On Uncertainty, Threat, Safety and Security

Many people come to coaching because they feel stuck in patterns of avoidance.

They describe knowing what they would like to do – make the decision, have the conversation, start the work – while finding themselves unable to move. This gap between intention and action is often accompanied by frustration or shame, as though the difficulty reflects a lack of will or character.

However, avoidance rarely feels like laziness from the perspective of the individual. It feels more like a response to threat.

What follows isn’t a framework for managing emotions, but a way of thinking about why uncertainty and avoidance often feel so compelling, and how we might relate to them differently.

Avoidance as a response to danger

For many neurodivergent adults, particularly those with ADHD or autistic traits, the world can register as more intense, unpredictable, or demanding than it does for others. Uncertainty carries weight, and ambiguity can feel uncomfortable. Situations without clear edges can provoke a visceral sense of risk.

In that context, avoidance is not irrational. It is an attempt to regulate exposure to something that feels overwhelming or unsafe.

Nietzsche and the problem of safety

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote extensively about the human desire for certainty, comfort, and security. He was sceptical of moral systems and ways of living that prioritised safety above all else, arguing that they often emerged as defences against fear rather than expressions of strength.

Importantly, Nietzsche was not suggesting that fear should be dismissed, subjugated, or overridden. His ethos was that fear, as with all discomfort, should be embraced courageously as part of a full and self-directed life. We might, though, be interested in what happens when fear quietly organises a life: when avoiding discomfort becomes the primary strategy for coping with existence.

Avoidance is not a failure of courage. It is a deeply human response to perceived threat. The question is, perhaps, not “Why am I avoiding?” but “What feels dangerous here?” That question can soften the harshness with which people often judge themselves.

Emotional regulation without control

In contemporary discussions of emotional regulation, there is often an implicit (or, indeed, explicit) assumption that emotions should be managed, controlled, or reduced. Regulation is framed as a technical skill; something to be mastered.

For many people I work with, attempts to control emotional responses simply create more tension. The effort to suppress fear, anxiety, or uncertainty can itself become exhausting, and the difficulty of achieving regulation is experienced as a personal failure.

Nietzsche’s work offers a different orientation. Rather than asking how to eliminate discomfort, or the feelings of pain, distress or confusion we might experience, he invites us to consider how much uncertainty and difficulty we believe we can tolerate, and what happens when we underestimate ourselves.

This is not about forcing exposure or pushing through distress. It is about noticing how quickly the mind can categorise uncertainty as danger, and how automatic avoidance can become as a result.

When avoidance protects — and when it constrains

Avoidance often begins as protection. It reduces immediate threat and preserves energy. In that sense, it can be adaptive.

Over time, however, avoidance can quietly narrow a life. Decisions become shaped less by values and more by what feels safest. Possibility and capability shrink, not because someone lacks desire, but because uncertainty has become synonymous with harm.

This is where reflection can be useful: not to demand change, but to create space for curiosity. To ask whether the strategies that once protected you are still serving you, and whether the costs incurred still feel proportionate.

Coaching as a space to sit with uncertainty

Coaching, as I understand it, is not about eliminating avoidance or teaching people to override their instincts. It is about creating a space where uncertainty can be approached gradually, thoughtfully, and with respect for individual limits.

In that space, people sometimes discover that what they feared was not failure, but exposure: being incapable, being judged, being misunderstood, or being overwhelmed. Naming that sense can be profoundly regulating in itself.

Nietzsche’s insistence that growth involves encountering difficulty does not mean seeking suffering for its own sake. It means recognising that a life organised entirely around avoiding threat may also avoid meaning.

A gentler question

Instead of asking “How do I stop avoiding?” it can sometimes be more helpful to ask:

“What feels at risk here – and what might matter enough to approach it anyway?”

That question does not demand immediate action. It invites honesty, patience, and self-respect. It acknowledges fear without allowing it to silently dictate the boundaries of a life.

Ending without resolution

Philosophy rarely offers definitive answers, and the present subject is no exception. Nietzsche does not give us techniques for emotional regulation, nor should he.

What he offers is a challenge to the assumption that safety is the highest good, and an invitation to consider what becomes possible when we relate to uncertainty and unsafeness differently.

If you’d like to explore these themes in the context of your own experience, you can find more about how I work on the Coaching page.