Run away! Why you should ALWAYS run away from your problems

The underrated benefits of being a Power Pussy

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

You know that old adage that you can’t run away from your problems? After careful consideration and many years of experimentation, I’m calling bollocks on it once and for all. So in the season of the summer holiday I invite you all to join me in packing your sunscreen, shades and sandals, and getting the fuck as far away from your problems as you possibly can! Huzzah!

The notion that our problems are devilish spectres following us as sinister shadows has been one I’ve questioned for some time - usually while experiencing the thrill of wheels-up on an aircraft. But this weekend I read something that made me realise why.

The piece in question was published in The Times by the wonderful Isolde Walters and looked at the challenge of moving back home having lived abroad - in her case returning to London after a dreamy few years in New York. Writing about her time living abroad she described a feeling of total freedom:

“In return for the occasional bouts of homesickness… I experienced the thrilling freedom of being so far away. I could be whoever I wanted".

This - for me - is precisely why I believe travel to be the best (albeit expensive) treatment for poor mental health the world has yet created. There is - as Walters says - something thrilling in just being removed from your everyday life and the feeling that not a soul knows who you are. Emerging solo from an airport is, for me, an almost spiritual experience - an addictive feeling of being born anew into a world of endless possibilities.

Travel, be it near or far, contains an element of pressing pause on reality - of creating a small wedge of mental freedom that gives you enough distance to see your life differently. To see yourself and the possibilities available to you from a different angle. Travel for me is the key to mental freedom and problem solving. Sometimes running away is absolutely the best thing you can do for your life.

Many will have you believe otherwise. That the brave thing to do is stay in a situation and fight our way through, to look the beast in the eyes and slay it before treating ourselves to a nice nap afterwards. But sometimes staying and fighting will just leave you maimed and dying - like Monty’s Python’s Black Knight, legless, armless and angry.

I have discovered over the years that my instinct to run away when life gets too much has served me surprisingly well. Despite years of therapy and medication, I still continue to experience periods of crippling clinical depression - and have learned that the one thing I can do that always helps is to go on an active holiday.

I pause as I write this, as I’m aware I sound very much like a smug, over-privileged tosser - for which I apologise. I mean seriously - who the hell actually advocates a holiday as a solution for a serious breakdown of mental health?? Who can even afford that?

Reader - not me. But over the years I’ve learned it’s a good thing for me to budget for when possible. It started many years ago when I was signed off work after a serious work burn out and had a feeling a yoga retreat might help me. People pleaser that I am, I went to my doctor to ask if this was an acceptable thing to do. He was a very kind man but still looked at me quizzically as he explained that most people he saw with mental ill health had no idea what would help them feel better - so if I knew it was a sensible thing to pay attention to.

I had a similar conversation with another doctor last year having been cautioned by someone I knew that although going on a fitness retreat seemed to be the one thing that stopped depressive periods in their tracks without fail, this was not a sensible course of action. “You can’t rely on it”, she said darkly.

My doctor - on the other hand - disagreed. “If you have something that helps you’re really lucky to find that. Do it. Don’t even question it”.

This - of course - is an extreme example. And you certainly don’t need to run away to a smug vegan retreat to solve your problems.

There’s a lot to be said for just running away - anywhere. Be that a friends house, a rainy weekend at the beach, or a full blown air-travel adventure. The important thing is to simply be in a different environment - ideally one where you can take a break from seeing the cracked paint in your bathroom that needs dealing with or the plethora of other soul sucking home-based chores.

With that, I present to you my top 5 reasons why running away is always the best solution.

Running away breaks thought patterns

The definition of madness, they say, is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. And let’s be honest - most of us spend a lot of our lives doing just that. We repeat the same routines, see the same people, go to the same places - and think about the same things. Our problems get stuck on a loop and we continue to think about them the same way.

Want to break your thought pattern? Do something different. Go somewhere else. Run away.

Running away gives perspective

Remember when we used to work in offices all day? That was weird. Battery chicken workers in rows under the world’s least flattering lighting. Air conditioning. People leaving teabags in the sink.

But I digress. I remember often staying late in the office working on something that seemed impossible and descending into a pit of despair. Only to go home, go to sleep and realise in the morning that there was a fairly simple solution.

Retreating from our problems is often more effective than thinking REALLY REALLY hard about them. Give your brain a break - and it’ll probably figure some shit out without you even trying. In other words - run away.

Running away shows alternative solutions

Ten years ago I got divorced and realised that my entire life to date had been a series of ticking boxes other people had told me were the right ones to tick. But of course I did - I had literally nobody around me who was doing anything different.

So I got on a plane and went somewhere else - and I met and talked to people who were doing different things, living in different places and choosing to prioritise different things in life. Admittedly a lot of them were batshit crazy - but I probably seemed the same way to them.

It’s very easy when we stay in our bubbles to see things only one way. Run away and you might see an option you didn’t think possible before.

Running away stimulates the brain with the new

Our minds require stretching and testing and stimulation. We need challenge and discomfort to grow - which is really unfortunate as most of us are naturally wired to crave safety and be wildly suspicious of change. It’s ok - it’s evolution trying to keep you safe - it’s not your fault.

For proof that we need more, see any elderly relative in your family. Chances are their world shrunk as they got older, and now any interruption to the routine is A MASSIVE DEAL.

This totally makes sense - in a scary world we want to have control at all times. Only we can’t - and trying to is bad for us and will likely make us more anxious.

Trying something new, going somewhere new, listening to a new opinion… these are all things that push our comfort zones and expand our horizons while also giving us confidence that maybe the world’s not so scary after all. Unless one of those news things is joining a drug cartel or throwing yourself out of an aeroplane. For more confidence; run away.

Running away can be a power move

You know that thing where sometimes going really silent in an argument is powerful? If you stop talking the other person gets unnerved and babbles. I like to think that - in some situations - the same is true of retreat.

I recently had an unpleasant experience where I was inexplicably cut out of a group of what I considered great friends. Everyone told me to fight - to ask why, to demand an explanation. I’m a conflict averse pussy - but I also figured if people didn’t want to hang out with me, arguing wasn’t going to make them more likely to. So I retreated. I said nothing, blocked their numbers and walked away. Which admittedly I still feel guilty about - but it was the only move I had that left me with some self-respect.

It’s my take on the Fabian Strategy; I like to call it Power Pussying. But I may need to re-think that…

Run away!

Of course, none of this is going to render your problems invisible. You will always have problems and concerns, even if you’re lying on a beach in Mauritius. There are not enough Pina coladas in the world to create a trouble free life.

But sometimes we just need a break to be able to think more clearly. Sometimes we need to run away from our problems in order to solve them. Sometimes we need a moment to think and rest and not be punched in the face with reality every 5 seconds. And in running away we can actually return to life more enthused, creative and positive than we were before.

You can’t run away from your problems. But you can run towards a mindset that fixes them.

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Greetings all - and happy weekend. Perhaps you’ve run away this weekend? Goodness I hope so. I’m currently at my boyfriend’s house running away from the responsibility of cooking for myself - I recommend it highly.

What are our thoughts on this? Are you stayer/fighter or a Power Pussy??! Have you tried to outrun your problems only to find the bastards sitting there next to you at the finish line? Believe me, I have too. But I do think there’s something to be said for a time out from our problems. Who’s with me? When to the going gets tough, do you run in the opposite direction? Should I just man up and deal more? Always love hearing from you…

[also side note apologies I’ve been shit at my replies for the past couple of weeks. This ends NOW! Go on - comment, and I’ll prove it to ya…]