What We Avoid We Become
Definition
The Netist articulation of the structural-paradox by which sustained-avoidance of a quality produces the practitioner's progressive-articulation of the avoided-quality. What We Avoid We Become names the structural-recognition that suppression-and-denial do not eliminate the avoided-quality; the suppressed-quality articulates through the practitioner's field through indirect-channels and gradually structures the practitioner's pattern in the very direction the practitioner has been trying to avoid.
Literal meaning
The structural-articulation of the paradox-of-avoidance. What We Avoid We Become frames the broader-recognition that conscious-effort to avoid a quality often produces the practitioner's gradual-articulation of that quality through unconscious-channels; the avoidance does not work as the practitioner had hoped, and the avoided-quality emerges in the practitioner's pattern despite the avoidance.
Esoteric meaning
What We Avoid We Become articulates the structural-feature that the broader contemplative-tradition recognizes as *the return-of-the-suppressed*. The structural-recognition is that conscious-suppression of a quality requires sustained-energetic-attention to the quality, and sustained-attention to the quality (even oppositional-attention) reinforces the quality's structural-presence in the practitioner's field. The suppressed-quality cannot be eliminated by suppression, the suppressed-quality is gradually-strengthened by the suppressing-attention, and the suppressed-quality eventually articulates itself through the practitioner's pattern in the very direction the practitioner has been trying to avoid. The article's articulation is the structural-foundation of the broader Role of Shadow in Growth discipline; both articulate the same structural-feature from complementary-angles.
Allegorical meaning
A swimmer trying to push a beach-ball under the water continuously: the swimmer's effort keeps the ball submerged for as long as the effort continues, the ball's buoyancy is not eliminated by the effort, and the moment the swimmer's attention shifts the ball erupts to the surface with force proportional to the depth at which it had been held; the swimmer's strategy of suppression has never neutralized the buoyancy, the strategy has merely held it temporarily.
Extended meaning
What We Avoid We Become articulates several specific structural-features: (1) Avoidance requires continuous-energetic-attention to the avoided-quality; the practitioner cannot maintain avoidance without continuously-attending-to the quality; (2) Continuous-attention reinforces the quality's structural-presence in the field; the field-physics of attention is that what-receives-attention strengthens, and the avoidance-pattern's structural-feature is that the avoided-quality continuously-receives-attention even though the attention is oppositional; (3) The practitioner's field gradually structures itself around the attention-pattern; the avoided-quality becomes integrated-as-feature even while the practitioner's conscious-articulation continues to avoid it; (4) The eventual emergence of the avoided-quality is often paradoxical from the practitioner's conscious-perspective; the practitioner who has been avoiding aggression eventually becomes structurally-aggressive through indirect-channels, the practitioner who has been avoiding vulnerability eventually becomes structurally-vulnerable through unexpected breakdown, and the broader pattern operates across many specific-articulations; (5) The structural-corrective is not greater-suppression but integration; the practitioner who recognizes the article's structural-feature shifts from avoidance-strategy to integration-strategy, and the integration neutralizes the structural-pattern that avoidance had been reinforcing. The relationship to the broader Role of Shadow in Growth discipline is structural: both articulations name the same structural-feature; this article articulates the avoidance-paradox at the strategic-articulation layer, the Shadow article articulates the broader integration-discipline. The relationship to the Pillar *Atūm'Un* (Unifying Principle) is structural: the wholeness-in-operation that the Pillar names is the integration-state in which suppression is no-longer-required because all aspects are integrated; the avoidance-paradox is what the Pillar's broader articulation resolves by making suppression structurally-unnecessary.
The *What We Avoid We Become* article articulates the avoidance-paradox at the practitioner-strategic layer. The article complements the *Role of Shadow in Growth* article and the broader integration-discipline.
Usage
A practitioner encounters this article in the broader articulation of psychological-development and in specific contexts of recognizing avoidance-patterns in their own field. The article's operative recognition is that avoidance-strategy is structurally-self-defeating; the corrective is integration-strategy.
Ritual usage
Shadow-work passages in ceremonies engage this article's articulation directly. The Rite of Purification and Severance includes work with avoidance-patterns and their integration. Long-form contemplative retreats often include extended work with avoidance-pattern recognition and integration.
Comparative tradition
Jungian articulation of *the return of the repressed* and the broader shadow-integration discipline in depth-psychology. Sufi articulation of working-with-the-nafs (the lower-self) through integration rather than through suppression. Buddhist articulation of working-with-defilements (*kleshas*) through observation rather than through suppression. The various tradition-specific articulations of the avoidance-paradox.
Science correspondence
The depth-psychology research on suppression-paradox (Daniel Wegner's *White Bear* experiments documenting the rebound-effect of attempted-thought-suppression). The contemplative-traditions research on integration-rather-than-suppression as effective-discipline. The contemporary-research on emotion-regulation strategies and their differential-effectiveness.