Avoidance is a trauma response

So sometimes I have a hard time making myself do things. Sometimes it’s because there are Too Many Things and I am tired. Sometimes it’s because I am sick. Sometimes it’s because, for example, the task of shoveling email is positively Sysiphean. (And here I am, contributing to that problem for you. Well, I guess you signed up for it!)

But sometimes it’s hard to make myself do things because I am avoiding them. And we avoid things for very good evolutionary reasons: we avoid them because they hurt, or because they have hurt us in the past.