'It's like I'm frozen in a scream'
How metaphor can help us stop avoiding the things we know we want to do
One of the most bizarre things about persistent avoidance is that a) our brains have a very specific reason for avoiding whatever it is we're trying to do; and b) we usually have no idea what the actual reason is.
And it's not like we don't try to find out. But looking for this underlying reason usually leads us to boilerplate answers like 'fear of failure' or 'playing small', which can feel sort of plausible without ever being all that convincing. No wonder 'I just suck' so often seems like a better explanation. Unfortunately, we usually find that one pretty convincing.
In my experience, we wind up with these generic explanations because we start by thinking of the sorts of things that might cause avoidance and then try apply them to ourselves. This approach works for solving a lot of problems, but it fails us here because avoidance is not general. It's specific as hell. It arises from our unique interior world—the one created by our singular, unrepeatable combination of history, skills, attachments and ambitions. Which means that we can only locate the reason for our avoidance by asking whatever part of our own brain put the brakes on in the first place.
So how exactly do we go about asking? There are lots of ways, but one of the simplest and most powerful is through metaphor. If this word brings back bad memories of high school English class, don't worry. It's true that I'm an English prof, but, I promise you, this isn't at all technical.Â
All you need to do is challenge yourself to complete this sentence:
When I think about doing [the thing I keep avoiding], it's like...Â
and then invite your brain to answer through a comparison, like 'It's like jumping off a bridge' or 'It's like my hair is on fire', etc.
This exercise works because metaphor is about conceptual associations rather than logical inference. So when we think metaphorically, we sidestep the part of our brain that wants to reason back from what we believe to be true in general. And that gives us room to tune into whatever internal logic is actually at play for us. To see what I mean, consider some of the responses to this prompt I've heard from clients recently:
It's like being frozen in a scream
It's like I'm a dog on a leash
It's like I'm being dragged to the bottom of the ocean
It's like a soldier that's gone AWOL
It's like falling into a void
Each of these metaphors instantly puts us somewhere a thousand times more specific than 'fear of success' or any of the other boilerplate explanations for persistent avoidance. Notice how different each of them is. Each one is its own story in miniature, with different characters, scenarios, clues to investigate and threads to pull. Consider: Why is the scream frozen? Who is holding the leash, and what would you do if you got off-leash? What is dragging you down? What is the soldier's mission? What should be where this void is?
Asking these sorts of questions will give you so much traction in understanding your avoidance, because they can only be answered by the part of the brain that generated the metaphor in the first place. Which means that when we ask about the metaphor, we're hearing from the part of our brains that actually knows something about our avoidance. Instead of veering off into generic, back-to-front reasoning—or defaulting to the old 'I just suck' explanation—we're now looking for the answer in the one and only place that it actually exists.
If you want to take this exercise further, you can respond to the same sort of prompt in three variations, which will give you even more threads to pull:
When I think about doing this task, it's like...
When I think about failing at this task, it's like...
When I think about succeeding at this task, it's like...
Pause after each prompt and spend a minute imagining the experience, then see what metaphor your brain supplies. After you've captured the metaphors, make a list of questions about each and see what answers you find. Comparing your answers will give you information about what facet of this task is bothering you the most. You can not only assess which outcome your brain seems to finds most objectionable but also explore the clues you get about why that might be the case.
You'll be surprised by how much information your brain will unspool for you once you start pulling the right threads. And every single data point you glean this way will be a step on the path to resolving avoidance for good.
If you have a question—or if you'd like to share what you find—drop it in the comments!