When We Look Away: Shadow Avoidance in Coaching

There is a concept in Susan David's Emotional Agility work that I keep returning to.

She calls it shadow avoidance, the ways we turn away from our emotions rather than moving through them with curiosity and intention. Not dramatic suppression, necessarily. Often something quieter and more habitual than that.

Susan identifies three particular patterns: bottling, brooding, and forced positivity. Each is worth understanding on its own. But what I find most compelling, especially for coaches, is what happens when we begin to notice them, in our clients, in ourselves, and in the space between us.

Because that third lens is where things get interesting.

The three patterns

Bottling is the pattern of pushing feelings down, brushing them off, or keeping them at a careful distance. It can look like pragmatism. Like being the kind of person who just gets on with things. But beneath it, the emotion is still there, unprocessed, often leaking out in other ways.

Brooding is almost the opposite in texture, but serves a similar function. Here, the emotion is not avoided so much as circled. We return to the story again and again, replaying what happened, what was said, what it means. It feels like processing. It rarely is. Brooding keeps us inside the narrative without moving us through it.

Forced positivity is perhaps the most socially rewarded of the three. It is the instinct to cover difficult emotions, our own or someone else's, with brightness. To reframe before the feeling has been felt. To say "every cloud has a silver lining" when what the moment actually calls for is honest acknowledgement.

All three are understandable. All three, at times, are human. And all three quietly limit what becomes possible, in our lives and in our coaching.

What we might notice in our clients

Clients often arrive with one of these patterns already in play, and sometimes with more than one running at once.

The bottler may speak about significant experiences in a way that feels oddly flat. Emotions are reported rather than felt. When you ask how something lands for them, they move quickly to the cognitive, to analysis, logic, or what they have decided to do next. The feeling is acknowledged briefly, if at all, and then set aside.

The brooder arrives already deep in the story. They have been thinking about this a lot. They can give you the detail, the context, the history. But the conversation moves in circles rather than forward, and there is a quality of being stuck that no amount of retelling seems to shift. Thinking, in this case, has become a substitute for feeling.

The client in forced positivity can be the most difficult to notice at first, because the pattern presents so well. They are solution-focused. They find the learning. They are generous with their reframes. But if you listen carefully, there is often something underneath the brightness that has not been given room, a grief, an anger, a fear, that surfaces only in moments of quiet, if at all.

None of these patterns are character flaws. They are strategies. They developed for good reasons. And they deserve curiosity rather than judgement, from us, and in time, from the client. Susan invites us to bring compassion to these moments too, because shadow avoidance is almost always rooted in some form of self-protection. The courage to move toward an emotion, to be with it rather than away from it, begins with that.

What we might notice in ourselves

This is where it gets more personal.

I notice my own shadow avoidance most clearly in the moments just before a coaching session, or just after one. There are times I have walked away from a difficult session and moved very quickly into the next thing on my list, not because I was unaffected, but because I was. Bottling, in other words, dressed up as efficiency.

I have also caught myself brooding on a session that felt hard. Replaying a moment where I was not sure I held the space well enough. Returning to it, examining it from different angles, and arriving back at the same uncertain place. That is not reflection. That is rumination. And it is remarkably easy to confuse the two.

Forced positivity has its own coaching flavour. It can show up as the urge to reframe too quickly, or to reassure a client before the difficulty has really been witnessed. It can sound like encouragement. But sometimes it is our own discomfort speaking, our wish to move both of us away from something that feels hard to sit with.

Susan's framework invites us to approach these patterns with curiosity rather than self-criticism. Not "why do I keep doing this?" but "isn't that interesting, I notice I have moved away from something there." The question then becomes: what might I be turning away from? And what might be available if I stayed with it a little longer, with a little more compassion for myself?

That question applies as much to us as it does to anyone we work with.

What happens between us

This is the territory I find most curious, and the part that is least often named.

Coaching is a relationship. And relationships have their own emotional weather, shaped by both people, often without either fully realising it.

When a client is bottling, there can be a pull on the coach to match that register. To stay at the level of the cognitive, to not push into territory the client seems to be keeping closed. Sometimes that restraint is wise. But sometimes it is avoidance, ours as much as theirs. Compassion for the client does not always mean following their lead away from difficulty. Sometimes it means having the courage to stay close to what they are moving away from.

When a client is in forced positivity, it can feel almost rude to interrupt the brightness. To name what we sense underneath. And so we can find ourselves going along with the reframe, reflecting it back, adding to it, when what might serve the client better is a quieter, more honest question. The courage to name what is present, gently and without agenda, is part of what distinguishes good coaching from comfortable conversation.

And then there is what I think of as co-brooding.

This is the pattern I most want to name directly, because I think it is more common than we admit. It happens when a coach and client enter the story together. When the coach, drawn by care and genuine engagement, begins to circle the narrative alongside the client rather than helping to move through it. The conversation feels meaningful. There is connection, depth of engagement. But it is not progressing. Both people are inside the same loop.

Co-brooding can feel like empathy. And it begins there. But somewhere along the way, empathy tips into something that no longer serves the client. We are processing with them rather than holding space for them to process. This is where self-compassion becomes important for us as coaches, not as an indulgence, but as a grounding practice. When we can meet our own discomfort with gentleness, we are less likely to need the client's story to resolve itself for our sake.

The distinction matters. It is a fine one, and it takes awareness to notice in real time. What helps is returning to curiosity. Coming back to the question: what is actually happening in this room right now? Not what is being said, but what is present. What emotion is here, and whose is it? Am I inside this with my client, or am I alongside them?

That small shift, from immersion to presence, can change everything about what becomes possible.

Some reflections to sit with

Which of the three patterns do you recognise most readily in yourself? And in which moments does it tend to show up?

When you notice a client in bottling, brooding, or forced positivity, what is your habitual response? Do you follow, gently challenge, or quietly collude?

Have you experienced something like co-brooding in your own practice? What did it feel like from the inside, and what helped you find your way out of it?

Where might your own shadow avoidance be shaping what you invite, or avoid inviting, in your coaching?

What might become available, for your clients and for you, if you brought a little more compassion and curiosity to these moments?

Shadow avoidance is not something to overcome once and for all.

It is something to keep noticing, with honesty and without too much self-judgement.

That noticing is part of the work. For our clients, yes. And just as much for us.

About Melissa Hague

I'm Melissa Hague — a coach, courage-builder, and Certified Dare to Lead™ Practitioner. I support coaches to build the courage, compassion, and grounded confidence they need to show up more fully in their work, their lives, and their businesses.

Much of my work centres on the quieter, more human side of coaching — the inner work, the small brave steps, and the spaces where we learn to trust ourselves a little more deeply. I trained with Susan David in 2025 and am close to completing my Emotional Agility Certification. It's at the heart of what we explore inside The Courageous Coach® Programme.

Find out more at melissahague.com/courageous-coaches and let's connect here on LinkedIn.