Meet the five year old you

Are you dealing with the messy thoughts in your head by pretending they don’t exist?  Perhaps you’re self-medicating with food, alcohol, exercise, work, drugs, sex, porn, your mobile phone or social media….

When we consider that humans are primarily driven by the desire to avoid pain and seek pleasure, it’s no surprise that so many people prefer to self-prescribe.  Afterall, I think most of us would prefer to avoid pain than seek pleasure.

Avoidance, in its essence, is the art of sidestepping discomfort.  It's the instinctual reflex to shield ourselves from pain, be it physical, emotional, or psychological.  At its surface, avoidance may seem like a pragmatic coping mechanism.

When avoidance goes unchecked, it can escalate into addiction—a compulsive reliance on substances or behaviours to escape reality.

The power of Dopamine

It’s important at this point to mention dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward.  Its influence extends far beyond momentary bliss, shaping our behaviours, motivations, and even the darker corners of addiction and avoidance.

At its core, the brain is wired for survival.  Avoidance behaviours, such as steering clear of danger or unpleasant stimuli, are deeply ingrained mechanisms designed to protect us from harm.  Surprisingly, dopamine plays a significant role in this process.

When we successfully avoid something unpleasant, whether it's a stressful situation or painful memories, our brains reward us with a surge of dopamine. This reinforcement strengthens the neural pathways associated with avoidance, making it more likely that we'll repeat the behaviour in the future.

For instance, imagine a person with social anxiety who avoids attending parties. Each time they skip a social gathering and experience relief, dopamine floods their brain, reinforcing the avoidance behaviour.  Over time, this can solidify into a pattern of avoidance, perpetuating the cycle of anxiety.

While avoidance behaviours are driven by the desire to escape unpleasantness, addiction operates on a different wavelength, hijacking the brain's reward system for its own purposes.  Here, dopamine becomes both the carrot and the stick, enticing individuals with the promise of pleasure while ensnaring them in a cycle of compulsive behaviour.

For example when individuals engage in activities that bring pleasure and excitement, such as having an affair, dopamine levels in the brain can increase.  The thrill of secrecy, the excitement of forbidden love, and the anticipation of meeting a lover can all trigger dopamine release, creating feelings of euphoria and intense pleasure.

Dopamine acts as a powerful reinforcement mechanism, strengthening the desire to continue the affair despite potential risks and consequences.  Over time the brain may become less sensitive to dopamine so the rush becomes less pleasurable as tolerance is built up leading individuals to seek out more opportunities for thrill-seeking behaviour.

In a world where dopamine can both drive avoidance behaviours and fuel addiction, finding balance is paramount.  Recognising the role of dopamine in shaping our behaviours empowers us to make conscious choices about how we engage with the world around us.

Meet your Inner Child

I cannot talk about avoidance and addiction without introducing the concept of your inner child.  I appreciate for many men over 40 the concept of an inner child may seem strange.  After all, society has encouraged men to embody traits of strength, resilience, and self-reliance, leaving little room for vulnerability or emotional expression.  Yet, beneath the facade of adulthood lies a reservoir of untapped emotions, memories, and experiences—the essence of your inner child.

This might be the moment where you say, ‘My childhood was ok.’  I’m not suggesting it wasn’t and I certainly believe that our parents always do the best they can with the emotional tools they have available at the time.  However you are considering this with your adult mind and logic.  As a child you were unable to do this because that part of your brain (The Pre-Frontal Cortex) was not fully developed.  Consequently the experiences you had as a child were more intense and powerful than you might envisage.

Your inner child seeks comfort, safety, and validation.  When these needs are unmet in childhood, you may unconsciously seek to fulfil them through addictive behaviours or avoidance strategies.  Addiction provides temporary relief from emotional pain, while avoidance allows you to distance yourself from uncomfortable feelings or situations.  However, these coping mechanisms only offer fleeting respite and can ultimately exacerbate the underlying issues.

Without conscious awareness and healing, childhood traumas and unmet needs can perpetuate patterns of behaviour throughout your life.  You may find yourself repeating the same destructive patterns, seeking validation or escape in ways that are harmful to yourself and others.  Your inner child continues to cry out for attention and healing, often through symptoms of avoidance and addiction.

Consequently the first step in healing is recognising your inner child and that they are present in your adult life.  By acknowledging and validating the pain and unmet needs of your inner child, you can begin to address the root causes of your behaviours. This process involves developing self-awareness, self-compassion, and nurturing the wounded aspects of yourself.  Whether that’s through therapy, coaching or self-reflection, you can learn healthier coping strategies and break free from the cycle of avoidance and addiction.

Taking care of you

It’s exhausting avoiding yourself all the time.  If you’d like to start taking care of you then the first step is cultivating self-awareness by learning how to spend time alone, to sit still and really listen and access those parts of you that you’d rather keep hidden. 

To shine a light into the darkness and heal the parts of you that have long been neglected.  This may require courage and vulnerability, as you peel back the layers that have shielded you from the world for so long.  It's a journey of self-discovery, of reawakening the parts of yourself that have long been dormant and embracing them with compassion and acceptance.

I appreciate this might be challenging and create some discomfort to start with as your unconscious mind screams ‘Stop!  This is not safe. This is not the standard operating procedure!’. 

If you’d like some support download my free guide to journaling for men here. It will give you ways and ideas to start reflecting as well as grounding exercises in case you feel overwhelmed by emotion.

I’m rooting for you.

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