Thank you so much Dr. May. This is the hardest skill for me. I'm an avoider. So it's the most effective skill that comes up for me constantly and it's also the one I have the hardest time fighting the fear and doing. It's just like exposure therapy. Anyway, I'm gonna bookmark this because it's nice to have the visuals laid out emotion by emotion like that. This is what you're urge is, this is the better thing to do. ❤❤ Thank again for all you do for so many of us.
Thanks for writing. I know there are lots of other people out there who share your experience. Avoiding painful emotions makes sense on some level because we don’t like feeling the pain. But as they say, the way out is through. Maybe taking smaller steps can help. For example, let yourself feel a small amount of an emotion for a short period of time then move back into engaging in a healthy distraction. (My video on container imagery might help you have greater control over taking out and putting away emotions.) You might also benefit from self-soothing and encouraging self-talk as you make steps towards feeling emotions and doing opposite actions, Best of luck to you in your healing journey. ❤️
