Emerging from our avoidance holes, with therapist and writer Jeremy Mohler
"Meditation can make a huge difference. But men need to also be in groups together."
Something arises in me when I think about my avoidant tendencies as moving away from discomfort. An inner voice shames me and says I should be able to handle discomfort. But if I think of it as moving away from something that feels unsafe to my nervous system, it’s less shaming. I can have a little compassion toward myself, which is the root of healing. — Jeremy Mohler
Recently, we’ve been talking about what it’s like for caregivers to move through tough tending seasons — like the transition from school year to summer — and give themselves a break.
But what if you’re the sort of person who struggles to enter the fray in the first place? Who’d rather sneak into your office or bathroom and hide out, or scroll on your phone, than move closer to a challenging situation, or even to a person with whom you have a loving relationship?
Many of us have this tendency towards avoidance. This can be both a source of shame for the avoidant person, and a source of deep frustration for the people who depend on them.
In particular, avoidance can play a large role in driving conflict within families, where some members are stuck in hypervigilance, habitually doing more than their share, while other members may be stuck in overwhelm and avoidance, and struggling to self-regulate enough to show up.
When I think about this topic, I think about Jeremy Mohler, who writes the newsletter
. As the title suggests, Jeremy’s not above making political references or generating eye-catching headlines to reel in readers. At the same time, Jeremy often writes movingly in his newsletter about his struggles with shyness, avoidance, and a deep desire to withdraw from being seen–the same struggles shared by many of his readers.Jeremy recently agreed to dive more deeply into the topic of avoidance with me. In the interview below, we discuss:
How Jeremy’s healing his own avoidance within his current relationship
What avoidance actually is, and what this might have to do with the Buddhist concept of aversion
The mindfulness practices, texts and teachers that have guided him and his clients toward healing, and
How we might balance the need to tend to our own nervous systems with the obligations we have to one another to show up in relationship and community
May our conversation be of benefit to anyone who is struggling to be vocal, visible and vulnerable right now—but is trying their best to do it anyway.
Ryan: Where did you grow up? What else grows there? What was it like for you to grow there?
Jeremy: I love that second question! I grew up in a small town on the edge of the suburbs outside of Washington, D.C. It’s called La Plata, pronounced “La Play-ta,” in a quiet neighborhood across from a Christmas tree farm. Other things that grow in that part of southern Maryland: lots of corn, soybeans, red oak trees, good-hearted people, right-wing politics, and racism.
I mostly didn’t like growing up there. I was safe, cared for, and had the resources I needed. But I got the sense sometime early in high school that the culture was pretty limiting. I couldn’t wait to get out and see the world.
Ryan: What is your earliest memory of tending another being?
Jeremy: I remember feeling sad that my parents had thrown away my broken toy radio. As I saw it in the trash along with napkins, chunks of food, and clumps of dog hair, I felt sorry for it. I’d been keeping on my toy shelf even though it had stopped working. In a sense, I’d been tending to it. It was a living thing, to my kid understanding of the world.
That’s a cherished memory, because it’s my earliest memory of feeling something like what people mean when they use the word “spirituality.” It’s a distinct memory of feeling interconnected with everything else, even a plastic toy radio. It’s a perspective I try to remind myself of today as an adult, with occasional success.
Ryan: What or whom have you most loved tending since?
Jeremy: Easy answer: my partner, Kelsey. Loving and tending for her has been the biggest gift I’ve ever received. Her courage, open-heartedness, and communication skills have not only taught me so much about human relationships but also helped me rewire my nervous system.
I’m far less avoidant than I’ve been in prior relationships. I now more often than not want to step toward and not away from emotional connection. And if my nervous system doesn’t have the capacity, I’m able to tell her without her reacting from an insecure place. Her secure heart is making my heart more secure every day.
I also cook new recipes and make them my own. I made a mung bean soup the other day that blew my mind and warmed my stomach. It had kimchi and chili crisp on top. Shoutout to the Substack newsetter
.Ryan: Ooh, love a food newsletter rec. And having lived in Seoul, I love me some kimchi.
What about your practices of self-tending? I know you’re a meditator. How did you come to meditation? What does your practice look like these days?
Jeremy: I started meditating daily after attending a weekend silent meditation retreat. Now I meditate for 35 minutes in the morning and afternoon. I sit in a chair, set a timer on the app Insight Timer, and let my mind wander, while occasionally remembering to notice how my breath and body feel or what I hear with my ears.
Usually, about 25-30 minutes in, I notice a sort of downshift in my nervous system. The tension in my body starts to fade, and my mind stops moving so fast. The sort of meditation I practice is called Vipassana, and I add in a little Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, the type of therapy I’m trained in.
Without meditation, I’m an anxious wreck, far less present with people, super tense in my body, and avoidant.
Ryan: Your Substack newsletter,
, features stories about your own life, stories from your practice as a therapist, and Q&As with readers. One theme I have noticed across these different formats lately is this topic of avoidance, and how this arises in men. How do you define avoidance?Jeremy: For me, avoidance is one way we can relate to connection with others. And when I say “connection,” I mean connecting in a way that is emotionally attuned. And when I say “attuned,” I mean feeling safe, trusting, seen, and heard. Avoidance is pulling away to find space rather than moving closer in to feel intimacy.
Even though I love her deeply, I often feel avoidant with my partner. She moves in for a hug or kiss, and it’s almost like there’s a magnetic force pulling me away from her. She brings up something about a conflict at her job, and I immediately want to go back downstairs to my office, or look at Instagram on my phone.
Yet, at the same time, I so deeply want to connect with her. I love her. It’s just a part of me that wants to pull away. A part of me that I sense is trying to protect me somehow, and keep me safe and comfortable.
I’m still learning about how this part of me got developed early on in my life. But as a relatively new therapist who mostly works with cisgender men, I’m picking up on a pattern. It seems like more men than not are avoidant in this way. I’m really curious about why. My hunch is it has something to do with patriarchy and capitalism, how boys and men are socialized to be certain ways to fit into our political and economic systems.
Ryan: For folks who are unfamiliar with the world of attachment theory, from which terms like “avoidant” arose and then entered the popular lexicon – what does it mean to be avoidantly attached, versus securely attached?
Jeremy: Attachment theory comes out of research in developmental psychology. It’s become a bit of a pop psychology trend recently, with folks diagnosing themselves through online tests. So, there’s a lot of confusion and binary thinking about it right now, unfortunately.
I like to think of it this way: Everyone falls on a spectrum of attachment “styles.” On one end is “secure,” being able to trust others, feeling comfortable with emotional closeness, and communicating needs in a clear, healthy way. At the other end are the “insecure” styles: “avoidant,” “anxious,” and “disorganized.”
Those with an avoidant style (like me) tend to be noncommittal, standoffish, and distant. We’re prone to avoiding conflict, canceling plans, not responding to calls/texts, and ghosting. We’re more likely to turn to drinking alone, YouTube, video games, and other forms of numbing out when we’re stressed. But we also can have moments of feeling secure depending on the other person or people we’re in relationship with.
And it’s not a fixed thing. I’ve become more secure over time through going to therapy and working with my partner on our relationship.
Ryan: I’m thinking here of your broken radio, the one that you kept on the shelf as a boy. You must have had some hope in that radio’s redemption, in its inherent value, even when it wasn’t working so well. Some sense that when we love something, we don’t just throw it away. I wonder if this comes through in the work you’re doing on these parts of yourself, and with your clients, that make finding connection hard.
Ryan: I’m also thinking here that some of what we experience as avoidance might be termed aversion – one of the so-called Three Poisons in Buddhism.
It’s part of our human nature, this feeling that we need to get away from something. Yet in the Buddhist tradition in which I meditate, we’re invited to explore the line between what is truly unsafe, and what is merely uncomfortable but workable, rather than habitually following that aversive urge to flinch, fidget or flee every time.
Could this kind of practice be a support to someone who is avoidant? And is there a difference between being the kind of person who habitually avoids the merely uncomfortable, and being “an avoidant person”?
Jeremy: I’m not certain about this, but I think they’re the same thing. When I’m feeling avoidant, it feels uncomfortable to be physically or (especially) emotionally close with someone else. I’d go as far as saying it feels threatening.
My thoughts on this are emerging as I answer this question. But I think the framing of safety might still be better and more useful than comfort.
Something arises in me when I think about my avoidant tendencies as moving away from discomfort. An inner voice shames me and says I should be able to handle discomfort. But if I think of it as moving away from something that feels unsafe to my nervous system, it’s less shaming. I can have a little compassion toward myself, which is the root of healing.
Ryan: So, it sounds like the work begins with acknowledging that some forms of connection feel unsafe to some of us, and that this makes sense given our prior conditioning, rather than judging it.
I would also imagine that working skillfully with avoidance can help us to create more safety for others. For example, I've appreciated your discussions in your newsletter of the ways in which avoidance can lead to difficulties with repairing relationships, for men in particular, which can make things unsafe for the people around them. It can be hard for some avoidant people to say “I’m sorry.”
How do you think folks can learn this important skill? What tends to get in the way?
Jeremy: The avoidance gets in the way. And the more I learn about my own avoidance, and similar behaviors that friends and clients struggle with, the more I’m learning it’s in the nervous system.
I can want to repair. I can want to say, “I’m sorry.” But if my nervous system doesn’t feel safe—and therefore, open and available for connection—then it can feel almost impossible to move toward and be vulnerable with my partner, or whoever I’m wanting to repair with.
What gets in the way is men being socialized to avoid these types of intimate moments and encounters. We’re scared of them. Our nervous system is scared of them. It’s an uphill battle. But our lives can be so much more if we commit to it.
So, I think it takes nervous system work. It takes experience. It takes practice with other people. Individual practices like meditation can make a huge difference. But men need to also be in groups together—men’s groups, therapy groups, support groups. Couples therapy can help too.
What also gets in the way is our capitalist society. There’s so little time to do anything outside of work and “adulting,” all the stuff we have to do outside of work like raising kids with little support, forever cleaning the house, haggling with health insurance companies, and so much more.
Until we organize in our workplaces and neighborhoods to create what Martin Luther King Jr. called a “radical redistribution of political and economic power,” everyone will struggle to have time and energy to build the relationships and community we so badly want.
Ryan: Absolutely. What communities or sanghas are keeping you sane in the meantime?
Jeremy: Working through and healing trauma alongside other men is such a powerful, fun space for me. Otherwise, it’s other writers on Substack and folks on Instagram who write and share about similar topics.
Ryan: Relatedly, are there other people you admire that are working to help “make men emotional again,” either as authors or teachers or both?
Jeremy: I tend to recommend these books to men who are looking to go down a similar path that I’m headed down:
No Bad Parts, by Richard Schwartz
You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For, by Richard Schwartz
The Will to Change, by bell hooks
Revolution at Point Zero, by Silvia Federici
For more information on how to rewire your nervous system and transform your attachment style, I also love Sarah Baldwin’s work. Her Instagram is great.
Ryan: To what other mentors, teachers or texts do you turn when you’re looking for inspiration, as a meditator and a writer?
Jeremy: I owe so much to Hugh Byrne and Tara Brach, who were my first meditation teachers. Tara’s book Radical Acceptance was and still is a huge foundational text for me.
These days I also often turn to other therapists who use and write about Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. I find it extremely inspirational to hear their experiences, not necessarily as therapists but as human beings healing their own trauma.
I also am inspired by socialist feminists, like Nancy Fraser and Silvia Federici. When I read their work, it starts to make sense to me why our society works the way it does, why it’s so unequal, violent, and exploitative, and why it’s so hard for so many of us to make a difference. They give me a whiff of hope that a different society is possible.
Ryan: Radical Acceptance is a sacred text for me as well.
Where can people find you if they want to engage further with your work?
Jeremy: Here on Substack, as well as on Instagram, at @mens.relationship.therapist, and my website, which is jeremymohler.blog.
What other questions do you have for Jeremy? Any other recommended reads to share on meditation vis a vis avoidance or masculinity? Please let us know in the comments.
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