17 Dec 2025 · 4 min
Brian Johnson explains Steven Hayes' concept of experiential avoidance: when you try to dodge uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, you actually narrow your life and cause long-term harm. Skipping parties or avoiding exercise to escape discomfort are examples. Hayes argues this is one of the worst psychological patterns we can fall into.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In the last couple ones, we've been exploring wisdom from Steven Hayes's workbook manual called get out of youf Mind and Into youo Life, in which he articulates the essence of acceptance and commitment therapy. I repeat, ACT is one of, if not the most scientifically studied therapies in the world. Over a thousand studies have proven it works. Now, today we're going to chat about one of the most powerful ideas from the book and one of the most often repeated themes of the book. Let's get to work. Hayes tells us, and I quote, language creates suffering in part because it leads to experiential avoidance. Experiential avoidance is the process of trying to avoid your own experiences, thoughts, feelings, memories, bodily sensations, behavioral predispositions, even when doing so causes long term behavioral difficulties. Like not going to a party because you're social phobic or not exercising because you feel too depressed to get out of bed. Of all the psychological processes known to science, experiential avoidance is one of the worst. End quote. Now, to be very clear, anytime I read a line like, of all the psychological processes known to science, this is one of the worst. I sit up a lot straighter, underline the passage with a lot more ink, and draw a lot more lines and asterisks around the passage As I fold the page over to make sure I feature the wisdom as a big idea in our notes. I would encourage you to consider, at least metaphorically, sitting up a little straighter right now as well. Experiential avoidance. It's how scientists describe avoiding things you know are best for you, but kind of sort of don't want to do, and I repeat, it is one of the worst things you can do. Period. Now, Steven walks us through how hard we all work to avoid feeling whatever pain we don't like. Then unfortunately, in the process of avoiding that short term pain, we make it worse over the long run. Eek. As he says, outside the body, the rule may indeed be if you don't like it, figure out how to get rid of it and then get rid of it. Inside the body, the rule appears to be very different. It's more like if you aren't willing to have it, you will. In practical terms, this means, for example, that if you aren't willing to feel anxiety as a feeling, you will feel far more anxiety. Plus you will begin to live a narrower and more constricted life. Now, the essence of the book is to accept the fact that you will experience psychological pain, then commit to doing what you need to do to create a life of meaning and purpose. In other words, as we discuss all the time, we want to approach our challenges rather than avoid them. Easier said than done of course, but helping us get really good at that is one of the number one things heroic is all about. We'll look at a couple practical ways Hayes tells us we can go about doing that in our next couple plus ones. For now, what's one thing you know you have been avoiding that you know you need to approach? Is now a good time to get on that awesome. Flip the switch. Chest up, chin down. Breathing in through our nose, down into our bellies as we bring a smile to our faces, remind ourselves that our infinite potential exists just outside of our comfort zone and saying bring it on. It's day one. We're all in. Let's go hero.
