Lesson 52: Short Term / Long Term

"Avoidance is the best short-term strategy to escape conflict
and the best long-term strategy to ensure suffering."
Brendon Burchard

Long-term, avoidance, as the quote above summarizes, is guaranteed to ensure our long-term suffering.

Why do you think that is?

Funny, I kind of want to avoid answering this question. It could be because I drank many drinks last night (an excellent form of avoidance) and my brain is not wanting to focus. Or, it could be because I really want to avoid looking at my avoidance.

Regardless, here I am. Not avoiding avoidance. 

Just because we attempt not to look at something does not mean it doesn't exist. Our experiences have an impact on us, our bodies, our brains, our lives, etc. Turning our heads means not dealing with what is impacting us or how it's impacting us. The more compartmentalized we are, the more dysfunction we create.

I am a massage therapist (among other things). I had a client asking me the other day why her arm was hurting. I tried a couple of explanations that weren't quite landing. I then asked her if she has ever worked at a place where the different departments in the same company weren't working together. She said "oh, you mean like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?" Yes, exactly.

"Oh sure," she said. Well, I explained, the same thing happens in our bodies. When the shoulder or arm is overused, the different muscles will stop working together as well and each muscle will start doing its own thing. Some will give up and some will overcompensate. This is a good temporary fix because, if one muscle is overworked, another one will take over. Over time, though, this creates dysfunction. Eventually you want to get the strength back in the overworked muscle so it can rejoin the party, and the other muscles don't have such a heavy load. 

In her case, after years of doing the same movements incorrectly, her arm was broken down and hurting and fatigued and the different departments were no longer coordinated or cooperating. 

I believe what we experience in our bodies translates to our life. Something is hard or too much to deal with. We compartmentalize, or avoid. Then, rather than returning to the situation when we feel more capable of handling it, oftentimes we just continue avoiding. Then it becomes broken down and hurt and fatigued. And harder and harder to deal with.