Avoid Avoiding!!!
When early humans lived in caves, avoidance was a key strategy for survival. Avoiding physical dangers – cliff edges, wild animals – kept us alive. Avoiding awkward or negative social situations kept us in the tribe – and more likely to survive. But in the complexity of modern life, this can easily extend into avoiding other activities and situations, for example tasks that we find difficult, or where we fear failure or embarrassment. Often this type of avoidance is based on unhelpful – and often inaccurate – assumptions about the likely outcome. So the best way to tackle avoidance, is to approach the situation – to avoid avoidance!
One way to avoid avoidance is to use the Wall of Awful technique.
We all have difficult emotions from time to time when we feel like we don’t do something well or people tell us that we don’t. These emotions turn into stronger feelings of shame, worry, loneliness, disappointment which we carry forward with us. Each one of these feelings is a brick in the wall we have to overcome every time we start a task. This is called the ‘Wall of Awful’, the emotional barrier that prevents us from starting tasks and doing activities that we need to. When you are trying to get things done it is important to recognise this wall of awful and to think about how to overcome it. You could:
- Stare at the wall – But this won’t get anything done or complete any tasks.
- Go around the wall – Try to ignore it, but this won’t help you because your emotions will still be there. Most people’s walls are just too big to go around.
- Try going through the wall – This will be tough, and exhausting.
- Climb the wall – This is a way to acknowledge how you feel when you are faced with this wall. It means that you are taking one step at a time to move forward and achieve a task. Importantly this means that it is hard and difficult on the way. But it means that you will get some tasks done.
Also see this YouTube video for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo08uS904Rg
DEVON ADULT AUTISM AND ADHD SERVICE 16
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