Healthy distraction or avoidance?
The Fine Line Between Coping and Escaping
There’s a fine line between taking a break from emotional heaviness… and running away from the problem….
Sometimes, we surround ourselves with friends, conversations, meetups, and to-do lists, not because we’re feeling deeply connected, but because it’s easier than sitting with the discomfort of what needs to be said…or done.
When I see this in people, I often stop and ask (in my mind):
Are you using these as a coping mechanism or an escape route?
Let’s get real…
At the heart of it, many of us never learned how to just sit with discomfort. When emotions rise (like grief, anger, shame, or guilt) we reach for the nearest distraction. And often, it’s our friendships or our to-do lists, that absorb the weight of what we’re not ready to face.
Psychologically, this is rooted in:
Avoidant coping mechanisms: using connection to numb, not to nourish. This is often seen in people who have many connections, but ones that are usually quite superficial or hollow in nature and quality.
Fear of confrontation: especially if we grew up with unpredictable or emotionally unsafe environments, or haven’t yet learned the emotional vocabulary needed to express an opposing thought or opinion without aggression or being rude.
Unclear boundaries with themselves: when we don’t know our own limits, we can’t spot when we’re crossing them through people-pleasing or emotional outsourcing. (Contrary to popular belief, people-pleasing isn’t inherently a bad thing, but that’s a topic for another day.)
From an Islamic lens, distraction becomes problematic when it causes ghaflah (heedlessness); where your awareness of Allah, your inner state, and your purpose gets drowned out by constant noise.
It may be affecting you deeper than you think
When your friendships and task lists become a way to avoid, not address, here’s what you might notice:
You feel emotionally scattered: sort of like you’re everywhere, but nowhere at the same time.
Your real issues remain unresolved:you’ve vented, you’ve talked... but nothing has fundamentally changes for you.
You fear silence: because it might force you to reflect on what needs to shift, or come to terms with underlying thoughts that go deeper than you’d like to admit.
You feel burnt out by social interaction: not because people are bad, but because you’re using people to bypass pain. On top of this, having to mask your uncomfortable emotions in a social setting just adds to your feelings of exhaustion.
And the worst part is that you may have even convinced yourself that you’re just “staying connected” or being a “good friend” or “being productive”. But sometimes, what looks like connection is really co-dependency in disguise.
You need to adopt a psychological alternative
Not all connection is healing. Some of it is hiding. You’re allowed to take time with people. But not at the cost of abandoning what is needed, your priorities, your responsibility, what keeps you mentally and physically healthy.
Avoidance doesn’t mean the issue is gone, it just means it’s growing quietly. Every moment you avoid the hard conversation, the uncomfortable reflection, or the overdue boundary, you further cement the cycle you’re trying to escape.
Your soul wasn’t created to escape discomfort—it was created to move beyond it. “Indeed, with hardship comes ease.” (Qur'an 94:6)…but ease isn’t found in avoidance - it’s found in consciously surrendering, in facing what’s hard, and doing what’s right.
Some things you can do to address the problem
1. Act With Intentionality
Before meeting a friend or picking up the phone, pause and ask:
Am I reaching out to connect—or to escape?
Is this friend helping me grow—or keeping me stuck?
Is this task list taking me away from what I should actually be doing? (I will explore this one further because sometimes healthy distraction can actually be the key to enduring through difficult times)
2. Get Comfortable With (A Bit Of) Solitude)
Don’t wait for silence to be forced on you. Choose it. Set aside 15 minutes a day to sit, reflect, read Qur’an, or make du'a. Use that space to ask:
What emotions am I avoiding?
What conversations am I postponing?
What boundary am I too afraid to set?
The Prophet ﷺ would retreat to the cave of Hira before revelation even came. Sometimes, solitude is preparation for the next thing, not a punishment.
3. Have the Conversation You’re Avoiding
You don’t need perfect words. You just need sincerity. Start with: “I’ve realised I’ve been avoiding something that matters. Can I share it with you?”
If that feels like too much at this point, then starting with the basics and addressing the things that are causing this roadblock in the first place.
However, if you are ready for difficult conversations:
Try rehearsing how you want to start the conversation.
Think about what you’re afraid of and ask yourself how you would deal with that scenario if it comes up.
Then take action. Even if the result is messy…it’s movement.
And allow space for apologies and attempts to repair if something in your words or actions has caused an unnecessary fracture in the dynamic.
4. Replace Emotional Outsourcing with Spiritual Anchoring
When you feel overwhelmed, try:
Istighfar for clarity.
Du’a for courage.
Journaling to slow your thoughts.
Salah not as a mindless routine, but as a refuge and a sanctuary.
Sometimes, the space you’re trying to fill with people is a space that is only meant for Allah in the first place.
Sooooo….
Not all avoidance looks like isolation as commonly believed. Sometimes, it looks like over-connection, oversharing, and over-availability, but almost always crossing your own emotional and spiritual red lines. It’s easy to mistake that for love, loyalty, faithfulness, or even productivity and efficiency…
But true emotional integrity and ihsaan, means that we need to stop using people to buffer our pain, and start confronting the parts of ourselves that Allah is calling us to work on…
Let your friendships be a place of safety; not a hiding place from self-accountability…
There really is beauty in the pause, and so much wisdom in the silence. This life guarantees hardship, and you were made to face what’s uncomfortable. And with Allah’s (swt) help, you can and will do so. I just pray that you get through it with wisdom, clarity and grace.
With love, Maariya x