Identifying With a Painful Situation

Avoidance is like covering a wound but never letting it heal. Identifying with painful situations is pouring our sense of self into them. A terrible tragic event becomes a terrible tragic event i am witnessing. Terrible injustice in the world becomes terrible injustice in my world. Turning to face a painful situation can be troubling, confusing, frustrating, overwhelming, exhausting,. among other things. We may feel cognitive dissonance when our actions are out of accord with what we believe to be true. It's fortunate that modern psychology has made a pretty good case against using avoidance as long term strategies.