When we avoid certain emotions, we unconsciously build our entire lives around that avoidance — creating massive blind spots. Joe gives the example of high-powered executives who built careers around feeling valued, then can’t start their own ventures because they don’t know who will provide that feeling of value.
The avoidance extends to conversations, people, and business opportunities. If you can’t feel failure, you avoid risks. If you can’t feel rejection, you avoid intimacy. If you can’t feel helplessness, you try to control everything. Each avoided emotion narrows your life’s bandwidth.
“Look at any part of your life that hurts, and then notice that there’s emotional stagnation there.”
Additionally, emotional avoidance creates identity traps. When you can’t move an emotion through, you identify with it: “I’m an angry person” or “I’m a dick.” The emotion becomes who you are rather than something passing through you — which further limits your possibilities.
Related Concepts
- Emotional fluidity is feeling all emotions without resistance
- Fear limits optionality
- Identity creates rigidity and limitation
- Bad decisions come from fear of emotional consequences
- Resisting an emotion creates the very outcome you fear
- Facing the feeling you’re avoiding is how empowerment comes
- Willingness to feel any emotion is the key to clear decision-making
- Fear of consequences is really fear of emotional states