If you're avoiding fear, shame or anxiety - as many of us are without realising it - you may also be avoiding, unbidden, on behalf of others.Your insistence that others participate in your

perfectionismrushingdetachmentbeing super laid-backharmonyconflict-avoidancebeing in controlnever stoppingknowing about everythingbeing rightmaking sure everybody is cared forwinningavoiding all riskkeeping your options open

might just turn out to be your way of ensuring your colleagues, your team or your family don't have to experience what it is that you never want to experience.I'm bringing this up because I think it's a topic we could all do with observing in ourselves.Running away, and denying that we're running, constrains us enormously. And our unknowing projection of it onto others profoundly constrains their freedom too. Whole organisations have been constructed on meeting the avoidance needs of their founders and leaders, at huge cost to everyone.As we gradually free ourselves from this compulsion, we each earn a much better chance of doing what it is that we actually came here to do.

Photo Credit: Martin Beek via Compfight cc