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Part of my morning routine is completing a few word games. My favorite is Crossclimb from Apple News. A friend recently introduced me to another set of puzzle games, and let's just say, I've got a solid streak going (except for Queens, which drove me absolutely mad!)
I enjoy the mental flexing—typically before my body flexes—and if I’m going to use my phone early in the day, I want it to support my brain, not trigger a negative thought spiral.
Perhaps it’s because I’m tuned into words and letters that I had a “pause and chuckle” moment in a recent coaching session.
We were talking about the most common stress reactions when faced with uncertainty (I don’t know anyone experiencing that right now, do you?)
One of the stress responses was: avoidance.
As I wrote “avoid” in my notebook, I laughed to myself. My client looked at me a bit quizzically, and I told her that I might have stumbled upon the antidote to avoid.
It was right in front of me: A void.
Avoid or a void?
In avoidance, we try to keep the peace and maintain calm. We don’t want to disrupt our current state. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves—
though avoidance typically leads to even more stress from not facing the task at hand.
A void, in contrast, is a space we might intentionally visit during a stressful time. A blank space. An empty room. A quiet mind.
That single letter shift may actually hold the antidote to avoidance.
In the mental fitness experiences I lead for teams and individuals, we create intentional space—a pause—to reset our brains and bodies.
This realization has had me add “void” to that toolkit: allowing ourselves to step into that empty space, reset, and then face what we've been avoiding.
The simple tool looks like this:
Many days, I think I should drop the puzzle game habit. I know it’s a habit because I get a little itchy if I don’t get to them first thing in the morning.
But playing games to keep my mind sharp—and having one lead to this new idea—was a great reminder to always look at things from a different angle. Sometimes a solution, a new way of thinking, or in this case, an antidote, is waiting right there for us to notice.
Try it today: Take one task or challenge you’ve been avoiding and spend 1-2 minutes in your version of “a void”—simply breathing deeply, tuning into all of your senses, blocking out all other stimulus—before tackling it. Notice the difference it makes in your focus and mindset.
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