The (Not So) Great Escape
June 9, 2016

Escape. We all do it from time to time, in different degrees, and with varying consequences. Escape to Netflix for hours and days, escape to our smart phones, escape in too much wine or whiskey or maybe drugs. Escape to flirtations or affairs, to online poker, or real life poker, or shopping, junk food or just too much food, sleeping, sex, pornography. Some of us escape into our work, into video games, even into exercise. Most use a cocktail of the above.

The escape I am referring to has one purpose: to hide us from our suffering , to avoid the painful and uncomfortable emotions of loneliness, shame, fear, anger, boredom, powerlessness, and grief.

Escape on its own is not necessarily a bad thing. When life is overwhelming, it’s normal, and can even be healthy, to engage in activities that distract us from our emotions. This is particularly relevant for people who feel their emotions very deeply. The body needs time to calm down so we can engage with any given situation with a little wisdom. Also, sometimes to function in day-to-day life means we simply can’t open the box where we’ve stuffed our big bad feelings. To pay the bills and feed the kids we must adopt some form of compartmentalization and escape strategies. Yet escape is a slippery slope, and unresolved emotions have a way of surfacing in ugly ways.

The issue with escape is that it disconnects us from ourselves . It removes our actions from our inner truth, our highest self, and from who and what we want to be. And it often creeps in gradually, in increments, and takes us by surprise. Suddenly we notice the disconnect between our values and behavior. And it’s not pretty. Well, in fact it’s usually pretty shameful. And shame, my friends, only begets more shame, and more harmful behavior, and more escaping, and more mess. This is a dangerous way to live. Because although the consequence might be minor (no groceries and a messy house because you fell down the Netflix rabbit hole), they can also be grave (think broken families, lost employment, relationships and self-worth).

Therefore, we are called to face those things we avoid. More so, we are called to face ourselves. We are called to experience and process our pain. And it hurts, and it’s frightening, and it’s raw. Yet the alternative is worse.

Here are some thoughts on what this looks like:

  • Find a place where you know you are able to connect to yourself. For me, it’s a creek that’s near my home. For others, it might be the ocean, inside a Church or other place of worship, or perhaps a calm place inside your home.
  • Release judgments about yourself and your behavior. Stop the script of shame. Instead approach your feelings, thoughts and behaviors from a place of curiosity and exploration. What lead me to this place? Why am I making these decisions? What do I need to stop doing and what support do I need to make that reality?
  • To process our feelings means acknowledging the harm that was done to us, the harm we experienced, and/or the harm we have caused. Acknowledge and accept we cannot change the past. We cannot change many circumstances. We cannot change others. We must accept what has been and what is.
  • Identify the feelings in your body. Name them. What emotions are you holding onto? What feelings need to be felt? What pain needs to be released?
  • Cry. Ugly cry. Get mad. Yell into the abyss. Punch pillows. Repeat as needed.
  • Identify what makes life beautiful to you. What (even small) pleasure can you feel gratitude for?
  • Talk it out with your partner or a friend you trust. Bad feelings grow big in isolation and smaller when shared. Intimacy is balm for a broken heart.
  • Commit to a daily meditation or mindfulness practice to grow connection with self.
  • Identify the difference between escaping behavior and good fun. The difference: we don’t experience shame and disconnection if it’s good fun.
  • Take good care of yourself, whatever that looks like. Eat good food, go for walks, spend time in nature and with people who love you.

Please know that when facing big emotions, often we feel worse before better. All of those escape strategies have served to keep us safe and protected. With those removed, pain can feel overwhelming and hopeless. This is normal, and yet please seek support. Don’t go it alone!

My wish for you is that you feel grounded, calm, and connected to yourself and others. There is peace there.

Take good care,

Christina

*Disclaimer - If going through this process brings up suicidal thoughts or feelings, please contact a professional or tell someone who you trust so you can be cared for appropriately.

Expressions of Healing: Art Showcase

By Christina Henderson • June 4, 2025
Stay tuned: Fall 2024 Clients and community members will be invited to share their art- on what it means to be human, to suffer and to heal.
long wooden bridge pathway in a lush forest representing the feeling of wading through anxiety and depression

Anxiety and Depression Need to Be Heard

By Christina Henderson • June 4, 2025
I often struggle with the concept of clinical diagnosis, in particular the common ones in our culture: anxiety and depression. My issue is simple: we too often take normal and valid feelings, that are part of the human experience, then medicalize them as problematic. The response then is to “get rid of” rather than be curious about what these emotions are trying to communicate to us. I have my own experience with on-again, off-again depression. When it’s at its worst, I’d certainly meet clinical criteria: a sense of hopelessness, low mood and motivation, isolation, wanting to sleep a lot but finding it evasive, lack of enjoyment for anything I have loved. You know the drill. But when we start to untangle the why, really look deeply at the list of ingredients making up this soup of depression (or anxiety or other struggles), we begin to realize that these feelings, in fact, make perfect sense. And they are trying to communicate something to us that deserves a listen. Rather than banish the depression or ignore the anxiety, we need to dig a little deeper. And your unique blend of experiences, or your soup (if you will), will help you figure out what you need to do to take care of yourself better. In my case, depression is almost ALWAYS trying to tell me I’m burnt out. It is the only part of me that will put me to bed, remove all pressure for productivity or replying to messages or emails. It wants or needs nothing from me except rest. Clients I work with might notice their depression is driven by underlying shame, or by feeling lost or stuck in their life. They might be carrying grief from losses not yet named or processed. Anxiety too- the world is a scary place right now, and we are so overly exposed to global and local traumas. Perhaps you didn’t feel safe in childhood and that fear has been carried in your body in your adult life. Perhaps you really are in an unsafe situation and your fear is trying to communicate this lack of safety to you. What I am trying to say is… A diagnosis of depression or anxiety does nothing to improve our well-being on a deeper level. We must become detectives of our own suffering. Only then can we learn to move with more self-compassion and grace, to set boundaries when needed, to let go of what we cannot control, to figure out what specialists we may need to see, to rest when we need to, to grieve the losses of our lifetime, and to feel the fears of uncertainty that we all face, every single day. This is where counselling helps. This is what we do. We help you untangle the mess, learn your ingredients, heal what needs to be healed so you can do what you need to do to feel better. Or to simply be with yourself more kindly when it hurts. Sending love,  Christina
woman reads a book and drinks tea learning about surviving love and loss

To Be Human is to Survive Love and Loss.

By Christina Henderson • August 3, 2023
“To be human is to survive love and loss.” – Francis Weller
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