, but can I say I'm mostly usually right that it ends up being not a good experience.
I just reflected on this. Going to gym one day is easy so his argument is disarmed. Yet if I tell myself go to gym for 360 consecutive days. Well, I guess he’s right 😂
Damn, interesting way of framing it, gonna remember this.
That is true, but Dr. K has also said countless times that you can't go to the gym 360 consecutive days, you can only go to the gym today.
Thing is, thinking ahead and imagining all the effort and time you might end up pouring into something is crippling, which is one of the reasons it is best to spend most of your time mentally in the present, rather than in the past or the future.
Just focus on what you can do today, without worrying about tomorrow or yesterday, and you will be golden :)
@@Riwillion this is true. The problem I think of is how do you "frame" your goals. I am a 40 year old man. I have gone to many different gyms with no success. You know at one point when I was 30 I succeeded! I lost 40 lbs of pure fat and gained strength (not really muscle) to do 6 reps of pull up on bars about 3 sets. I came to realize not only did I need discipline but I also needed to be consistent.
Many people go to gym and don't succeed for those two reasons, in my opinion: They believe they should see results in less than 365 days AND they have no discipline. That was what I learned when I finally broke the cycle of paying gym memberships for no results. I do believe at one point we have to battle our own selves and tackle that issue.
For example, lets say you want to buy a Chipotle franchise. If you do that you can't just expect to only focus on what needs to be done today. You also have to consider the losses that will incur in the days ahead. You have to think intuitively and strategically. Or else it will punish you and THEN you will become avoidant lose confidence and get ahead of yourself and ultimately stop working. (because you lose that sense of control)
Idk maybe I'm just making this more than it should be lol
Also, going to the gym 360 days in a row isn't good for you.
You need rest. Otherwise you just break down your body, then the next day you go back and break down your body and then you go back and break down your body and boom, injury.
You NEED rest between visits at the gym.
@@Classified141 you are technically right, but if you do cardio everyday or in between strength sessions that's not the case and you can have a streak of 365 days
This is why I think that there are 2 parts of myself that don't get along and struggle to get their shit together and end up doing nothing good. On one side a meticulous planner that sees many possibilities of any given scenario without being anxious about anything and know what to do, and the other part is the one that acts based on feeling, instinct and does what feels good and tries to avoid bad situations by making them worst.
The problem is that the part of me with the controler is the avoidance part for most of the time and then the other has to come and try to salvage a bad situation but it doesn't work
I used to be the opposite of this, doing things not bc I wanted to but more to reach an end goal. But the end goal would end up being something I didn’t like. I am much more emotionally driven now. Both have pros and cons. I think being non emotionally driven is typically better for people with a more masculine essence, while being emotionally driven may be better for the feminine essence.
Wait. I thought this was how all of our actions are dictated? Are you telling me there are people out there who do things not based on emotion or feelings? That's wild. I would like to meet them one day.
Yea Andrew Tate..as much as I don’t like him he said he doesn’t let his feelings dictate his actions.. so I get out of bed and exercise 5 days a week. 😂
@@vl1180 Same, actually. Good point. Even when feeling bad and exhausted, something else dictates our motivation to exercise and work out.
You can't let feelings run the show..A lot of people don't want to go to work..bad feeling about work...but we most over ride that bad feeling...because we have bills to pay responsibility... your feeling most not DICTATE your life...Some things most be done PERIOD..don't care how you feel about the task
Like children they would love to eat candy for every meals because eating candy is a good feeling...but we know that's not healthy...
I needed you so long ago, and now you're here. Idk if you'll ever see this Dr., but thank you. Hopefully one day I can become unstuck too.
Am i avoidant? yes do i act on emotions? no, but after watching the video yes. I even thought to myself how could that be if i have problems recognizing my emotional state, but yeah. 100 true for me
Saaaame
Like even trying to journal about why I'm avoiding smth or what I'm feeling about it, I find my self stuck, like I don't know what that emotion is or why im feeling it
We do everything based on emotions whether we want to achieve a goal, defeat a worry or anything else its usually tied into emotions in some way
@@juwanwilliams3400 Yes this short made me realise that. But I don't know what I feel. I either feel bad, good or like described in the video kind of stuck.
The joy is in the doing, in the process, not the other way around.
Thank you Dr K. A while back someone told me I was probably avoidant. Now I know I'm not.
Sometimes doing the thing just sucks. It just does. But the outcome is desirable. This is true for all chores and oftentimes, jobs/careers and school.
Literally my struggles with university. Discomfort, stress, overthinking and I feel burnt out.
This is exactly why I dropped out of college....Stress, deadlines
INSANE this came out an hour ago when i just rediscovered this channel worried about this exact behavio. Dr. K is in my brain
@@SkyBearial karma
That kind of sitting adjustment always precedes a powerful Dr K truth nugget
Please consider doing a video with the antidote for being avoidant. Having the solution to resolve the problem can help some of us evolve to healthier thoughts, and a healthier way of living.
I've been struggling a lot with this lately. I've done anything and everything that is good for me for years with nearly no result, which is why I now spend 10 hours sleeping/in bed, 3 hours of playing games and another 3 watching RUclips. It also produces no results but at least requires little effort.
lol after it all, this is what hit me the clearest. Fascinating! Understanding the roots of things helps me to form more concrete attachments and make real choices for myself
Yup! I was diagnosed with ODD when I was 4, and as i've gone into my 10's, i've been learning about this new thing called PDA; Pathological Demand Avoidence. It very much is just that, and it makes it hard to just do the things I should be doing and not hyperfocusing on this other thing instead.
I heard about PDA too but I know it doesn't apply to me even though at first I thought it could. I don't always react negatively to a demand. It depends on who's asking. And my current mood, what I'm doing, what I'm thinking about, the alignment of the planets, etc. And sometimes I *want* to do something, but the discomfort in moving forward or getting to that point can stifle me in the same way a certain demand might.
What is scary is how long I've avoided the problem. It makes me feel that to get into it, I need to revert the avoidance timewise, that I will need as much time as I have been avoiding it to get started with it. Can't fix yesterday's problems today.
Oh come on, this is the story of my life! I find it difficult to be disciplined or do things that are out of my comfort zone because I let myself get carried away but how I feel about things at the moment. Maybe I sorta trained myself the wrong way lol. Thanks Dr K!
Avoidance of something specific, as I see it, is often based on negative experiences when doing something specific.
With enough experiences in this way you will adapt to these by avoidance. If not by any other reason so as a way to protect your self.
If your actions aren't guided by how you feel, what are you supposed to do?
I have severe & multifaceted avoidance issues in my struggle with C-PTSD. It's so counterintuitive, and it makes me nuts. Feeling uncomfortable means it's time for growth and change. I'm also AuDHD and constantly get overwhelmed. Mindfulness has helped. Studying neuroplasticity and Buddhism has helped. It is difficult to be patient with myself. I am working on it.
Why I shouldn’t avoid some situations if all my experience with those kind of situations is just trash. This experience is for something.
Cause you can’t know what happens in the future. You can never know. And mistakes are our biggest teacher. Comes from a man who even thinks about getting up and playing a videogame cause I’m already thinking if I have a fun, if I’m to tired, is it even worth or should I just go watch a movie. And this is for everything in my life. But the truth is, our perception is lying to us all the time. If I’m in a depp depressive episode, I only recall the negative experiences, NEVER the good ones. In that moment it’s a fact that going out will suck cause I had bad experience in the past, no matter if I actually had a lot of good experience, they just don’t come in my mind. A little thing I’m trying to do is think about what your actually worried about in the most objective way you can. You can’t know if a date goes wrong, or if you have the time of your life for a couple of hours cause you met the right person. Pair this with another video from dr.k about how tiredness comes partly from emotions and you will find yourself engaging in many more activities. It’s those 2 that kill every motivation if I let them. And doing only the stuff I know I’m compfortable and good with will give you only so much joy. Moving on, and every fiber in my body hates that sentence, will give you true motivation and happiness, not the short term "happiness“ stuff that for example video games/Drugs or apps like TikTok give you if you did nothing else for weeks/months. But learning a new sport or meeting new people for example gives other known activities way more fun and enjoyment than before. It’s very hard, i know very well! But you gotta ignore your head for a bit.
@AtraxX98, can you share the other video link about tiredness being attached to emotions? I would really find that helpful
Because situations can change and your conditioning doesn't; second option it's a numbers game. Let's take the example of singing while playing "happy birthday" on a piano from never touching a piano before. You'd need e.g. 45min of practice with detailed instructions, and those 45min you feel like an absolute disgrace of a human being that you're too incompetent to push a key right. And if you have experience or personal history that within the first minute you are bullied and name called for meeting realistic expectations instead of a Hollywood movie inspired delusion of entitlement, then you avoid. Other thing that are numbers games are e.g. seeking employment - let's say you have a 10%chance of getting an interview per job application and 3% chance of getting a internship per interview and 20% chance of getting a year contract after the internship and a 5% chance of getting a stable employment... That's a 0.1×0.03×0.2×0.05 chance of getting a stable income per job application =3e-5 or 1/33,333 job applications (I MADE THOSE NUMBERS UP TO MAKE A POINT), 1/1.67k to get a year contract, 1/333 to get an internship, and 10apps to get a job interview. So effectively you go in with the expectation that it'll take you over 33k job apps to get a stable income.
It's saddening and maddening but there's the grindset and the mindset and the sum total of both 😔.
If you try the (made up statistical) chance is 1/33k, if you don't try it's zero.
@@AtraxX98 I'd also like to see that video
I think the video is called "why you're always tired"
I've always been propelled by my emotions. I feel like I was formated to respond and act according to my environment to make a place for myself in it. That is, when I still had value in my parent's eyes. To simply be wasn't enough, you had to have a meaningful purpose to them. So when I stopped being useful, dare I say indispensable, they stopped caring. When they did, I stopped acting. I dont think I've lived since then. I've just been alive. It's truly incomprehensible to me that people can live for themselves, I've *been* trying to figure out how to do so myself.
Okay yeah. I know I do.
But what do you combat first? The action you're avoiding or the emotion you'reavoiding? Cuz it seems to me that if you address the emotion you're avoiding, you'll be more compelled to do the action you're avoiding.
That's a real question right there
Can't fight emotions. Not really. You have to start small and in some way, teach yourself that you can tolerate discomfort. It takes a long time
I wasn't expecting to be read for filth today, but here we are. I struggle with executive functioning and intrinsic, on-the-spot motivation my whole life. I also have ADHD. I hope this reframe helps me.
It’s ok to have some avoidance. I HATE dancing in a group setting. Clubs, weddings, bars etc. it makes me feel very uncomfortable and shitty. I’ve forced myself to dance at dozens of functions because “that’s just what you do” and now I refuse because it takes away any enjoyment and gives me persistent anxiety. I never really enjoyed dancing anyway so I’m super ok with avoiding it altogether.
No one ever thought you were shitty while you were dancing, is just a vibe, but ok
Yeah, of course. You don't have to force yourself to "avoid avoiding" something if it's not something you want to do, or a necessary step you must take toward something you want. It also depends on your values: perhaps you want to spend time with your friends but they go out dancing every weekend and that's the only regular chance you get to spend time with them all at once. So you'd work on decreasing that discomfort in dancing with other people in whatever ways necessary, and pushing past the remaining discomfort, ignoring the dread, in order to do something fun with your friends.
Ok that's dancing...Thats not really important!!! Unless you are a dance teacher for a living then you will go broke and lose customers because you have anxiety when dancing with others
Reading the book Stop Avoiding Stuff helped me a lot with this it's still absolutely a struggle but it really helped me gain much more of an understanding of how my brain works
So what are some ways to cope with the discomfort? Because sometimes the discomfort is paralysing and makes me unable to think.
I love him more and more with every video I am watching .
He is so smart and articulate.
I used to not follow my emotions in the past and I'd be doing things even if i don't want to/don't feel interested into it, it broke me. I started following my emotions and doing things that are right with how i feel and it made me happier, yes i noticed I'm also avoiding things, but it's letting me work on it, ask myself, Why am i avoiding this task? It always leads to some traumas and emotions i need to understand better
It's not a bad thing to follow feelings
It's not even necessarily following feelings, it's about doing what's right with your emotions, not doing things that you don't want to, and understanding why some things make you feel certain ways. if i know i need work to earn money yet i feel avoidant towards working, I don't tell myself i have to work, doesn't matter how i feel.
I ask myself why is something that should be a normal thing for me, making me feel this much discomfort for me to avoid it, and it leads me to past traumas related to being forced to work at farm by family.
It's therapy, doing things against your own emotions is the worst thing you can do.
Your emotions are part of you, they are there to tell you what you need
i really don't like the way you're portraying feelings influencing your actions as the problem here, when in actuality it's the effect and not the source of problem. source of problem might be ranging between our body being too exhausted and needing rest to traumas to bad teaching from home/ lack of emotional teaching. which in current times is a major problem, parents don't teach children how to understand and deal with their emotions
Emotional can be pathological and in which case not acting on them or dwelling on them is best.
Let’s take extreme fear of social situations for instance. Sure understanding your fear can help, but not everyone has trauma and psychodynamic work that needs to be done. Theory can only get you so far. Some people just need to put themselves into more social situations, that is the most effective and quickest method to not having the pathological fear anymore. In fact, trying to over analyze the fear and dwell on where is stems from can be a defense mechanism used to avoid the situation even more. Trying to intellectualize your fear.
This is me. I am very reactive, highly sensitive, and mostly ruled by my emotions. I’ve recently been learning about childhood emotion neglect, loss of emotional regulation, dissociation, etc. My life has felt like a struggle to understand and survive. I honestly couldn’t even understand where some of my emotions and actions stemmed from. I lived alone a very long time. I am mostly hoping to get to a better place emotionally just to feel and function like “normal.”
It’s also very frustrating that no one in my life can understand because they don’t have this issue. What usually drives me to action is fear, desperation, anger and sometimes guilt. I even avoid family parties unless it’s just me and my siblings.
Oooo yah. When I go to conferences I tend to feel awful midway thru. Then I want to leave. I don't leave, but I also can't really engage successfully with others after that point cause I'm done inside.
this is about me, too, and I don't feel judged because of this; I can understand what drives me and that I can take a breath in between and pause to help myself.
Yup! All the puzzle 🧩 pieces are coming together the last 4 years
I had an enormous trauma being so ill with so much
mind- numbing pain for three years i could easily have gone down this path. Instead i put the trauma in a compartment and i visit it when I want to.
I dont want to a lot of the time because im too
busy enjoying my newly found incredible life.
Happiness can definitely be a choice.
Why am i like this dr k ?
Nobody is created equal
For this of you that are avoidant, just know when you leave someone who cares about you and give them no closure it hurts them more than you can imagine. I’m a victim of an avoidant blindsiding me and ghosting me. Don’t avoid a negative feeling by just giving it all to your former partner because you are emotional. Especially if they were good to you
Yeah, i do that because as male it was shunned to be in discomfort. True it help when doing labor works but fuck that I'm not doing it again.
Bro what
L mentality
@@popcornyumm *clicks translate to english*
@@FriedBread agreed.
What mental privilege one must be in to think otherwise. If I didn't swallow discomfort, I would have lost my life years ago.
Damn. I feel so called out right now! I really needed to hear this! Thank you, Dr.K!
nah, your actions will always be controlled by your emotions... you just learn to find meaning in larger things than just how you feel in the moment and it changes the way you feel so that it's possible to approach challenges
idk maybe that's just my anxiety ridden ass speaking
Nah you can act in spite of fearing the action. That's how courage works
When we feel that negative emotion, it is linked to a subconscious belief we have about ourselves, so the question to ask is, what would I have to believe about myself to feel this way? E.g, You try to go and meet new people, but you feel that discomfort that stops you. "What would I have to believe about myself to feel this way?" Do you feel you will be judged? That you are not good enough? That you may be rejected? Somewhere in this questioning if you go deep enough you will find the root subconscious belief that is holding you back.
You described me within the first sentence. No testing needed
Emotions interfere with performance. So it's not stupid to align your best self with the right circumstances and vice versa. Actions have consequences and failure scales. That's why you must catch the waves of success and good spirits and not push through mindlessly when you are down and trying to force yourself to perform well during bad psychological conditions.
This is why toxic players corrupt and sabotage their team by negatively influencing them with curse words, blaming, by black balling teamates, etc. It's self-sabotage to sabotage a teamate. It's really self-destructive and irrational.
Where’s the long version of this video? They never put it in the description
Just realizing this is me. I thought this is how everyone else operates so I’ve spent way too much time trying to adjust my feelings and internal world to create action… rather than making actions to create feelings
So how does one overcome this? I tried to access the full video but it shows it's unavailable. Does anybody know any resources on how to overcome this? Please and thank you!
I second this
@@shinehy403 which video is this?
@@TheBetoBeats "from a members only stream"
Members June Q&A starting at 47:50@@TheBetoBeats
I feel like there’s a distinction to be made between actions tied to risk management and inaction linked to avoidance. In the former, there is an element of intentionality that brings with it a modicum of conscious awareness and control, whereas in the latter those qualities are largely absent.
Is this.. not how ppl work?
Not really
not everyone avoids things they need to do, no
@@joeysung311that’s not the point dr k was making at all
@@KSnezzwhat a well articulated and detailed response to the question that was proposed.
@@doggedmeerkat7785 i thought the same thing but i think it becomes detrimental when your emotions hold you back from responsibilities or growth. like for example you feel discomfort when talking to people so you avoid interacting with others. its okay to act on emotions but its good to recognize whether your reaction to the emotion is healthy or not
Oh hey, that's me. I have such an incredibly hard time doing things I don't want to, it's like I'm tied to a weight, I'd have to drag everywhere.
The ADHD meds help a lot with that and therapy definitely helped, too. But it's long ago and I still feel stuck in a way.
Everyone goes through this. We get tired, exhausted, demotivated. We are motivated to choose based on our feelings. Ive tried to do something that I dont feel.. no satisfaction and fulfillment after. I just do it for the sake of doing it.
guess i'm not just that. i try very hard to do what i love to do, but i also don't avoid things that has to be done because i have a strong sense of responsibility and obligation to my responsibilities. i do get a lot of negative emotional feedback, but i realized that the better i become at doing those things, the less negative my emotional feedback is. a lot of times i end up learning to like or at least feel neutral about those things.
Then what ARE we supposed to do???
I've known I'm like this for quite a while now. And what I've discovered that works pretty well with me is that if I manage to manipulate my own emotional space into a favourable state, then I can do whatever the hell I want.
But if I fail to do so, I can't muster the will to do too much about it. At most I'll manage to squeeze in a few spaced out minutes of work here and there if my emotional state isn't there.
Which is why I absolutely despise anything that messes up my delicate emotional balance, such as conflicts at home, or any unnecessary drama anywhere.
Anyone else notice the guy playing a video of a game at 00:10?
Most of the time I live like this, and the curiosity is strong, so I know a lot of random stuff which is great, but I also have a lot of indecisiveness and struggle with loneliness at the different jobs I've had. I also struggle with finding jobs when I don't have a job.
I do get out of my comfort zone, but it's hard.
What is the original video title or link?
@@if1613 Click the three dots on the upper right corner of the screen and go to the description. It's there
@@ortiz5475 Damn I'm so stupid 😂😂
Thx btw
@@if1613 No problem 🤙
Literally me, sometimes it's great because I get to do things I feel like doing that most people overthink because to them "it must be difficult" but way more often it stops me from doing things exactly because of that discomfort.
Very much not me. I can't find my feelings. They're in here somewhere
You have the ability to reconnect with your emotions! I believe in you!
I'm sure I do. Just don't know how yet :/ I could benefit from therapy, but it's near impossible in my area, even if I could afford it. I wish BetterHelp didn't suck. It's probably my best bet, but it looks like I'm just gonna have to wait until I can afford to move 😆 maybe it's a good thing I'm so detached, at least right now. I can't imagine having to face everything I'm dealing with under a constant barrage of feelings.
Im the same way…one thing that helps is putting a 15 minute timer. Idk why but i hop up and start doing whatever task. cooking,cleaning, creating… that way if you get motivated during the 15 mins you can continue after the timer goes off but if youre over it you can stop at the timer.
What is the alternative, Dr. K?
my guess is act based on your needs and goals, rather than your feelings. Sometimes you have to do things that make you feel bad in order to maintain your way of life
Not feel bad, but you do need to feel discomfort in order to grow. @@spanzotab
Being an NPC I guess
My notes from the original livestream:
. Practice awareness.
. Detach 'doing the right thing' from 'feeling good' (eg going to the gym fcking sucks for a while)
. Focus on the action, NOT the goal (similar but different from the above point)
Original stream's link on the description.
@@spanzotab What goals are there that are not based on emotion? I think a lot of them are based on becoming happy even what seems like something for the community. I think, when you reach nirvana or moksha, only then can you start on making decisions not based on emotion, so that's the *first step*.
Thank you Dr K. I found your channel recently and I am getting so much from it.❤❤❤❤
There's no play video for the original video. :(
Thank You 🙏
endless blessings to you and your family, but above all an abundance of Health
This sounds normal to me
Every time I get the negative feeling, I end up wanting to take a nap and the feeling is SO powerful it is extremely difficult to resist.