Compassion For Ourselves When We Feel The Urge To Escape

We all have moments when we want to escape discomfort, whether through food, screens, alcohol, or distraction. In this guided session, we explore these urges with compassion rather than judgment. You are invited to notice how your body responds, connect with your breath, and reflect on the ways you soothe yourself. This practice supports nervous system regulation and helps you develop healthier, more compassionate ways of coping. By bringing awareness to the present moment, you can soften your relationship with escape and create space for resilience, self-understanding, and gentle transformation.

Transcript

The urge to escape.

In particular,

How we escape through doom scrolling,

Screens,

Food,

Daydreaming,

Alcohol,

Other drugs,

All the different ways that we escape.

We live in a culture that's very set up to escape.

And so I thought we could settle into this precious awareness of this moment and how so often we're not in this moment because we're caught up in something in our mind or there's something going on that we're uncomfortable with and we don't really feel like it's okay to stay with that.

Am I okay to be here right now?

And sometimes here right now is very difficult.

There might be physical pain,

Something's happened.

There's lots of things that could be going on.

Trauma is stored in our body.

So there might be sensations and energy stored in our body.

We might have some compulsive thinking going on.

Maybe our feelings were hurt.

There's so much that could be happening.

And then we might eat the cookie or watch the Netflix show or whatever it is that we're doing.

And then how can we be in good relationship with ourselves around that as well?

Start with looking around the room.

Notice that you're here in this moment.

Notice your location.

Notice your breath.

Notice your body.

When we're talking about escaping from our present moment,

It can be very helpful to come back into our body through our eyes,

Through touch.

Notice your feet,

Your seat.

Let's do a couple of cyclic sighing breaths.

Cyclic sighing is that deep double inhale through the nose and then purse your lips and breathe out like you're breathing out through a thin straw.

Inhaling.

And again.

Exhale through pursed lips.

Let your whole body soften as you breathe out.

And when we're looking at this urge to escape the present moment,

Notice where you're at with that right now.

Is it okay for you to stay here?

Is there something going on that's drawing your attention away?

Notice what comes up around,

I need to get out of here.

Do you feel that in your body?

Is it a sensation?

And what are some of the escape hatches that you sometimes use?

What's a common one or two?

It might be screens.

And sometimes when we get into a screen,

We start really getting compulsive about it.

So we might've gone in to check Instagram and then here we are down this trail of scary stuff.

And we have emotions about that.

We have sensations in our body about that.

And yet somehow there's something very compelling about this.

It's hard to back away at times.

Or we might have a ritual around escaping,

Ordering a pizza Friday night and watching a movie.

Even thinking about it,

I would start to notice my body relax.

What are your rituals around soothing yourself when you don't want to be in the present moment?

Do you feel that they are reasonable?

Do you feel like they're kind of out of control?

Are you judging yourself or shaming yourself?

It can be really helpful to look at our relationship with our distracting behaviors or the way we get out of here when we don't want to be here.

Some people work a lot and are usually approved of for that.

Some people drink a lot and that can be socially acceptable until it gets to a certain point and then it's not anymore.

Where are your lines there?

Are you being critical of yourself that you have a need to escape?

Is it the way you escape?

Is it how much,

How intensely that is?

Let's look at this whole arena here for a few minutes.

Let your body soften,

Be aware of your breath.

And what is one thing that you could maybe focus on?

Is it a standard that you're holding yourself to?

If we back up a little and look at why we have the urge to escape,

Some of it is because we live in a world that's difficult to be in,

Collectively and individually.

And our nervous system is built to help us cope with that.

We hold our breath,

Our body gets very tight.

We might move away from the danger if we can.

And there's also often this compelling need to figure it out.

If I could learn more about that,

I would be able to keep myself safe.

And then when we back up,

We look at that and go,

That's actually not really true when it comes to the world stage.

And that might be good in a way,

And yet we can get very easily entranced with what's going on that's scary or hard.

So how can we keep our balance there where we're informed and we're not so overwhelmed,

We're not compulsively going down a rabbit hole of doom scrolling on social media,

For instance.

How intense is that and how's that showing up for you?

And then what is your relationship with yourself around that?

So if you were to say,

I have a nervous system,

Generates a lot of the need to escape.

I live in very difficult circumstances right now.

I'm okay with not being 100% present here all the time.

I'm okay with softening the edges around that a little bit.

And does that feel true to you?

If not,

Could you give yourself a bit of room around that?

I understand the nervous system and I understand why I'm feeling this way.

Some of this comes from stored trauma,

From childhood trauma,

From earlier in our life.

Many of us have nervous systems that are very alarmed.

Until very recently,

Most of us didn't really know much about the nervous system and how to soothe,

How to build strength and resilience.

For me,

I noticed that I'm much stronger now.

I still might have that urge to do something,

But it's not as extreme as it used to be.

Way more often I can say,

I don't really need that.

I'm going to go for a walk instead.

I can build these things into my life that are strengthening.

So that's the case for many of us.

We're not in the same boat as we were five years ago or 20 years ago.

We're stronger now.

And we still react to our life and to our circumstances.

Let's take a few breaths again.

Notice if you were holding your breath.

You might use touch.

You might hold your own hands.

Give yourself a hug.

Softening your heart because you're in a difficult world and you're doing what you can to make it bearable.

And that might include some things that we're not 100% happy about.

And we might be inspired and we have been maybe for a long time to really work with this,

To move into healthier ways to cope,

To connect.

No matter what our circumstances,

We can always come into our own heart.

Right now,

I could put my hand on my heart and I could offer myself some understanding and some compassion.

I could breathe.

I could move.

I find this is an ongoing practice of bringing our awareness into,

Am I okay to be here right now?

Is there an urge to escape?

And sometimes that's relatively easily handled.

We can get up and shake vigorously for a few minutes.

Get outside and breathe in some air or go for a walk or call a friend or do something that's supportive and nurturing.

Other times we need to do something a little bit more supportive that will help us to get grounded again.

And sometimes we follow that urge and say,

You know,

Right now I've had a hard week.

I'm going to let myself kind of escape into a movie right now or whatever that might be.

We can minimize the damage.

I'm not going to do it all weekend or I'm not going to get drunk and do it or whatever that might be for us.

I'm going to do the best I can,

But also I'm not going to hold myself to some unreachable standard of never needing to escape the moment that I'm in.

Sometimes we just have to soften it a bit.

How does that sit right now?

And it would be interesting to touch back into that if you just make that a practice for a while.

How am I working with this?

And can I always come back to opening my heart,

Understanding myself,

Understanding the pattern and opening my heart?

Reviews

This was so great. Thank you Lynn. You are so calm, helpful and thoughtful in your talks.

This was exactly what I needed, this theme keeps coming up for me, and slowly i understand it internally….it’s painful to witness how long I’ve not been able to support myself this way, and the things I’ve done to compensate for it… thank you for your work and support

That was inspiring, thought provoking and very comforting. Thank you.