Personal Growth Help: Stop Avoiding Hurt to Improve Relationships

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The Vibrant Moment – Remember: Stay With Your Feelings.
Tools from the Center for New Psychology
Publisher: Doris Jeanette, Holistic Psychology Mentor, Coach
Visit: http://www.drjeanette.com
Live at the Edge: http://www.ladybuglive.com/edge.html

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Do you try to avoid being hurt?

Many people do.

However, if you are a regular reader of The Vibrant Moment, you know there is an avoidance learning principle that adults and children need to know and understand in order to flourish.

Avoidance Learning Principle

The extensive psychological research in operant and classical conditioning since 1924 reveals that the more you avoid something, the weaker you become.

For example, if you have social anxiety you experience anxiety when you get ready to go to a party. You avoid the party, which avoids your anxiety, which makes you immediately more comfortable.

However, when you avoid the party, your avoidance behavior does not do anything to prevent your anxiety symptoms from occurring again and again in the future. As a matter of fact, your avoidance behavior is reinforced and you are more likely to avoid the next time. This means you will be more anxious the next time and it will be harder for you to go to a party.

Apply this Learning Principle to your Emotional Distress.

The more you try not to be hurt in your relationships, the weaker you become. The more you avoid being close to others in a relationship, the more isolated you become. Your sense of self gets smaller and smaller and your anxiety about being hurt gets bigger and bigger. Soon, you live in a tiny box and your body and mind begins to get sick and feeble.

To top it off, the worst result of your avoidance conditioning is, you get hurt anyway. Yes, you get hurt no matter what! You feel hurt by others even though you are living in a box because you do not want to get hurt by others.

In physical reality, which is the area outside of your box, it is not possible to avoid getting hurt by other people. No, it is just not possible to be a sensitive human being and not get hurt by other human beings. Just as it is not possible to avoid anxiety and go to a party.

Put Learning Research Facts into Action

Not only do you need to know and understand how you learned a behavior that is unhelpful to you. You also need to take an action step and put your knowledge to good use. You must actively unlearn your self-destructive avoidance behavior if you want to be mentally healthy and physically strong.

Therefore, you must stop avoiding hurt, now or later. There is no other way to achieve natural health and wellness. You must stay with yourself when you feel hurt and welcome hurt when it arrives.

Staying with yourself through hurt, loss, and grief is a necessary emotional health skill you need to learn in order to be effective in your relationships. If you are a parent you need to learn these essential emotional health skills so you model them for your children.

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LEARN TO STAY WITH YOUR FEELINGS: Use the emotional health audio, Opening the Heart. In a loving voice you have a personal guide who shows you how to stay with yourself when you feel hurt and afraid. The Opening the Heart audio series is three hours of education in the essential emotional health skills needed to enjoy relationships. Delivered in a lullaby sounding voice that is comforting to the soul. $97.00, money back guarantee.

Read more and order: http://www.drjeanette.com/emotionalhealthaudio.html

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STOP AVOIDING: Learn more about your feelings, emotions and energy. Study the eBook, “HOW TO HEAL A BROKEN HEART AND STOP THE HURT: Mend Your Relationship Heartache With Self-Love.” Buy at Amazon for $3.99 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AO7DU2E

Read more:
http://www.drjeanette.com/mendbrokenheart.html

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