What Avoiding Your Voice Looks Like
A guide to naming and dismantling your patterns
Let me tell you what avoidance actually looks like, because it's not always lying on the couch binge-watching Netflix, or taking a bath or a nap when you should be writing. Sometimes it looks like going on yet another plant medicine retreat, trying another new modality training, or spending months setting up a new website but never actually getting clients from it. It looks like endlessly processing your trauma without ever producing your truth. It looks like wasting time journaling, reflecting, gathering, and “healing” ad infinitum without ever just sitting the fu*k down and doing the work to create something.
Avoidance wears many spiritual disguises. And it drives me wild when I see people succumb to it—not because I don’t understand it, but because I do.
I have so much grace for the early phase, when your nervous system is catching up, when you’re still building the inner scaffolding and it’s truly not time yet.
But there’s a point when “not yet” becomes “never”, and you’re not actually waiting anymore—you’re avoiding. And instead of naming it what it is, you lie to yourself and call it caution, or self-care, or alignment.
Every day you avoid your voice, you reinforce a life that doesn’t include your whole truth.
Let this sink in. Every single day that you don’t sit down and pay attention to what wants to come through you, you are continuing to build a life that sidelines and silences your voice. You are upholding the conditions that keep you half-quiet.
And if you think you’re just “not ready”, then let me ask you this: Who would you be if you gave your full attention to your voice every day? What would become undeniable? What parts of your life wouldn’t survive?
This is why I avoided my own voice for so long: it was dangerous to the version of my life I was building. It threatened the whole status quo of my existence. And that was terrifying.
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5 Common Avoidance Patterns That Look Innocent But Aren’t
1. The “No Time or Money” Lie.
You say you can’t afford the tools or work to find your voice, but then you go and drop $300 at a store because you’re feeling “meh” and need a pick-me-up. It’s not that you don’t have time or money. It’s that you’re spending both avoiding what actually matters.
2. Procrastination Dressed Up as Intuition.
“It’s not the right time,” you tell yourself, convinced you’re listening to some inner voice that knows what’s best for you, even if you can’t explain why. And yes, sometimes that voice rings true. But more often, it’s just fear wearing a silk robe and calling itself ‘divine timing’, so you never have to take the leap and begin.
3. Healing as a Hobby.
You keep circling your wounds, doing another training or attending another medicine retreat while convinced that expression will after the healing is done. But not only is the healing never fully done, it is also not the goal. Living is the goal. And life doesn’t stay on pause indefinitely, no matter what you’re doing in the meantime.
4. Perpetual Preparation.
You’re endlessly reading, studying, reworking your brand, and taking courses to “get ready” for the real jump. But by always preparing, you’re really just avoiding the one thing you cannot outsource: standing behind your voice and letting it be seen.
5. The Stalled Platform.
You made a website. You started an Instagram. But you haven’t posted in months and your About page reads like a placeholder. You say you’re in the building phase, but you fail to realize that “building” without voice is just creating empty decor.
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Journal Prompts:
Take your avoidance out of the shadows and begin dismantling it.
What am I spending my time and money on that is more important than my voice?
What am I afraid will happen if I let the work actually come through?
What does avoidance allow me to keep pretending is true?
What would shift in my life if I stopped avoiding and started answering the call?
Ritual: Sit Down, Shut the F*ck Up, And Make Yourself a Vessel
Try this practice every morning for the next 7 days:
Sit down.
Light a candle.
Set a timer for 15 minutes.
Write down the words: “What wants to come through me today?”
And then—listen. Write. Speak. Let it move.
This is not a productivity hack. This is a vow to yourself. So do it no matter what. Do it whether it feels profound or pathetic. Do it whether it flows or stutters. Do it even if you think you’re getting nothing out of it.
Committing to the work, even when it feels stupid or scary, is the only way to finally get out of avoidance, and into real expression.