Do fear and anxiety keep you from dealing with unavoidable situations and emotions?  You are not alone. It’s natural for most of us to want to avoid painful experiences. Often just thinking about taking the risk of facing something painful or scary can cause differing levels of anxiety that can, at times, be extremely difficult to manage. What’s probably more painful is that when we avoid that “thing”, it only becomes bigger and more difficult to manage. We can’t avoid forever – eventually things are likely to crash at a time when we can least handle it. The good news is that we can learn to face our fears in ways that allow us (not our fears) to be in control of our lives.  Join Dr. Sutherland and her guest Dr. Mary Plisco, psychologist and Associate Professor of Counseling at Richmont Graduate University as they discuss why avoiding our fears only makes the fear worse. They will discuss practical ideas on how to systematically approach the things that scare us in ways that build our senses of competence and confidence, and that broadens our coping repertoire. These are tools that that you can immediately put into practice for you personally and within your families.