Hello I m Darren Magee and today s question isn t so much a direct question that s been asked on
my channel, but it is a recurring theme on some of the questions and some of the comments that
come up in the videos that I make. It's also a recurring thing that comes up in the therapy
room and if I'm going to be honest it comes up in my own personal therapy as well, and that is,
whenever we are faced with something difficult, something painful the question, we tend to ask is,
How do I best avoid this? What gets me out of this? How do I avoid the pain? How do I avoid
the fear? What is the easiest option? How do I do what I have to do without the cost? Without the,
what could be potentially painful consequences? So just to remind you, this video is not a substitute
for support from a mental health professional. But I do hope it encourages someone to maybe seek out
help to deal with some of those fears. Those fears that hold us back from being the best version of
ourselves from doing the things that are in our own best interest. Now there are times when we
are faced with things that really aren't in our own best interest. They may be painful, difficult,
dangerous even. They may cost us far too much. There may be situations that you know are going
to cause a lot of pain and trouble. There may be people either that you know are toxic. Now
if possible, and we can, maybe it is best to steer well clear of those situations. In those people,
people who don't want the best for you, want to keep you in a state of strain and distress. Who
don't want you to meet your full potential, and will do what they can to sabotage you. There can
be a fear over, perhaps how they would react if you were to leave them behind, or if you would
call them out. So yes, there are, some times when the best course of action is avoidance.
However, there are other times, do you ever notice we tend to put off things hoping they're
going to change, hoping they're going to get better, hope it ll just get better by itself?
Do you ever notice, for example, there's no such thing as a good time for a difficult conversation?
It s sort of thing we put off continually. We maybe don't stand up for ourselves to that bully
at work in case it gets worse. We don't just call out or cut off that parent, that sibling,
or that partner, that's, that's sucking all the joy and happiness out of our lives.
We don't remove ourselves from a depressive or an anxiety inducing situation because we just
feel too uncertain. Well during the lockdown I d been watching probably far too many documentaries.
One of the documentaries I watched was yet another one about the Titanic. And as I was
watching something struck me, okay? Just something just came to me. Now
you probably guessed from my accent that I come from the city where the Titanic was built,
so we do have a fascination and a sense of pride around Titanic. But as I was watching this,
what I was thinking was when this ship was built they claimed it was unsinkable. Now history has
shown that it wasn't. A more accurate description would have been that it was designed to be very
difficult to sink, okay? So bear that in mind as I m telling you this. What you had
was this very large ship going very fast in the dead of night. Now of nowhere, right in front
of them they see this iceberg, and the first thing they did, probably the sensible thing,
they kicked the engines into reverse, and then they turned their rudder to try to miss it. Now
this is a really big ship with a small rudder, so it can't actually turn like a speed boat. Instead,
it started to drift, it couldn't slow down in time and it started to drift as it was turning and it
ended up hitting the iceberg. But it didn't just hit the iceberg and punch hole in it. The iceberg
actually tore a series of holes along with the hull below the waterline. So what happened was,
the ship is designed with compartments. Okay, so the front compartment flooded,
so did the second one and so did the third. The weight of that pulled it down, which meant the
fourth one flooded. Which pulled it down even further, which meant the fifth one flooded.
And on and on it went and the rest is history. Now according to the people in his documentary,
had they just done with the ship was designed to do, it was designed to survive collisions,
if they had put the engines, engines into reverse, yes it would have slowed down a bit,
lessen the impact. But the front of the ship would have hit the iceberg and the front of the ship
would have been mangled. Now the consequences of that would have been, you would have had a company
that would have lost millions in shares. You would have had a company that was going to be sued by
pretty much anybody who could spell Titanic. You would have had senior members of the crew severely
disciplined, severely chastised, and probably never allowed to work in those kind of positions
ever again. You would have had fifteen hundred passengers being put to the inconvenience of being
put onto other ships and taken on to New York. The Titanic itself would have been towed back,
probably to Belfast to be repaired, but it would have sailed again. The consequences of it hitting
the iceberg would have been awful, but everybody would have lived. And what came to me as I was
watching this and as I was listening to this was, how many times have we tried to avoid something?
And the more we tried to avoid it, the very things that were doing to avoid it are the very things
that make it worse. The very things that keep it going or, do you know what? The very things
that sink us. Hitting the iceberg would have been painful, it would have been difficult. It
would have been catastrophic, but not as bad as sinking, and everybody would have lived. Hitting
that iceberg sometimes means having to have that difficult conversation. Sometimes it means having
to cut out those difficult people from our lives. Sometimes it means having to aim a little higher.
It may be in our best interest to leave people who are continually wanting us to fail. We may
have to leave that job that's asking far too much and not giving a lot back. We may have to stop
giving to something or someone that's just taking, demanding more and more and reciprocating nothing.
The thought of confronting that difficult person, the thought of starting something new,
the thought of asserting ourselves, making any kind of change can be difficult. It can
be painful. We, we may lose someone, we may lose some people, we may lose their regard. We may even
sound selfish. We may have to go through an awful time, and I think a lot of times that's what it is
we're trying to avoid. We fear losing the money. We fear losing the security. We fear losing a
lot of different things. We may even remember a time when perhaps we did try to do something in
our own best interest, or we did try to assert ourselves and it didn't go so well, so we don't
want it to be as bad as last time. I often think that, again, that's what we're trying to avoid.
It's not going to be as painful as last time, but again, how many times has it actually got
worse? Or just avoiding it has kept it going. Now to paraphrase my favourite Time Lord,
Sometimes the only choices we have are difficult ones, but sometimes that is better than no choice
at all. Now, if you see that iceberg far enough away and you can avoid it, so much the better.
But there are other times we just have to choose the least worst option. Now as painful and as
difficult as it can be sometimes the option we need to choose is the one that we're going to
thank ourselves for later on. Now I am no fan of that old expression. What doesn't kill us makes us
stronger , but I do think it can make us a little braver. It can make us a little more courageous.
It can help us to develop a resilience to things like failing and give us the courage to maybe try
different things and that alone can sometimes help us get that little bit closer to where we need to
be, where we would like to be, where we want to be. Now I'm not suggesting for one second that
you just go ahead and do something reckless or rash, but maybe little pieces at a time. You know,
build up your courage to build up your willingness to try spend time with those
who do have your best interests at heart, who do want you to succeed and will support you.
Talking to a therapist can help you to understand your fears and help you to explore alternatives
and become a little more assertive. Talking to a life coach can help you to develop and draw
on your resources, your skill set and your support network. I know this isn't my normal kind of topic
of video for this channel, but I do hope there's been something here for you to think about.
If you find this helpful, please consider subscribing to my channel for future updates
or mental health related topics. And until next time thanks for watching.