Self-monitor with curiosity

If courage is the opposite of behavioral avoidance, curiosity is the opposite of cognitive and emotional avoidance. When you are curious about something, you really want to know all about it, to understand it deeply. Anxiety and depression often make people disinterested in their minds. You might only want to understand your experience enough to make your anxiety stop. You might not even want to know about that experience at all and simply want it to stop.

The capacity to observe your experience of anxiety with curiosity — like you really want to know it — is crucial for willing acceptance.

If you are wondering whether you are curious about your experience of anxiety and depression, look at how you behaved in response to learning that you suffer from an anxiety disorder, OCD, or a mood disorder. Some behaviors that convey curiosity are reading about it, listening to audiobooks or podcasts, watching videos, and joining a support or advocacy group. All of these behaviors are ways to get more information and more understanding about your suffering. They push you towards acceptance rather than pulling you away from it.

Self-monitoring of your internal experience is another way to build curiosity. It sounds like a simple task, but staying with your experience long enough to notice your triggers, your thoughts, your feelings, your sensations, and your urge to act can be a tremendous challenge when you are feeling anxious. Moreover, self-monitoring can easily turn into an opportunity for self-criticism, and that feels aversive.

If you are new to self-monitoring, I strongly suggest that, when you self-monitor, you make sure to give yourself credit for showing up to the task in the first place. Also, keep in mind that you wouldn’t have to self-monitor if you already had a friendly relationship with your anxiety, so it might be painful at first. That said, since suffering is pain plus resistance, you’ll suffer less if you go towards your pain without resistance.