Beyond Anxiety Avoidance and Wishful Thinking

How to shrink your fears by finding out what they really are.

Posted May 26, 2026 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

Long ago, I worked with a youngster dreading a class camping trip. When I asked if she had a plan, she said confidently, “Yes, I do.” Surprised, I asked her to share it. “I hope it rains and the trip is cancelled.”

We might think— Ah, kids! But substitute in our own fears: that meeting you’re nervous about, the question you don’t want your client to ask, the flight you really don’t want to take, the medical procedure you have put off… and put off again—we understand exactly that teen ’s game plan. It’s ours too. We are fingers-crossed hoping against hope to be airlifted out of our discomfort. The emotional pin we drop essentially says: “Don’t!” and we think: “I can’t!”

And that “I can’t” describes our relationship with anxiety more broadly: We don’t want to be in one. No, thank you. We wish we could block it or ghost it, but there it is.

Understandably, we don’t want to feel trapped in a discomfort corner. So we become proactive—or pre-emptive—and avoid things where anxiety might happen just in case . Before we know it, we’re living our life based on “just in case” scenario thinking. We lose out on experiences or suffer through them with white knuckles; either way, this avoidance leads to distress.

The “I Can’t” Is Just Our Starting Point

When something new or uncertain or stressful looms, like that teen, we do an about-face and avoid. But there is another way through that “just in case” avoidance walk through life that anxiety pushes us toward.

Instead of seeing anxiety as the ultimate authority, we can understand anxiety as a first responder to an emergency that isn’t likely to happen. That “I can’t” pin dropped on our emotional map marks what we don’t know yet. Instead of pivoting the other way, it’s about going toward the unknown to see what’s actually there. This intentional move toward the discomfort is the essence of what I call “emotional navigation." It’s learning the empowering skill of how to read your inner map rather than wishing it were different.

We don’t do this naturally because our anxious reaction is, by design, so compelling. We don’t think “test” our anxiety; we think “trust” above all. Here’s why…

The Modern Limitations of Anxiety, the Ancient Alarm We Never Need to Set

Anxiety has the best intentions—not to make us feel bad, but to ensure we survive. The problem is, it has no scale. We were built in times when threats were life-threatening, so our nervous system operates on a simple, primal rule. The rule isn’t “Hark, who goes there?” It’s hark—fight, flight, freeze! Any doubt is a danger, any uncertainty is a threat.

What’s the Opposite of Avoid? Approach in Your Imagination, First

Our modern job isn’t to obey the alarm, but to separate ourselves from it. Our anxiety reports to us . And now, when our threats do not lurk in the bushes on four legs, we can then evaluate whether the “What if?"s are true and likely, or if there are some “What else?”s that make more sense.

When there’s something that is going to be hard, rather than unpacking the fear and addressing it, we are like the teen—I hope the meeting is cancelled. That reaction reinforces that the whole thing will be too hard for us or that we won’t be able to handle it. But if we went toward it—it isn’t a tiger. It wouldn’t bite.

Going From Hoping to Knowing

Rather than just hoping that anxiety symptoms don’t start up (understandable but not helpful), we can be prepared, not scared. When we don’t dread the dread, our anxiety level drops and… and the world opens up with possibilities, not just dangers.

What do we need to feel prepared?

Aaron Beck —the father of cognitive therapy —provides a crucial insight. His anxiety formula explains our paralysis and gives us a roadmap to reverse it.

Anxiety = Overestimating of risk + Underestimating our ability to cope.

Our work is to correct both sides of the equation:

Unpacking the Fear: How Fact-Checking Sets You Free

Right-sizing the risk means unpacking the fear. We see this most clearly with kids—the child says, “I am not going!” The parents: “It’s going to be OK; you can go,” or… occasionally “That’s it; you’re going!”

But what if we zoomed in? What is the child picturing that is making it so scary? “What are the scariest parts? What do you think is most likely, not most scary? Can we give the fears a "true/false" test? What would we tell a friend about those fears, and what would a friend tell us?”

These are the questions we can ask ourselves. Fear speaks first—that’s our wiring. But we are in a relationship with our fear. We can put ourselves in the picture and decide what we think of the information it is telling us.

Often, through fact-checking, we find that our fears aren’t founded. Sometimes we find helpful solutions—we can rehearse the presentation, research the very thing that we are afraid our client will ask, ask a friend to come to the medical test with us, etc. Our problems are manageable when we pause to see them clearly.

When Anxiety Takes Over the Wheel: A Starter Kit to Get Back in the Driver’s Seat

Because anxiety doesn’t just command our thoughts, it overtakes the body, the first step is a simple physical reset: Pause. Breathe in. Sigh the breath out, extending your exhale. Do it until your shoulders drop. Now, you're back in your “right mind” and can think.

Put Yourself in the Picture. Ask Questions to Find Your "What else?"s:

Gather your intel: How can I get more information about this?

Prepare: What’s one thing I could do to be more prepared?

Take a step: What’s a small step I could take to learn more or practice?

From Fingers Crossed to Open Eyes

Emotional navigation means moving away from the fingers-crossed wish for things to be easier and toward unpacking the heart of the matter. Asking ourselves: What are the fears? What are our beliefs about ourselves and those fears? Are there other ideas or outcomes we believe more? When we navigate toward the feeling, we are really navigating toward greater self-understanding. We take back the wheel from our emotions, not just hoping, but knowing what we need. Maybe we even enjoy that proverbial camping trip rather than hoping it rains. But certainly, we step out prepared, not scared for the experiences we face in our lives.

Is there a fear you want to unpack and get to know better? Is there a step you want to take? Here’s to less worry all around.

Clark, D.A., & Beck, A.T. (2010). Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders: Science and Practice. Guilford Press.

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.