Through avoidance, you always fortify what you fear. Always. It’s unintentional on your part, of course. You don’t mean to solidify your struggle. You’re just looking for a way out of your anxiety prison. And the seductive nature of avoidance is hard to resist. Avoidance is a little like the Venus fly trap. Its beauty draws prey in, then its fangs eat it whole. Yikes!
Pete, an affable, good-looking guy in his late thirties, had been single all his life. At thirty-nine, he began to question if he’d be alone for the rest of it. He now hoped for a girlfriend, but had no idea what attaining this goal would entail. He had never had one. He was only familiar with one-night stands. He never learned how to truly connect with a woman, other than through quick and easy physical intimacy. This was now leaving him empty and unfulfilled.
Pete arrived in my office feeling lost. He described his recent attempts at dating with the purpose of developing a relationship, but he didn’t know how to relate to women. Specifically, it made him anxious to discuss anything during a date due to a self-described absence in communication skills. Sure, he could charm women at bars with small talk. But when it came to substance or a true intimate moment, he felt powerless.
During his dates, women clued in fast on Pete’s inability to address any deep subject matter. He believed this rendered him non-relationship material in their eyes. “I clam up when women start to ask me questions about my life. I try to answer, but I don’t know what to say. I definitely don’t want to talk about my father skipping out on us when I was ten. Or my alcoholic mother. Plus, I know they’re expecting me to ask them things and listen to their problems. I think they want me to ask questions that show I care. But I honestly don’t even know how. It makes me too nervous. I start sweating and stammering. I think they’re immediately turned off. I’ve only gotten to a second date once in my life. She seemed as nervous as I was, but after that second date, she never texted me back. When I have a fair amount of alcohol in me, small talk is easy. Women don’t seem to expect you to have a meaningful conversation at a bar. That’s where I’m most comfortable. A few drinks in, I’m not worried about how women perceive me. I mean, who cares, right? I’ll never see them again. I’ve actually started back at the bars. I think I’m gonna cancel my online dating apps. I might not be cut out for a relationship. Maybe I should just accept that and give up.”
Though he was a bit misguided, I gave kudos to Pete for the attempt to challenge his brain’s false fear messages by going on dates. I reiterated that, through avoidance, he had long ago taught his brain that dating and intimacy were dangerous. I then asked Pete how long he had been dating with the goal of working toward a relationship. Resigned, he said, “Over two months, with about one date every week. So, maybe eight dates.” So much for commitment!
When I asked if he’d been modifying his dating routine based on lessons learned, he needed clarification. I explained that examining one date’s responses to questions he asked could provide observational data to apply on subsequent dates. For example, if Pete asked about a woman’s family with interest and she leaned in, then shared, that question would suggest a positive step toward connecting. Pete could then incorporate this question as connection practice during dates. In effect, this would challenge his brain’s false fear messages rather than foster them. I asked again, this time more directly, if he changed his behavior at all during these eight dates. “No, I was just trying to survive the dates. I was mostly hoping my hands wouldn’t shake or that I didn’t look too nervous.”
It struck me that although Pete believed he was afraid of intimacy, it seemed what Pete truly feared was potential criticism and rejection. This resonated with Pete. “I think that’s right. I’m constantly trying to avoid caring about a woman because if I do and she criticizes me or breaks up with me, I’d be crushed. I suppose that’s why spending time with women I have no real interest in is easier.” Pete’s fears of criticism and rejection are a main theme of social anxiety. The centralized pattern being attempts to avoid judgment, criticism, and rejection—often at all costs.
By running from his fear, Pete encouraged more fear. In other words, by avoiding asking questions during a date (and avoiding dating entirely for most of his life), Pete reinforced his fear. Thus, his avoidance continued to teach his brain that real intimacy could lead to terrible risk of judgment, criticism, and rejection. As a faithful student, his brain continued to trigger his fight-or-flight mechanism when in situations with potential to connect on a sincere level. All in all, Pete taught his brain to send false fear messages to his system, preparing Pete for mortal danger. So when faced with possible closeness, his body flooded with adrenaline, which in turn he interpreted as anxiety. The more Pete avoided asking questions, the more fearful he became. His brain then continued to send false fear messages, maintaining this cycle, much to Pete’s dismay.
The science-proven, effective way of outsmarting your brain’s false fear messages is never via the push of avoidance, but through a counterintuitive pull.
In chapters to follow, we’ll talk about how to stop yourself from avoiding anxiety, so you can finally make your anxiety getaway and claim your calm. But for now, it’s crucial you understand that your avoidance is maintaining your anxiety. And not only maintaining, but encouraging it, reinforcing it, and ensuring that it’s going to cause you to suffer. Avoiding anxiety is ultimately like inviting someone you despise into your home and then advocating for their lengthy stay. Totally irrational, right?
Moving on…
Pete’s focus on trying to survive dating without appearing anxious leads us to another manner in which one elicits false fear messages. In fact, it happens to be how anxiety is born!
Drumroll, please…
In the Beginning, There Was “The Battle”
An anxiety problem is created through your fighting it. It’s created through the battle you try to survive, hoping that what you consider a hate-filled, terrifying torturer will flee, never to return. But like Star Trek’s infamous enemy The Borg says, “Resistance is futile!” Futile and destructive.
In his book White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts, Daniel Wegner, PhD, described the results of his innovative research on thought resistance. His experiments demonstrated that after instructing subjects not to think of white bears during the specified trials, they were unable to stop their brain from entertaining thoughts overflowing with these little white bears.12 Dr. Wegner’s experiments are a great example of the reality of battling anxiety. Who hasn’t thought something unpleasant and found that the more they tried to stop thinking about it, the more they thought about it? These findings also support the spiritually-grounded adage “What you resist, persists.”
Keep in mind, too, that when you fight anxiety, you create a certain conflict-based energy, the same as when you fight any externally-based conflict in the world. Conflict is a kind of energy, and energy is key to life. So by fighting anxiety, you’re giving it life. Basically, you’re Dr. Frankenstein creating your very own monster. And in the words of Dr. Frankenstein, “It’s alive! It’s alive!”
Your Brain’s False Fear Message Process—in a Nutshell
1.An uncomfortable experience or thought occurs.
2.You teach your brain to fear this experience or thought by either…
a.Doing what you can to avoid facing stimuli that trigger this experience or thought.
OR…
b.By fighting anxious thoughts and symptoms. (Often people do both.)
3.Following your teachings, your brain learns that this experience or thought is something to be feared. Hence, it deems it dangerous to your survival and seeks to protect you with your biological survival instinct whenever you’re confronted with this anxious experience, whether in thought or in the actual world.
4.When confronted by this experience, your survival instinct activates its fight-or-flight mechanism. This mechanism now floods your system with adrenaline, preparing your body to duel to the death or bolt like a track