Don't run from the pain

I was talking with a client today who's been super anxious.

Asked where that anxiety is coming from.

His answer was filled with gold.

Sure, he has a lot of work tasks that need to get done and things he needs to figure out that can spike his anxiety. But that's not the deeper source of it. The deeper source is that he feels... unsatisfied. Disconnected from others. Too much time isolated in his office at home. Doing something he doesn't love even though it pays well. And it's been that way for a while...

For years, in fact, that feeling has been there.

But he was numbing it, always, with some combination of escapes like porn, video games, weed, netflix, and other easy ways of taking your mind off of things. Hoping it would get better. But it didn't.

Not until he decided to change something.

These days he's not running from that discomfort.

He's feeling it.

Being curious about it.

Dissecting it.

Letting it fuel him.

Because now he realizes something critical:

Anxiety is a signal.

Depression is a signal too.

They're signs from deep within your psyche that you need to change something.

Unfortunately, the forms of escapism I mentioned above can give your brain the illusion of having changed something... but they ultimately just make it worse, because they kill your drive to change while allowing the problem to persist and grow.

The good news?

Like I told my client today:

When you don't take the easy way out by escaping from that pain, there's literally no other possible outcome other than changing the situation for the better. Because the human brain is naturally motivated to move away from pain. And if you refuse to numb that pain with the easy shit that doesn't help at all, then your neurobiology will naturally move you towards doing the harder thing instead: changing your situation in a deeper, more meaningful, long-term impactful way.

Cool lesson in here.

Remove the escapism.

Stop giving your brain the easy way out.

And you may surprise yourself with what you're capable of when you do.