Using Curiosity & Compassion To Understand Your Anxiety
Written by: Catherine Cabrera, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you’ve experienced anxiety, you know how frustrating it can be – it shows up seemingly at random times and it’s not always responsive to logic, leaving you feeling like “this is just the way it is”. But what if it’s not? What if there was a way for you to better understand your anxiety, and thus, decrease how impactful it is on your daily life? Luckily, there is!
Typical go-tos for anxiety
I hear time and time again from clients that they’ve tried a multitude of different strategies to cope with their anxiety, with varying levels of success. Yes, writing your thoughts in a journal, using somatic techniques, and creating what I’ve called a Mental Health First Aid Kit are helpful. But, they’re often like putting a band-aid on a broken arm – the anxiety is already there and you’re responding to soothe it. What these techniques don’t do is help you understand what came before the anxious thoughts and feelings – they don’t cater to the ‘why’ of your anxiety in that moment.
How do curiosity and compassion help my anxiety?
Great question, I’m glad you asked! Let’s use an example – you’re babysitting a child who comes to you crying hysterically and you can’t understand a word coming out of the child’s mouth. You immediately try to soothe the child and stop the crying. The child then tells you the friend they were playing with was making fun of them. A common response is to tell the child to ignore the friend’s hurtful words. What often goes unrealized is the underlying message the child may be receiving here – let’s say the child’s parents are getting divorced and the child feels responsible, abandoned, or unloved. That changes things, huh?
This is how your mind operates when you’re in an emotional state – sometimes it’s completely incoherent, sometimes there’s crying and internal chaos, and other times, there may be dissociation so strong you don’t even realize you’re anxious to begin with. The questions I’m always left with in sessions with clients is why did the anxiety show up in this specific moment, and how is the anxiety trying to help you. Yes, your anxiety is trying to help you!
Evolution of anxiety
Evolutionarily speaking, anxiety was a sign of possible threat – basically an internal alarm that something was threatening to your survival. This ‘alarm’ was an indication that it was necessary to be ready to react quickly to ensure safety and survival.
As people have developed, anxiety has also evolved to detect emotional, social, and psychological threats as well, like rejection, discomfort around particular people or situations, or the implications of doing poorly on a test, for instance.
In this regard, your anxiety is like the adult in the example provided earlier – it’s actually trying to help and protect you, but it doesn’t always know how and it can be hypervigilant depending on your individual experiences.
What do curiosity and compassion have to do with this?
Another fantastic question! When clients meet with me, they’ve often been taking the approach of trying to logic their way out of anxiety, but from our emotional mind’s perspective, that feels invalidating. So it can actually make things worse, even if it dissipates in the moment.
Going back to that example with the crying child – children often respond in relation to how a trusted adult responds, leaving you in an important position. If you take the time to listen to the child and let them express how they’re feeling, it allows them the ability to practice self-soothing, as well as gives you the opportunity to better understand the child’s perspective.
Your anxiety is also the child in this part of the example. It wants to be heard and it wants to share its fears with you, but often it’s not heard, which can lead your anxiety to be reactive and hypervigilant in order to get your attention.
Practicing curiosity with anxiety can help get to the root of why it’s showing up at that moment, while compassion helps create a safe and inviting space for your emotional mind to be vulnerable and open up to you. Just like creating trusting relationships with people in your life, you must do the same with yourself in order to better understand how your emotions work and what they’re trying to tell you.
Takeaway
While anxiety is completely natural and normal to experience, it can often become overwhelming and reactive when misunderstood. Utilizing coping strategies is a wonderful start to understanding how to self-soothe, but it won’t get to the underlying threat your anxiety is trying to protect you from. I encourage you to spend some time reflecting on unhealed wounds that may be present the next time your anxiety is present – this may require self-soothing techniques first, depending on the intensity. You’d be surprised what can be uncovered when you spend time being curious and compassionate with your emotions!
Catherine Cabrera, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Catherine Cabrera is a therapist who specializes in treating anxiety, eating disorders, obsessive thinking, and related mental health challenges. After years of living with anxiety and feeling like there was no hope for change, Cabrera explored the underlying purpose of emotions and their interaction with thoughts and behaviors. She has since been passionate about helping others better understand their emotions and use compassion to build a more positive relationship with their thoughts and feelings. She is the owner and founder of Inner Strength Counseling, providing professional mental health care in Virginia.
