Originally Posted by
SoberKnitter 
It doesn't feel good, but knowing that it's part of healing allows me to get a little distance from it, if that makes sense. I kind of think of it like there's me and there's the mood and I am just observing it. Sorry, it's kind of hard to articulate.
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SoberKnitter, I think you articulated this very well. What you described is a much larger aspect of a powerful mental health tool, and AVRT is only a tiny, specific instance of it. I am referring to mindfulness. Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When we are mindful, we observe our thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad, just as the beast exists outside of our self. Our thoughts just are.
7 ASPECTS OF MINDFULNESS
1. NON-JUDGING becoming an impartial witness to your own experience.
2. PATIENCE
3. BEGINNER’S MIND willingness to see everything as if for the first time.
4. TRUST – in yourself
5. NON-STRIVING by doing nothing, all is done.
6. ACCEPTANCE seeing things as they actually are in the present.
7. LETTING GO
From a workshop with Jon Kabat-Zinn