S2E12 You Are What You Avoid with Amy Pease

🔥 WHAT YOU AVOID CONTROLS YOU 🔥What you avoid controls you. Not what you face. Not what you overcome. What you RUN from. What you hide from. What you pretend isn't there while it's eating you alive from the inside out. Every single thing you avoid becomes your puppet master. And you? You're the puppet, dancing to the rhythm of your own fear, your own shame, your own unresolved pain. But not anymore. Not after today!━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ IN THIS EPISODE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In this raw, no-BS solo deep dive, we're tearing apart the psychology, neuroscience, and spiritual reality of avoidance—and giving you the tools to take your power back. You'll discover:✅ Why your brain is hardwired to avoid (and why that doesn't make you weak)✅ How avoidance creates a prison you don't even know you're in✅ The brutal cost of running from your truth—mentally, physically, spiritually✅ What Carl Jung's "shadow work" teaches us about what lives in the dark✅ Why "spiritual bypassing" is just another form of avoidance✅ The Stoic philosophy of courage and facing what is✅ 5 concrete, actionable steps to stop avoiding and start facing✅ Tools and resources: EMDR, Internal Family Systems, Somatic Experiencing✅ How to reclaim your power from the shadows⏱️ EPISODE TIMESTAMPS (1:00:32) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 - Cold Open: What You Avoid Controls You1:32 - What Avoidance Actually Looks Like in Your Life4:15 - The Culture That Celebrates Avoidance6:42 - The Neuroscience: Why We Avoid10:28 - The Avoidance Cycle: How It Controls You14:50 - What We Actually Avoid (Feelings, Truths, Responsibility)19:35 - The Cost of Avoidance (Mental, Physical, Spiritual)24:18 - Carl Jung: What You Resist, Persists27:45 - The Shadow: What Lives in the Dark31:22 - The Philosophy of Courage (Stoics & Marcus Aurelius)34:10 - Spiritual Bypassing: Avoidance Disguised as Enlightenment38:45 - Freedom Through Acceptance42:30 - How to Stop Avoiding: Step 1 - Name What You're Avoiding45:15 - Step 2 - Understand Your Avoidance Strategy47:40 - Step 3 - Start Small49:55 - Step 4 - Feel It to Heal It (The 90-Second Rule)52:20 - Step 5 - Get Support54:10 - Step 6 - Take Action56:25 - Tools & Resources (EMDR, IFS, Somatic Experiencing)59:00 - Your Action Steps This Week59:54 - Closing: Choose Your Freedom🎯 YOUR ACTION STEPS THIS WEEK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━**Action Step 1: The Avoidance Inventory**Grab a journal.Set aside 30 minutes.Write down EVERYTHING you've been avoiding.Then, next to each item, write:How long you've been avoiding it • What it's costing you to avoid it •What you're afraid will happen if you face it •What might become possible if you stop avoiding it **Action Step 2: Pick ONE Thing**From your inventory,pick ONE thing to face this month. Not all of them. ONE.Write out: •What specifically you're going to do •When you're going to do it •What support you need •What you'll do if it goes badly •What you'll do if it goes wellThen DO IT. No matter how uncomfortable.**Action Step 3: Daily Facing Practice**Every single day, do something that makes you uncomfortable.Small things to build the muscle: Say what you really think instead of what people want to hear •Feel the feeling instead of scrolling •Sit in silence instead of distracting •Ask for what you need instead of hinting •Set a boundary instead of people-pleasing**Action Step 4: Get Professional Support**If what you're avoiding is trauma, abuse, addiction, or serious mental health issues—get a professional. This isn't optional. This is necessary. Find a therapist who specializes in what you're dealing with. Invest in your healing. You're worth it.**Action Step 5: Join the Community** You're not doing this alone. Connect with others who are also choosing to face instead of avoid. Share what you're facing. Ask for support. Offer support to others. We rise together.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━**Therapy Approaches:**• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) - For trauma processing• Internal Family Systems (IFS) - Understanding different parts of yourself• Somatic Experiencing - Body-based trauma work (Dr. Peter Levine)• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - Dr. Steven Hayes**Books Referenced:**• "The Body Keeps the Score" by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk - Understanding how trauma lives in your body• "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach - Combining Western psychology with Buddhist principles• "When the Body Says No" by Dr. Gabor Maté - How emotional repression manifests as illness• "Daring Greatly" by Brené Brown - Research on shame and vulnerability **Scientific Research:**• American Psychological Association - Avoidance behaviors and PTSD• Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor - 90-second rule for emotions• Dr. Steven Hayes - Experiential avoidance research **Philosophical Sources:**• Carl Jung - Shadow work, "What you resist persists"• Marcus Aurelius - Stoic philosophy on courage• Rumi - "The wound is the place where the Light enters you" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💪 CONNECT WITH PASSION FROM PAIN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You're not doing this alone. Join the Survivor's Inner Circle and connect with others who are choosing freedom over avoidance.🌐 Website: www.passionfrompain.com📧 Email: [email protected]📸 Instagram: @amy.pease.rox📱 TikTok: @og.passionfrompain🎥 YouTube: @PassionPurposefromPain👥 Facebook: Passion From Pain - Survivor's Inner Circle🔗LinkedIn: Amy Pease🎙️ Listen on All Platforms: • Spotify: Passion From Pain Podcast • Apple Podcasts: Passion From Pain • Spreaker: Passion From Pain • Or wherever you get your podcasts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━❤️ SUPPORT THE SHOW━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━If this episode resonated with you, here's how you can help keep this content free and available to survivors who need it: ⭐ **LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW** on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Your reviews help other survivors find this show.📲 **SHARE THIS EPISODE** with someone who's been avoiding something they need to face. Sometimes we all need that push.🔔 **SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW** so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop weekly.💬 **JOIN THE CONVERSATION** - Post in the Facebook group or tag me on social media. Let me know: What's the ONE thing you're going to stop avoiding?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/passion-from-pain--6594412/support.🔥🎙️Pain Made You Strong!  Passion Made Your Unstoppable!🎙️🔥