How Avoidance Can Be a Winning Strategy
By Meredith Vaish, Pause Box Creator and CEO

Oh how maligned the term avoidance.

Oh, the haters. 

But what if avoidance was a winning strategy?

What if avoiding fixing a problem was the best way toward solving it?

Stay with me.

First, let’s define our terms. Avoidance is “the action of keeping away from or not doing something.” For the sake of this discussion, I’m not talking about avoiding your emotions, feelings, or commitments. I’m using avoidance in the context of over-thinkers who endlessly ruminate over an unsolved problem requiring endless charges up the hill –usually with little to show for it, and at pretty big costs.

To people like us, problem-solving is seen as heroic and avoidance is seen as lazy, unproductive–even irresponsible or weak.  But what if we flipped it?

What if deliberate avoidance was the best, highest use of your time and a powerful way toward a solution? That’s been my experience. Over again, I’ve seen the pattern. Taking a break from solution-ing is the most powerful tool we have to create breakthrough.

This is why I’m so committed to the power of intentional pause as a tool for clarity, inner guidance, and inspired action.

Think about it. Avoidance is a natural reaction to things feeling stuck, hard and grind-y. It’s a signal that enormous effort is likely required to move the boulder just an inch up the proverbial hill.  So why do we judge ourselves for avoiding it when it’s quite legitimate to do so? Why not conserve our energy and put it somewhere more powerful and playful? 

Yes, we can force it.

And we do.

But instead of “powering through,” what if we allowed it to be stuck? What if we removed the need to solve it? Fix it? Make it happen?

What then?

What if we just left the problem where it is and intentionally changed the subject? This has happened to me several times since starting my business. I started analyzing a problem or decision. I started the mental spin of pros and cons, shoulds and coulds, with no one solution getting traction.

Nothing clicking. 

Then, after noticing that my mind had become obsessed with the fixing of it, and it covered no new ground, and it took up a lot of mental and emotional resources, I had a choice to make.

I could continue to rev, or I could release it. 

I’ve done this deliberately now on some pretty high-stakes decisions and I’m rewarded with powerful insight every time.

Backing off the solution-ing and using that time instead to engage in activities I love–learning new subjects, taking walks, listening to interviews of inspiring people–is the way I move forward.

Paradoxically, when I’m avoiding fixing a problem, I’m more productive at solving it. It’s in this pause when the aha always comes. I’m most productive when I’m actively avoiding the old tired path and stepping into new fertile territory: new ideas, vistas, possibilities.

From this new space, insight is born. Then I’m able to move forward on that old “problem” with new and fresh ideas. Or I realize that the old problem isn’t worth solving, it was the wrong question. 

This week, play with the idea of avoidance as a winning strategy. See what happens when you back off from fixing. Notice what it feels like to honor the urge to avoid something that’s stuck and intentionally, deliberately change the subject.

Fill the time you normally use to fret, worry, and puzzle over with activities that are fun, inspiring, and restful. And then listen for the breakthrough. 

Three avoidance activities that really paid off for me recently were: Marie Kondo-ing two kitchen drawers, total daydreaming while on a hike, and reading a random chapter from a book on intuition.

All of these helped bust me through a funk I had around a planning decision.

Now your turn.

And drop me a note letting me know how it goes. Extra credit points if you can do it with a sense of trust that the solution is on its way.

Love,
Meredith

P.S. If you’re interested in hearing more about the power of taking a break (and how a forced pause turned out to be the best thing that happened to me), listen to this interview (Darla’s podcast).

Meredith Vaish

Clarity Catalyst, Ritualist, and Movement Maker

Hi, I’m Meredith Vaish, Creator of Pause Box. I believe one of the most powerful ways to get clear and move forward is to take a break. I’m on a mission to help creators, do-ers, and improvers break free from today’s always-on culture. I offer retreats and programs to encourage women to reconnect to their power through intentional pause so they can create the life they love. I speak on the topics of clarity and intention and recently launched my system of daily ritual called Pause Box Alter Cards.

CONNECT THE DOTS, INTUITIVELY

Are you ready to design your next chapter but you’re not sure which path to take? Are you stuck overthinking or rethinking? In our private Rip & Reveal session, I’ll show you how to call on your intuition to get the input you need to start taking inspired action. Consider it a (gentle) shove in the right direction from your inner guide.

WANT TO RETREAT WITH DARLA IN HER HOME AND UNLOCK YOUR NEXT LEVEL TRANSFORMATIONAL BUSINESS?

SHE HAS ONE MORE OPENING IN 2020. CLICK HERE TO APPLY.

What is a Sourced Leader? 

By Dr. Laura Monk

This month I wanted to tell my newsletter readers about the retreat leader certification that I recently received from Darla, and how proud I felt to be featured as Sourced Leader this month. I knew this would be a new concept for many of my readers, who are not necessarily switched on to Source, so I started with what it meant to be a Sourced Leader and I’d like to share that here.

For me, it means that my leadership is influenced by something much bigger than my ego or mind.

When I lead retreats, I am leading with my heart, my gut, my intuition, my inner knowing and, at the same time, all of this body and soul wisdom is sourced from my connection to the Universe, to Nature, to Life – to everything that connects us all.

To be a Sourced Leader is to hold space for transformation, which is so much more than passing on knowledge or teaching skills, theories and models. It’s about being able to create a collaborative container of support that is co-active and where co-creation can happen. It’s about helping to shift energy, attitudes and perspectives, to nurture change, and support integration of new ways of being. It’s about understanding the processes involved in transformation and providing support with those – often incredibly messy and challenging processes – that are necessarily involved when changing, growing, becoming and being different in the world – especially being elevated through evolution and transformation.

For me, becoming a Sourced Leader has come via a very challenging and emotional transformation – I know the mess and pain of it, intimately.

This experience helps me hold space for others on their own transformational paths – no matter where they want to go.

Whether it’s breaking out from a secure job to fulfil their heart’s desire in another field – or whether it’s engaging with their sexuality, when it terrifies them.

For those of you who’ve noticed me in my own creative process since leaving Nottingham University, you may also have seen a lot of mess – as I have gone this way and that.

Announcing stuff to the world and retreating – making bad videos (before I had my wonderful assistant, Suey!).

I knew that people would be thinking, OMG! What the hell is she doing now!! (Or not… haha  my ego…).

Even though I was aware of these thoughts, I went ahead anyway – the mess didn’t matter to me and I knew that I couldn’t stop to think about this stuff too deeply. If I had been too cautious, I might have stopped and backed out. I know the mess of transformation and that it’s often not pretty. I was in chaos for a long time, but after the darkness came light. 

I am so happy that I went through that very difficult place of unknowing, because I have to say it that it turned out to be just right decision for me – a 100%. I knew that I was on a higher path and I just had to stay on it. I have a vision – and thanks to Darla, her Lead Coach, Julie Flippin and the Collective – I am seeing that vision becoming true. I always felt like I wasn’t ready to be on Darla’s high-level programme as everyone else seemed to be much more evolved than me. But Julie kept on telling me that Divine timing means that everything happens at the right time – to just trust that it was right for me. I don’t really know what it was that made me sign up – apart from Julie’s amazing energy that filled me up with positivity every time we met! Sourced Energy, perhaps?! I hadn’t even met Darla at that point… I do know that if we let go and let Sourced Energy guide us, miracles can happen! Being endorsed by Darla means a lot to me – because of what I went through to achieve my retreat leader certification, and for who I am becoming in the world. And, I have so much gratitude for my year with Darla and The Collective of amazing women who I am privileged to have journeyed with so far. 

I wish you so much love on your journey: trust in your intuition, always.

Blessings, Laura

About Laura Monk

Laura Monk, PhD, is a psychotherapist and transformation coach combining modern trauma-informed and ancient/spiritual Tantric approaches to sex, love and relationship coaching. Laura describes herself as a recovering academic, who opted out of the UK University system at the point of burn out, but not before discovering Tantra and great sex in her fifties, which set her off on a mission to spread the love to others wanting an all-round more joyful and fun life. As a certified retreat leader, Laura runs transformational self-care retreats, both for practitioners and awakened women.

HAVE YOU STOPPED SEEING YOURSELF AS A SEXUAL/SENSUAL WOMAN?

Or perhaps you never did? Laura developed her Love-Sexy-Self-Care virtual retreats for women just like you. In Laura’s retreats, you’ll learn why creating sacred space for loving intimacy is important to your vitality. She guides you through life-changing Tantric practices involving meditation, breathwork and self-touch. You’ll gain clarity about your authentic sexual self and form an intention to reclaim this part of you!

CHECK OUT LAURA ON OUR SOURCED LEADERS PAGE HERE ⇒ https://sourcedexperience.com/sourced-leaders/

WANT TO RETREAT WITH DARLA IN HER HOME AND UNLOCK YOUR NEXT LEVEL TRANSFORMATIONAL BUSINESS?

She has one more opening in 2020. CLICK HERE TO APPLY.