This attempt to avoid our own emotions, our thoughts, our feelings, and our body sensations is called experiential avoidance. Not surprisingly, it can become a habit. Who wouldn’t tune out feelings and body sensations if the news on this frequency had been too unpleasant too often? But pretending some feeling isn’t actually here is like hearing a strange noise from your car engine while driving along the freeway and dealing with it by turning up the volume on the car radio. It works pretty well to blank out the noise, but is not too effective in preventing the engine from seizing up ten miles
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Car analogies always hit home for me.
