[achou]

Keep in mind that "avoidance" in this context refers to not confronting one's own feelings and intuition. After grappling with that feeling explicitly, avoiding overt conflict can certainly be an adult decision to make.

[philosopher1234]

Our feelings are vast and bottomless. It is impossible to confront all of them, and for the same reason its undesirable. Avoiding your feelings can be useful too.

[ketzo]

Maybe it’s just personal experience, but I vehemently and totally disagree with this.

There has never been a time in my life where I was better off because I ignored my feelings. Literally never.

There are times that we should avoid acting on some of our feelings. But to do that well, and without further self-harm, requires that you know what they are, and what those feelings are influencing you to do.

It is absolutely not impossible to confront all of your feelings. Difficult, yes. Exhausting, yes. Impossible? Absolutely not. And I really think it’s doing yourself a disservice to ever believe that you have depths that you yourself are incapable of facing.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

I don't think the person you're responding to is suggesting a deep meditation on the unlimited ramifications of one's feelings at every moment. They are talking about avoidance coping, which is pretty well-documented (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidance_coping). The admonition is to avoid that, more often than not. It's not the same as excessive navel gazing.

[lostcolony]

Confronting does not mean naming and categorizing everything. It is to introspect, and sometimes the only takeaway is "here be dragons", and flagging that particular terra incognita for exploration later.

[michaelgrafl]

In the short-term avoiding overwhelming feelings can sometimes be necessary to deal with something else that is more urgent, or to simply not go insane. In the long run you can't avoid them without some bad consequences.

And while our feelings may be vast and bottomless, they are usually finite in type. Almost any unpleasant feeling can be traced back to our fear for survival.