The Cost of Always Watching for Bears
Earlier this year, I went on a hike in an area where there had been several recent bear attacks, a fact I learned only the evening prior from a fellow traveler. Despite having never come into contact with a bear in the wild, I know enough about them that they terrify me, and my excitement about the hike was instantly imbued with a tinge of anxiety.
The next day, I spent the first few hours of the hike on high alert, scanning the trail ahead, playing bell sounds on my phone to keep the bears at bay (which, I learned, does nothing except annoy your travel partner). As a consequence, I barely noticed the scenery around me. I couldn’t focus on the conversation with my husband, either. My mind was consumed by the possibility of seeing a bear and my hopes to avoid it.
In the end, I never did see a bear. Thankfully, after we’d been walking for a while, my anxiety eased up and I was able to soak in my surroundings in this beautiful place I’d never been. Once the hike was over, I didn’t think about a bear for the rest of the trip.
A view from said hike, no bears in sight.
The problem with living on high alert
In this context, my concern about the bear made sense to a degree. It is a massive, wild animal with the power to kill me, after all. While the likelihood of being attacked was low, the potential risk was high. From an evolutionary perspective, it’s safer to assume that what you see ahead is a bear and be pleasantly surprised when it’s not rather than assuming it's a bush and, oopsie!, getting eaten.
Looking out for these types of threats and doing our best to avoid them works wonders for acute threats and stressors, like the bear. Our minds and bodies kick into high gear, and once the bear is safely in the rear view we can go back to enjoying the scenery in peace.
Luckily, I and most of you reading this don’t have to worry much about bear attacks very often, but what about those persistent but not-quite-life-threatening stressors that define our modern lives? There are certainly plenty of experiences we would rather avoid that occupy a significant amount of our attention and that feel, on a visceral level, like threats to our survival.
Anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, the pain of rejection, conflict in relationships, grief…the list is long. Often folks reach out about starting therapy to get rid of these things for good. And this makes sense, too! Attempting to avoid these uncomfortable experiences is natural, automatic, and appealing in the short term.
But when it comes to those painful aspects of our lives that are with us moment-to-moment and day-to-day, the strategy that used to help us evade bears starts to work against us. If we’re not careful, we can start to operate from this stance of avoidance more and more, on high alert all the time, and organize our entire lives around the internal and external experiences we’re trying to avoid.
Take a moment to consider what life can look like when your focus is avoiding pain at all costs.
If you’re trying to avoid rejection, you’ll never ask anyone out.
If you’re trying to avoid anxiety, you’ll never apply to that job, or go to that party (or go on that beautiful hike, for that matter).
If you’re trying to avoid conflict, you’ll never express a need or set a boundary.
If you're trying to avoid grief, you’ll never take the risk of loving someone or something deeply.
If you’re trying to avoid disappointment, you’ll be sure to never hope for anything.
And what kind of life is that? Does it sound like a life that’s successfully escaped pain?
These on-going attempts to protect ourselves often lead to a different kind of suffering- isolation, disconnection, rumination, loneliness, boredom, meaninglessness…I could go on.
A different way forward
Now, imagine that instead of focusing on all the things you’re trying to move away from, you begin orienting your life towards what matters most to you and let that guide you instead, even if it means coming into closer contact with some of those experiences you fear.
Instead of focusing on avoiding rejection, you orient towards belonging, connection or community.
Instead of focusing on avoiding anxiety, you orient towards engagement, courage, or growth.
Instead of avoiding conflict, you orient towards honesty, authenticity, or mutual respect.
Instead of avoiding grief, you orient towards love.
Instead of avoiding disappointment, you allow yourself to hope.
How might pivots might impact your experience and the decisions you make? What might you do differently?
Does making these pivots mean a life without pain? Of course not. Life is painful sometimes. There’s no way around it. It’s a feature of being human, not a bug. Ultimately, there’s not much that’s within our control, and there are risks in making moves towards what we yearn for most.
But there’s plenty of pain in avoidance, too.
By making these pivots towards what matters, we’re not aiming for a life without pain.
We’re liberating ourselves from the suffering of avoidance and opening ourselves up to the pain we’re willing to experience to get closer to a life that’s meaningful to us.
If this feels difficult, that’s because it is.
These patterns are human, not moral failures. Especially during times of transition or uncertainty, it’s natural to lean more heavily on avoidance. There’s nothing wrong with that.
What matters is noticing when it starts to cost you more than it protects you.
So, as we head into the new year, I urge you to consider what you want to move towards rather than what you want to move away from. You might notice that there’s a lot more to see when you’re not always watching for bears.
-Hilary
Notes & Acknowledgments
As with all online content, especially related to psychotherapy and personal growth, there is plenty of nuance here that is beyond the scope of this post. Please take what resonates and leave the rest. If you're interested in exploring what some of these concepts look like in action, click here to schedule a consultation call about therapy with me.
This post was inspired by A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters by Steven Hayes, PhD and my ongoing study and practice Acceptance & Commitment Therapy.
Also, thanks to Kelly Wilson, PhD for the evocative and timely “bear or bush” example, which I coincidentally had read in Mindfulness for Two: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Approach to Mindfulness in Psychotherapy on the plane ride to this hike.
