You Can Run, but You Can’t Hide

I am sure that most of us have been in a situation where we were unhappy with life. Maybe we didn’t like our jobs, were stuck in a relationship that we didn’t see going anywhere, or possibly we didn’t like our social circle because we felt as if we didn’t belong.

For those of you that were in situations like these, how did it make you feel? What was your first instinct telling you how to handle the situation?

Natural Response

One of the reactions when faced when a tough situation in life is to flee. It goes back to the fight-or-flight response in Psychology. As we experience hardship, we either tend to stay and fight, or our adrenaline starts to rush, and we flee to escape the perceived threat.

We want to flee to avoid having to feel negative emotions, we flee as a way of avoiding experiences, even avoiding ourselves.

Question for You

Think of a time when you felt so upset and discouraged that you wanted to get up right then and there and leave. You wanted to pack up your office because you couldn’t stand your job anymore, you wanted to run away and hide from your significant other because you felt that you two grew apart instead of together. Think of a time when you felt like an outsider, that even with friends around, you still felt alone in this world. Did you flee?

Many of you did and that is a normal response. Even though it’s normal, it may not be the best way to approach these situations because instead of facing the issue and growing from it, we chose to run away. It felt right at the time, maybe even taking off some of the anxiety, but what ended up happening?

Noticeable Patterns

After we ran from the situation, we felt much better, but as time goes on, the past usually comes back to haunt us.

The key is to look at the issue at hand and see where you can learn from it. If there is some sort of inner conflict, then these types of situations that make us want to flee can give us great insight into what we can improve on.

Communication

Much of life and life’s problems revolve around communication or lack thereof. Sometimes we may feel as though we do not have the strength, or even the skills to solve what is happening to us, so we just decide to flee to make our problems instantly disappear.

I have learned this the hard way, the problems seem to have magically disappeared until, weeks, months, or years later they resurface again because they were not addressed the first time.

Try This

Those situations that make you feel like you would just rather run away than deal with it can be our greatest teachers. Try to live more authentically and see how you can fix your life circumstances. Work within yourself to discover that you have the strength and power to face any issue head-on.

I want to make an important note that in certain situations, we absolutely must flee. Those situations include those that affect our safety etc.

The Takeaway

Life tends to find us, we can move to a different state, change jobs, or even hunt for that “perfect” someone, but what we have not corrected from our past will eventually show up in our future. We may flee, but life follows. We are still the same person inside.

I believe that life is one big test and that we are here to learn many lessons. The lessons will keep repeating themselves over and over until we have learned how to master them. Pay attention to the things that make you want to run and hide, address them so that you have power over them!