It can feel so tempting to try to avoid feelings and thoughts that you don’t want. Yet, research reveals that emotional and behavioral avoidance over time tends to leave people feeling worse and struggling more with sorts of things they’re trying to evade in the long run. Maybe you try to ignore your emotions or don’t give yourself permission to acknowledge  certain feelings. Perhaps emotions feel too scary or it seems pointless to feel them, and so you try to gain some distance from them by distracting yourself (e.g., focusing on activities or other people, using more alcohol or other substances), criticizing yourself, or denying that you feel what you do. Or you might avoid certain situations because it feels better at first, only to find that it limits what you what to do and the kind of life you hope to lead later. I’ve helped a number of clients approach what they used to avoid at a pace that feels manageable for them. If this resonates with you and you’d like to feel like you’re sitting more often in the driver’s seat of your life, able to approach what you’ve been running from rather than feel like it’s dominating you, you don’t have to do it on your own. I’ll be right there with you.