Each of us has a strategy for avoiding certain feelings we don’t like to feel or don’t know how to deal with. For example:

—Do you ever binge eat or drink when you feel depressed, agitated, frustrated, hopeless or angry -and then feel guilty or horrible morning after morning?

—Maybe you shop impulsively outside your budget or engage in casual sexual relationships to try to numb the pain of a breakup but just put yourself into increasing debt or feel empty and wrecked after attaching to someone unavailable?

—Do you ever sit on the couch mindlessly binge-watching shows or spend hours on social media instead of researching new career sor job alternatives to the one you hate, just to avoid the fear and overwhelm?

When we do this, we can develop habits that are not life-serving and can keep us STUCK, rather than growing and flourishing.