184 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
full- f ledged avoidance behaviors described in the previous
section. Like those behaviors, they prevent you from learn-
ing more about your surrounding environment and teach
you to fear the situation.
This is the great difficulty with anxiety. People often
expose themselves to various fearful situations, yet their
anxiety persists over time. That’s why there’s a critical dis-
tinction between being “safe” and being in the present
moment in the presence of fear. W hen trying to be safe, you
avoid fully accepting the situation and thus dealing with
your fear; as a result, your fear stays strong.
This principle has been well documented in the scien-
tific literature. For example, one study investigated the effect
of exposure therapy on individuals with claustrophobia
(Powers, Smits, and Telch 2004). Part of this treatment
involves having people enter a small chamber. In one condi-
tion of the study, participants had the option of using avoid-
ance strategies (such as opening a window or unlocking the
door). In another condition, participants were required to
use these avoidance strategies. In a third condition, these
avoidance strategies were unavailable (that is, participants
had to fully accept the fact that they were locked in a small
chamber, with no means of gaining relief from their anxiety).
Results of this study demonstrated, perhaps surprisingly,
that ultimately the third group of participants had much less
anxiety about being in the small chamber than either the
first or second group. In fact, there was almost no difference
in anxiety between the participants in the first and second
groups. In light of this, the authors of the study argued that
it’s not necessarily the use of avoidance strategies but their
availability that keeps people anxious about certain situa-
tions. In other words, you are more likely to continue to be