Best 113 quotes in «avoidance quotes» category

Grandma Donna passed the oyster stuffing and asked my father straight out what he was working on, it being so obvious his thoughts were not with us. She meant it as a reprimand. He was the only one at the table who didn't know this, or else he was ignoring it. He told her he was running a Markov chain analysis of avoidance conditioning. He cleared his throat. He was going to tell us more. We moved to close off the opportunity. Wheeled like a school of fish, practiced, synchronized. It was beautiful. It was Pavlovian. It was a goddamn dance of avoidance conditioning.

Her life was one endless loop that she raced around, with steep banked curves so she could never change or slow down. It just delivered her back to herself, over and over and over.

He was through with this conversation. As a rule, they tended to avoid questions like "How sane are we?" and "Do our lives have meaning?" The need for avoidance was acute and apparent to both of them.

I am often guilty of expecting the worst so as to avoid disappointment and welcome surprise.

I advise people to be careful about taking advice from long term Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) victims. If they have had it for decades and have not cleared it up, then you can discount what they have to say regarding curing the condition. However, they are an excellent resource on the biological harm of electromagnetic fields (EMF), EMF avoidance and low EMF products.

He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it. It was like living with an elephant. His room was tiny, and every morning he had to squeeze around the truth just to get to the bathroom. To reach the armoire to get a pair of underpants he had to crawl under the truth, playing it wouldn't choose the moment to sit on his face. At night, when he closed his eyes, he felt it looming above him.

I can breathe easier now that the appointments are behind me. I missed them all, through deliberate negligence, Having waited for the urge to go, which I knew wouldn’t come. I’m free, and against organized, clothed society. I’m naked and plunge into the water of my imagination.

I can't talk about my childhood at all, because cannot say "I" when I mean "we," and if I say "we" it leads to a conversation about how I have a dead sister, instead of what I want to talk about. I found that out in the summer. So I don't talk about it.

I cover my face with my arms because this isn't happening. It isn't possible.

If [Patricia Highsmith] saw an acquaintance walking down the sidewalk she would deliberately cross over so as to avoid them. When she came in contact with people, she realised she split herself into many different, false, identities, but, because she loathed lying and deceit, she chose to absent herself completely rather than go through such a charade. Highsmith interpreted this characteristic as an example of 'the eternal hypocrisy in me', rather her mental shape-shifting had its source in her quite extraordinary ability to empathise. Her imaginative capacity to subsume her own identity, while taking on the qualities of those around her - her negative capability, if you like - was so powerful that she said she often felt like her inner visions were far more real than the outside world. She aligned herself with the mad and the miserable, 'the insane man who feels himself one with all mankind, all life, because in losing his mind, he has lost his ego, his self-ness', yet realised that such a state inspired her fiction. Her ambition, she said, was to write about the underlying sickness of this 'daedal planet' and capture the essence of the human condition: eternal disappointment.

I don't want to say hello, nor do I want him to know that I've seen him and failed to say hello.

If you avoid your truthful emotions and pain you will implode and contract into a diminished and feeble state.

I had no desire to be seen by anyone, or talk to anyone. Sometimes out walking I would be in such a peculiar state of mind that I would rush home at the merest hint of another person.

I kept my head down, away from the biting air and the joy of the holiday. I didn't want to be reminded of Christmases past. No associations, no heartstrings snagged on a tree in a window, no memories.

I’m like a fish in a pool, turning quickly to avoid what challenges it. My only decision is whether to go right or left to sidestep confrontation.

I didn't avoid my problems. I just didn't feel as though I had to focus on them every minute of every day. And telling people about certain aspects of my life would only create trouble. If I was guilty of anything, it was of trying not to bring new problems into my life. That wasn't avoidance. That was logical thinking.

If you pay attention, you may find that it is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable, so you avoid doing the thing that will evoke fear and other disquieting emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.

I imagine that one of the reasons that people cling to their hate and prejudice so stubbornly, is that they sense that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.

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

I knew that suffering can purify, that it's a kind of fire that can be worth enduring, but there were degrees of it to which I chose not to subject myself.

I must stop remembering... The more I remember, the greater my agony. These thoughts stuttered in my mind... I must be more watchful, I told myself. I must shut them out. I couldn't always keep this up.

In my experience, it is entirely possible to watch something happen and not to see it at all.

In the grief that comes with recognizing what happened to us, we often feel there is nowhere to turn for solace…We do things to keep it away, such as becoming overly busy or using drugs or alcohol to numb our feelings. When we are caught up in resistance, we do not feel hope, but when we surrender to our sadness fully, hope trickles in.

Is this truth too potent for me to hold? If I keep it close, will I tumble? At times, I don't know.

I must stop remembering. I must keep them in a faraway place. The more I remember, the greater my agony. These thoughts stuttered in my mind. So I stopped talking about them, I wouldn't mouth my boys' names, I shoved away stories of them. Let them, let our life, become as unreal as that wave.

In any event, the sloppy and fatuous nature of American good will can never be relied upon to deal with hard problems. These have been dealt with, when they have been dealt with at all, out of necessity—and in political terms, anyway, necessity means concessions made in order to stay on top.

I steered clear of anything that might pique my intellect or make me envious or anxious. I kept my head down.

Living with life is very hard. Mostly we do our best to stifle life--to be tame or to be wanton. To be tranquillised or raging. Extremes have the same effect; they insulate us from the intensity of life. And extremes--whether of dullness or fury--successfully prevent feeling. I know our feelings can be so unbearable that we employ ingenious strategies--unconscious strategies--to keep those feelings away. We do a feelings-swap, where we avoid feeling sad or lonely or afraid or inadequate, and feel angry instead. It can work the other way, too--sometimes you do need to feel angry, not inadequate; sometimes you do need to feel love and acceptance, and not the tragic drama of your life. It takes courage to feel the feeling--and not trade it on the feelings-exchange, or even transfer it altogether to another person. You know how in couples one person is always doing all the weeping or the raging while the other one seems so calm and reasonable? I understood that feelings were difficult for me although I was overwhelmed by them.

Many of us learned that keeping busy…kept us at a distance from our feelings...Some of us took the ways we busied ourselves—becoming overachievers & workaholics—as self esteem…But whenever our inner feeling did not match our outer surface, we were doing ourselves a disservice…If stopping to rest meant being barraged with this discrepancy, no wonder we were reluctant to cease our obsessive activity.

Many survivors struggle to believe the abuse happened. They don’t want to believe it. It’s too painful to think about. They don’t want to accuse family members or face the terrible loss involved in realizing “a loved one” hurt them; they don’t want to rock the boat.

Mari managed to fall asleep now and then, only to awaken with a start of fear that she had been making noise. "Do I snore when I'm sleeping?"she finally whispered to Alain. He didn't answer. "Alain? Are you awake?" "Yes," he's reply finally came. "I just do not know which answer would be right." "Just tell me!" "Sometimes." "Sometimes?" Mari moved her eyes enough to glance at Alain. "Loud or soft?" "Sometimes." "Does it ever bother you?" Alain hesitated again. "Sometimes." "Are you going to give me any plain yes or no answers to this?" "Not if I can avoid doing so," he replied.

Maybe you get caught up in the little things because you are really trying to distract yourself from having to deal with the big things. Maybe it's avoidance.

Most of us will do anything to avoid facing ourselves

No, what's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics--the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working concensus to tackle any big problem.

It was already getting dark out, but I kept my sunglasses on. I didn't want to have to look anybody in the eye. I didn't want to relate to anybody too keenly. Plus, the fluorescent lights at the drug store were blinding. If I could have purchased my medications from a vending machine, I would have paid double for them.

My mother's mouth drops. 'Emmy...don't say those things Emmy. Remember, we don't talk about those things.' 'Yes Mom. I remember. That's why I'm here, looking like this.' An orderly knocks on the door and announces that visiting time is over. My mother and I look at each other awkwardly, and hug. 'I love you,' she says. 'I love you too, Mom.' 'You aren't telling them too much are you?' she asks, afraid. I sign. 'No Mommy, I'm not.' She's visibly relieved. She leaves the room. The orderley comes back and escorts me back into the main room. I just sit and laugh to myself." (after Emmy's suicide attempt) ~ The Finer Points of Becoming Machine

My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.

Nobody Home: Until we're ready, we're pretty much primed for denial. Even on the river of change, we're most of us slow rowers.

Nobody Home: With feelings there's no easy con. You're either willing to ante up or you're not. You're either ready to be present with what's happening or you kick the problem into your future

Nope. She was out of her mind, and I was out of here before I got dragged along on her crazy train.

One might have all sorts of reasons for avoiding people. It's none of our business.

Outdoor sunlight avoidance for several months is recommended after receiving abnormally high radiation exposures.

RIVETING TORPOR It is remarkable how far I am prepared to go In order to avoid doing the one thing that might Provide satisfaction, and it is remarkable to consider What I will do instead of it, purely for the pleasure Of being dissatisfied. When it is merely a matter Of sitting down for a few hours and dreaming That something of value might eventually arise From this routine of self-enforced boredom.

Russian Dolls: One excellent thing about being human is that we're fast learners. When we find a trick that works, we practice it, even if the skill means being better at avoiding karmic homework than facing or resolving it.

Our inner experience is that which we think, feel, remember, perceive, sense, decide, plan and predict. These experiences are actually mental actions, or mental activity (Van der Hart et al., 2006). Mental activity, in which we engage all the time, may or may not be accompanied by behavioral actions. It is essential that you become aware of, learn to tolerate and regulate, and even change major mental actions that affect your current life, such as negative beliefs, and feelings or reactions to the past the interfere with the present. However, it is impossible to change inner experiences if you are avoiding them because you are afraid, ashamed or disgusted by them. Serious avoidance of you inner experiences is called experiential avoidance (Hayes, Wilson, Gifford, & Follettte, 1996), or the phobia of inner experience (Steele, Van der Hart, & Nijenhuis, 2005; Van der Hart et al., 2006).

People spend entire lifetimes trying to avoid the things that have already happened.

Running was not always the coward's route; it was a matter of survival. The fewer violent encounters one invited, the longer the life.

Russian Dolls: How we hide those parts of ourselves, the ones that we can conceal, is by constructing an elaborate emotional infrastructure not unlike nested Russian dolls. True healing requires going through all the hidden layers.

Smart people avoid smart meters.

Shame often causes me to hide my mistakes from others. But really, when I make a mistake, I should make it loud and clear, so I can see that it didn’t work as a strategy, and be able to make a course correction, either by myself or with the help of others.