What If We Became Curious About Our Responses?

Most of us have developed ways of responding to life that feel so familiar we rarely stop to question them. We might become the person who keeps everyone happy, takes responsibility when things go wrong, steps in when someone else is struggling, needs to know what is happening, avoids conflict, or finds it difficult to sit with another person's disappointment. Usually, we notice the behaviour long before we notice what might be underneath it.

We might say, "I'm a people pleaser," or "I'm just a worrier," or "I like to be in control," or "I'm the one who always has to fix everything." Sometimes those descriptions are useful. They can help us recognise patterns that have become part of the way we move through relationships and the world. But they can also become labels that stop us from becoming curious about what our responses are doing for us. What if, instead of asking only, "How do I stop doing this?", we became curious about, "Why does this response make sense?" That question invites a very different way of understanding ourselves.

Family systems thinking offers one particularly useful lens for this exploration. Edwin Friedman's work on anxiety and differentiation invites us to look beyond individual behaviour and become curious about what happens to us when anxiety enters a relationship or a wider system. Rather than seeing our responses simply as personal characteristics or flaws that need to be corrected, we can begin to consider how we respond when the emotional temperature around us rises.

This is important because anxiety does not always look like anxiety. We often imagine anxiety as obvious fear, racing thoughts, panic or a sense that something terrible is about to happen. Yet anxiety can be much quieter than that. Sometimes it looks remarkably like responsibility, competence, preparation or the need to know.

Imagine someone receiving a difficult email at work. Nothing needs to be done immediately, but they find themselves rereading it, wondering what the sender meant, checking their inbox repeatedly and mentally preparing for conversations that may never happen. They might describe themselves as being thorough. They might even believe they are simply trying to understand the situation. But another possibility is that uncertainty itself has become uncomfortable, and gathering information has become a way of trying to feel safe.

This is where becoming curious about our responses can be so useful. We may discover that the behaviour we have been trying to change is serving a purpose. Perhaps people-pleasing helps us maintain connection. Perhaps rescuing allows us to feel useful or to avoid having to tolerate someone else's distress. Perhaps controlling helps reduce the discomfort of uncertainty. Perhaps avoiding conflict protects us from the possibility of rejection or disconnection.

Understanding this does not mean we should keep behaving in the same way. Nor does it excuse behaviour that may be unhelpful or damaging. It simply gives us another place from which to begin. Instead of judging ourselves for the response, we can become curious about what is happening underneath it.

We might ask ourselves what we are trying to achieve with the response, what we are afraid might happen if we don't respond that way, and what the behaviour is helping us avoid, maintain or control. Sometimes the answers are surprisingly ordinary. We may simply be uncomfortable with someone being disappointed in us. We may find it difficult to tolerate not knowing. We may have become accustomed to taking responsibility for things that other people could reasonably carry themselves.

Friedman's concept of differentiation adds another important dimension to this. Differentiation is not about becoming detached or uncaring. It is about developing the capacity to remain connected to other people while staying connected to ourselves. It invites us to notice what belongs to us and what belongs to someone else, and to tolerate some of the discomfort that comes when we don't immediately step in to make everything okay.

That can be harder than it sounds. When someone we care about is anxious, upset or distressed, our instinct may be to do something about it. We reassure, explain, fix, advise, smooth things over or take responsibility. In a family, friendship, workplace or other relationship, we can find ourselves carrying emotional responsibilities that were never actually ours.

Sometimes we don't even notice that we have picked up the backpack. The idea of the backpack is a simple but powerful way of thinking about responsibility. We each have our own emotional, relational and personal responsibilities to carry. We can care deeply about another person's experience without taking responsibility for managing it for them. We can remain connected without becoming responsible for their feelings, their choices or their response.

This doesn't mean becoming indifferent. In fact, differentiation asks something much more demanding of us than simply walking away. It asks whether we can stay present and connected while allowing another person to have their own experience. It asks whether we can tolerate another person's anxiety without automatically making it our job to resolve it.

The same principle applies to our own anxiety. Sometimes what we need is genuinely more information, and sometimes action is required. There are situations where a problem needs to be addressed, a boundary needs to be set, or a decision needs to be made. Becoming curious about our responses is not an invitation to become passive or endlessly introspective.

But there are also times when there is nothing more we can know, nothing more we need to fix and nothing more that belongs to us. At those times, continuing to check, monitor, analyse or anticipate may not make us safer. It can actually keep us caught in the anxiety we are trying to settle. A useful question might be, "Do I actually need more information, or am I trying to settle my anxiety by finding certainty?" That distinction can create a little space, and sometimes that space is enough to allow us to choose a different response.

We can notice the familiar urge to fix without immediately fixing. We can notice the discomfort of someone else's disappointment without rushing to make it disappear. We can recognise uncertainty without assuming that we must resolve it. We can ask ourselves, "What is actually mine here?" before automatically reaching for someone else's backpack.

None of this requires us to judge ourselves for the ways we have learned to respond. In fact, I think there is something deeply compassionate about recognising that our patterns usually developed for a reason. A response may once have helped us maintain connection, navigate uncertainty, avoid conflict or feel safer in a particular environment. We don't need to shame ourselves for having learned it. Instead, we can become curious about whether that response is still serving us.

That is where awareness can become the beginning of choice. Once we can recognise a pattern, we can begin to notice the moment when it appears. We can pause before automatically responding and ask a different question. We can create a little more space between what is happening around us and what we do with it.

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of becoming more differentiated. We begin to discover that we can remain connected to people without being pulled into their anxiety, and that we can care about what happens without assuming responsibility for everything that happens. There is a freedom in that. Not the freedom of having everything under control, but the freedom of recognising what is ours to carry and allowing other people to carry what belongs to them.

Perhaps we don't need to have all the answers before we begin. Perhaps the first step is simply to become curious about our own responses. To notice what happens when anxiety rises, to wonder what we are trying to accomplish, and to consider what we believe might happen if we responded differently.

We don't have to judge the answers. We don't have to immediately change anything. We can simply notice. Because sometimes becoming curious about our responses is the beginning of seeing ourselves differently. And sometimes, when we see ourselves differently, we discover that the freedom we have been looking for isn't about becoming someone new at all. It is about becoming more fully ourselves.

Lisa|Innercircle Counselling