Day 16 - Phone Calls!

Day 16 forced me to confront a familiar form of avoidance: the medical phone calls I'd been putting off for over a month. Six different appointments that needed scheduling—x-rays, consultations, coordinating care for my son's summer dental work, navigating receptionists who often don't know what was previously discussed.

The mental weight of these undone tasks had been quietly draining me. Each day I didn't make the calls, they grew larger in my mind, more complicated, more overwhelming. Classic avoidance behavior—the longer we wait, the more insurmountable simple tasks become.

So I made a list and committed to working through it one by one. No overthinking, no elaborate planning—just dial, navigate, schedule, check off, repeat.

The reality? An hour later, all six appointments were scheduled. Consultations in place, wellness checks on the calendar, dental work coordinated for summer break. What had been consuming mental energy for weeks was resolved in sixty minutes.

This is the peculiar math of avoidance: the anticipation of discomfort often far exceeds the actual discomfort. Our minds have a talent for inflating simple tasks into complex ordeals, especially when they involve multiple moving parts or potentially frustrating conversations with healthcare systems.

The relief I felt checking off that last appointment wasn't just about completion—it was about reclaiming mental space. Those calls had been living rent-free in my head, a low-level background hum of "things I need to do" that was quietly taxing my nervous system.

Now they're done. On the calendar. Taking up no more mental real estate.

There's something powerful about recognizing when we're making something bigger than it actually is. The stories we tell ourselves about how difficult, time-consuming, or frustrating a task will be often create more suffering than the task itself.

Six phone calls. One hour. Months of mental energy freed up.

Sometimes the most important nervous system work isn't about doing something dramatically new—it's about finally doing the thing we've been avoiding, discovering it wasn't nearly as hard as we made it in our minds, and feeling the sweet relief of completion.