204 Quotes About Avoidance

The choice to avoid risk is the choice to avoid living, and to avoid living is one of the greatest risk of all.

We say, "It wasn't that bad. It was all my fault. I’m making all this stuff up. "All my life, I spoke bitterly of my mother's treatment of me as a child.Friends asked, “What did she do to you?“ I couldn't really describe it, and in frustration would say, “Well, she didn't lock us up in closets." in fact, my mother behaved much worse than that, but by focusing on the empty closet, I avoided looking at what waited beyond it.

Why are we so afraid of confronting ourselves? Why do we always use the loud noises of the outside world to mute what our inner voice is trying to tell us?

Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.

She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her — but I think she's even more terrified to find out why." Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.

I just wanted to sleep all the time. I had a plan.

Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.

Every time I have tried to run from myself, I have found myself standing on the next crossing, ahead of me.

Too often fantasy is not a rich elaboration of life designed to enhance our existence, rather it is our pell-mell escape from life with the intent of exiting this existence. And the most imaginative fantasy of all is to somehow think that I can do that in the first place.