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gwunspoken
We know that now more than ever, there is a growing disconnection between parents and their teens, corporates and their employees, and human interactions in general.
This can cause stress, frustration and many arguments within families and the work environment.
gwunspoken looks at the challenges people of all ages have in their relationships with one another and provides experience and advice, allowing all parties to have a voice.... and feel heard.
Join us to hear corporates, parents, educators, teens and the latest advice of how we can in fact live the life we love, in making authentic interactions, because we know... authentic connection is everything.
gwunspoken
Facing What You've Been Running From
Ever notice how the moment you try to slow down, your brain suddenly fills with everything you've been avoiding? That's not a glitch—it's precisely why mindfulness matters.
We've convinced ourselves we're too busy for mindfulness, but what if busyness is just our cleverly disguised escape route? This episode dives into the confronting reality that mindfulness exposes everything we've been avoiding—and why that exposure might be exactly what we need for genuine healing.
The science is clear: our brains are wired to protect us from discomfort. When emotional pain surfaces, our amygdala sounds the alarm, and we reach for our favourite numbing strategies—scrolling, working, shopping, or simply declaring "I'm fine" when we're anything but. Yet research shows that emotions, when fully felt, typically pass within 90 seconds. Our avoidance doesn't shorten the storm; it stretches it out.
Mindfulness offers a different path. By activating the prefrontal cortex and down-regulating the amygdala, it helps us sit with discomfort rather than run from it. This isn't about feeling good—it's about feeling honest. The moment we stop resisting difficult emotions is often when they begin to soften. Pain intensifies in avoidance but loses power in presence.
Ready to meet what you've been avoiding? Try these approaches:
1) Name feelings without fixing them.
2) Allow discomfort to pass through rather than build up, and
3) Practice mindful discomfort. Journal about emotions you've been avoiding, places where you mistake busyness for regulation, and how you might create space this week to feel instead of flee.
Because here's the truth: you can't heal what you won't face. Join us in breathing, pausing, feeling, and finally stopping the pretense that we're fine when we're not.
www.in8code.com
Welcome to an edition of GW Unspoken where we discuss stuff we don't typically talk about but probably should. And we're here with Season 10, episode 7. We have two episodes left to go with mindfulness and how you're traveling out there. Are you giving it a go? Are you struggling to even attempt it and say, gary, I'm still too busy or I don't like that stuff? All right. Well, today we're going to talk about that exact thing. We're going to talk about avoidance, specifically how mindfulness exposes everything you've been avoiding and why that's a good thing, because here's the truth you can't fix what you won't feel, and mindfulness isn't always calm, gentle or soothing. Sometimes it's confronting, sometimes it actually cracks you open, and sometimes that's exactly what you and I need, because let's call it for what it is.
Speaker 1:Here's the problem we're not too busy to slow down. We're often too afraid of what will show up if we do slow down, and mindfulness does it. It actually makes us stop. And when we stop, guess what rushes in? Maybe the grief you haven't processed? Maybe the anxiety you've numbed with scrolling, the burnout you've masked as motivation. We've built entire lives around numbing, avoiding and pushing forward, because feeling feels like weakness, especially in a culture that celebrates and hustles and labels and instills in us laziness. So we know that. We know that if we look busy, we must be important. So we don't have time for mindfulness, right. But you know we talk about neuroscience. Here's what the science actually says the brain is hardwired for comfort and protection. It will steer you away from things that are negative. It will look to things that will actually save your brain time and energy. All right, so it's hardwired for that comfort and protection.
Speaker 1:When, when the emotional discomfort shows up, your amygdala fires off alarm bells, triggering that fight, flight, freeze or foreign response. So naturally we look for escape routes. We look for it. We look for escape routes. We look for Instagram, netflix, maybe a bottle of wine, work, online shopping, maybe another coffee, or here's one we've all done no, no, I'm fine. You know you've used it before, haven't you? The I'm fine mask. But here's what mindfulness actually does differently it actually activates the prefrontal cortex, that's the rational part of your brain that actually helps regulate emotion. It down-regulates the amygdala right, so it actually can help you calm. So even naming it, even naming what you're feeling, can lower the intensity of it. So that's why mindfulness isn't about feeling good, it's about feeling honesty. When was the last time you actually said, hey, I'm actually fine, but I'm just naming that emotion that you actually felt? Here's another thing that mindfulness doesn't tell you, or no one tells you about mindfulness.
Speaker 1:Stillness can be more terrifying than chaos. When everything finally goes quiet and you're left with yourself. What happens, you know, if you've spent years running from unresolved emotions, unprocessed trauma or your own unmet needs, stillness can feel like a threat. But here's the paradox the moment you stop resisting the feeling is the moment it begins to actually soften. Pain intensifies in avoidance. It loses power in presence. Mindfulness can actually give you the space to say I don't love this, but I can actually sit with it, and that that's when your inner healing actually starts. But you know, let me be real with you guys my avoidance is sneaky. It wears the costume of getting stuff done. I love being busy. So how many times have I gone and maybe done another lot of folding or made another cup of coffee, or I just got to answer these 43 emails when actually I probably just need to cry about what was going on?
Speaker 1:Avoidance often looks like achievement, but it actually feels like disconnection and that's one of the worst things we can feel. You know what mindfulness does. Actually, it's a nudge that says, hey, what are you actually running from right now? So how do I, or how do we, let mindfulness meet our avoidance without being overwhelmed? Well, here's a few ideas.
Speaker 1:Number one I talked about it before name the feeling without fixing it, just say, hey, I'm noticing sadness, or I feel tight in my chest or I don't know what this is, but it's here. That presence is sometimes just enough for the amygdala to calm down and that prefrontal cortex to engage and say you know, this is actually the honesty thing, how I'm feeling. How about? Number two Allow discomfort to pass through and not build up. So emotions actually do have a lifespan. You know, research says that if we fully feel, them most pass in about 90 seconds. So, rather than do what I was saying before and doing those strategies or those behaviors of avoidance, don't do that.
Speaker 1:Avoidance doesn't shorten the storm, it actually stretches it out because deep down in your own inner feelings, you know what you're putting off. You're just feeling better because you think at the time, if I'm busy, it'll go away. And number three how about this? Practice mindful discomfort. So, instead of soothing right away, pause, breathe, watch what happens. You're not broken. You just begin to feel again, you know, and it's probably good for your relationships around you as well. So look, there's a few hard-hitting things there, some some suggestions, some ideas. But you know, here's some three general prompts again.
Speaker 1:Whatever gets measured and gets improved, it's easy not to write things down. We know, based on facts. I actually don't know how this happens. I'm not sure there's people out there who does know how this happens. But when you write things down like goals, suggestions, journal entries, things actually do start happening.
Speaker 1:So here's some of the journal prompts today. Here's three. Number one write down this. What's one emotion you've been avoiding? You know what are you afraid will happen if you feel it fully. What's going to happen, you know. Write down. Number two where am I mistaking? Busyness for regulation or productivity for peace? All right, write that down. And third, more of an action of how to maybe improve this is how could you create space this week to feel, instead of fix or flee? All right, how could you create that space? Right, because here's the truth. Legends, here it. It is. Mindfulness is not about feeling good, right, it's about feeling true. It's uncomfortable, it's raw, it's real. It's also where growth begins because you can't heal what you won't allow yourself to face. So I'm Gary. This is GW Unspoken, the podcast where we breathe, pause, feel and stop pretending that we're fine. I'll catch you next week for our last episode.