I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and he’s going through a really tough time at the moment with a relationship he’s in. The last time we spoke about his situation, it was 2 years ago, and he knew then that it wasn’t working out, but he didn’t do anything about it. Unfortunately, he’s here in the very same place he was then and perhaps even in a more difficult situation due to not dealing with it sooner. In our discussions, he takes full responsibility for where he is at so that was great to hear but he just feels stuck. After me poking him with questions for a while and being curious, I mentioned there was no risk in life without reward and he needs to figure out what it is that he has to risk himself in order for the situation to improve so he can get on with living the life he talked about a few years ago? It was this staple curiosity question, I find myself asking every time, I am in a situation, where I’m settling in my life and know, I am better than this circumstance. I take a look at why I’ve allowed myself to be put in this situation and what is it that I need to be willing to risk getting out of it. Whether it’s with a friendship or a family member or partner and maybe boundaries have been crossed or violated or a clearer boundary needs to be put in place. Maybe I’m just not meeting my own needs and giving in to destructive behaviour, whatever it is, this question, when I’m willing to ask it and hear the answer, always makes the situation clearer and I can see a way out. Once I know that, then I have to decide to do the action that will set everything in motion. When I asked my friend this question, he reflected for a few minutes and you could just see a weight being lifted off his shoulders. The answer to the question came to him and it was as though he had hope again.
I went home after that and took some time to be curious about myself and make sure I was clearing out any cobwebs that may have collected. My life’s been busy these days – I hadn’t been as diligent on taking time out to reflect on my life as I should be. The more I thought about my encounter with my friend, the more I realized how being curious with ourselves leads to aha moments and it led me to want to put some words down here. It also brought up the acknowledgement on the achievements I have made over the years as I was able to support my friend because I have been practicing curiosity with myself for a few years now and it flowed out in our interaction. Any conflict situation we find ourselves in, usually comes down to something we need to take a look at for ourselves. What are we willing to get humble about and what emotions or feelings are we able to put aside to move forward on from any situation. A lot of the time, we stay stuck in the conflict because we aren’t willing to ask ourselves that question – pride, hurt, anger or judgement are holding us back. The risk of being vulnerable and putting our own ego aside is what would drastically change the scenario. Quite often the other person we may have conflict with, doesn’t even know the emotions or thoughts we have around what’s holding us back from moving forward – it always comes down to us. There maybe situations where there is physical or verbal abuse in the relationship we need to remove ourselves from but again the question comes down to what am I needing to risk to have the reward of a safer more stable and consistent life. Lots of times we stay because we don’t feel we deserve better or we don’t want to look like we didn’t do all we could or maybe we are waiting to be validated by the other person. All of these emotions are ego because validation is never going to come from someone else in these conflict situations, we just need to be willing to live with knowing that we did all we could and more. Most times that’s enough for us to be able to move through and get ourselves out of the relationship or conflict situation. Without reflecting on these situations and being courageous enough to ask ourselves the tough questions, we aren’t able to see a way through the muck and mire that we may find ourselves in. Being curious with ourselves or with another person has tremendous benefits for a happy life. Being curious is an art form that has been termed mindfulness by some.
According to Patricia Rockman, “Mindfulness is disruptive because it changes how we pay attention to things and ultimately out experience of the world. Although curiosity killed the cat, it would appear that it is an essential quality for human development and learning. Curiosity allows us to turn inward toward the entirety of experience, moving us from avoidance to approach, including that which we don’t like. Some would say that curiosity and kindness are the antidotes to judgement and other harsh evaluations we may direct toward ourselves or others and it is a quality that can be developed”.
Curiosity can be used to inquire on how we feel about an experience. It can also be used to assist us in uncovering our destructive behaviours, and bad habits we have. Often by checking in with ourselves and asking what we are feeling in the moment before we reach for that unhealthy snack, extra glass of wine when we are just sitting around at home. Questioning our feeling in the moment will help to identify why we emotionally eat or drink or bite our nails or whatever the behaviour is for you.
Mindfulness begins with awareness and the recognition and acknowledgement that something is here. Mindfulness is the art of investigating what the emotion is and staying with it regardless of how uncomfortable it may be – wanted or unwanted. When we do this, we are able to accept what is or at least figure out what we need to do in order for us to accept it. And it always has to be done with compassion for ourselves in these moments and when we are, you will find the feeling dissipates. Everytime we do this, it gets easier and easier. Rockman says, “Acceptance doesn’t have to require that we like what is going on but rather to be willing to have it. This doesn’t mean becoming a doormat to life, but it does mean not having a temper tantrum when things don’t go according to plan. We can then move into skillfully responding, asking ourselves, “does this need to be taken up, addressed or dealt with”? Can I let it be or let it go? Or perhaps it’s time to practice intentional avoidance. Avoidance, when deliberate, can be a skillful or a moment of self-care.”
I know from experience that I avoid deliberately too much so there has to be a balance when using that technique. I’ve learnt to avoid as a child to survive and feel safe but carried it into my adult life and now am learning to not avoid but sit with the emotions that come in these situations and it is helping me to see that by stuffing these feelings and not dealing with them or being curious to uncover what’s going on with me, that it has made an intestinal disease I have lived with for many years more unpleasant. According to the eastern and western medical world, they now know living with crohns, colitis, diverticulitis or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is made worse by not dealing with our emotions. Stuffing them inside to avoid which causes a lot of stress on this digestive organ since our mindset and gut are closely connected.
For those that don’t have digestive issues, not being curious can show up in other parts of the body. It’s so important that when doing the investigation, that you ask where in the body are you feeling this emotion? Emotions always have a beginning middle and end. We need to be asking the question, what’s the worst-case scenario if I sit with this emotion? Also ask what’s the best-case scenario if I sit with this emotion? What would help me better tolerate the feeling this emotion brings? I could tell my friend was sitting with how he was feeling when he realized what the emotion was that was holding him back. And just by the way his body relaxed, and his spirit lifted, I could also tell he had compassion for himself – no longer resentment, or guilt, just compassion.
Rockman often tells her group participants at the Centre for Mindfulness Studies, that she doesn’t care if they are comfortable. She cares that they are aware. When we have awareness, we have choice about our response to the ever-changing life events that we don’t get to control. And when the chips are down, curiosity is one of the essential tools that helps us through the good times and the bad. When practiced deliberately, curiosity helps us to recover more quickly from reactivity. Rockwell goes on to quote Teasdale and Chaskalson who note that it changes the habitual way we attend and also how we pay attention to the experience. As soon as we get curious we have changed the way. We are consciously aware and interested. The how is the movement from thinking about experience to being in the experience itself. We are no longer thinking, “How dare he talk to me like this”, but rather we can be curious about how the anger is showing in our creased forehead, tight jaw, clenched fists and tight diaphragm. We can label the emotions. “Wow that’s interesting! Rage is here and thoughts about how I would like to…” (you fill in the blanks). When we get interested in the entirety of any occurrence as opposed to ruminating about all our personally experienced injustices, how things should or shouldn’t be, and the rehearsal of what we would like to say to the offending party.
Rockman suggests some techniques to bring in more mindfulness:
1. Change the content of what is being processed (thoughts and/or emotions) by the age-old practice of bringing attention to bodily sensations or breath.
2. Practice changing the quality of attention from autopilot, immersion or avoidance to a stance of curiosity and approach.
3. Try working with changing how you view each moment. What happens when you move from a position of the personal (me, me, me) to the impersonal?
Rockman says “Shifting from a stance of pushing away what is here to one of curiosity and interest may just bring us a little freedom”. I definitely have noticed that when I do these, I feel that freedom she talks about. I feel more in control of where I go from here versus feeling trapped or stuck in a situation that doesn’t align with the behaviour I want to show up with.
Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Curiosity helps us become better problem solvers and we become more resourceful. Tony Robbins believes the ultimate resource is resourcefulness and we have more than we use and if we all understood that, we would be living life on our terms. Curiosity supports this resourcefulness that can also help us overcome our fears because people who are curious are not afraid of being uncomfortable and facing the unknown. Curiosity helps to develop empathy instead of judging others. We can ask questions to understand where they are coming from. When we are curious, we are more open to exposing ourselves to different ideas and cultures. Curiosity make us more knowledgeable and can lead to more resources to help others. It can lead to humility and humble people know that they don’t have all the answers – they are constantly learning. And lastly curiosity leads to more self-awareness when we question and challenge our beliefs, values and our perceptions of life.
All of this sounds wonderful doesn’t it – so why don’t we do more of it? Is it because some people have just accepted their lot in life or maybe they tried, and life became hard, so they gave up on it. There’s also that idea that some have become sheep and don’t lead as it’s easier to just have others tell us how we should live. I have read in the past that some world leaders tried to snuff out curiosity like Fidel Castro and Donald Trump or back in the medieval times when curiosity was almost taken out of existence by the church that wanted to convey to the masses the feeling that everything worth knowing is already known. If you hear what’s happening with the Taliban destroying works of art or ISIS destroying works of art in Palmyra in Syria or what took place with the Nazis destroying books and defacing all the modern painters of that time. All of this is to control the amount of curiosity people have and to be able to improve ourselves, find confidence in who we are as leaders and individuals. Quite frankly, it scares me when I think about what’s happening in other parts of the world where women are not allowed to be curious or they are murdered. Curiosity should be a freedom of choice in all facets of our lives. Now a days with technology, there are some that believe because we have information at our fingertips, that maybe we are becoming less curious. I have found that I have a drive to want to know more – an urge to learn, that technology has only increased my desire to be curious, but I do need to be in a certain state of mind to want to know the answers when I am curious.
There’s a podcast called Knowledge@Wharton on SiriusXM, and they had Mario Livio on there to discuss the book he wrote called “Why: What Makes Us Curious”. He believes curiosity is a fundamental human trait. Everyone is curious, but the object and degree of that curiosity is different depending on the person and the situation. He also believes that genetics plays a role in why some people are more curious than others and our environment can also determine how curious we are. For example, children of refugees that have to cross countries and look for food all the time, they may be curious about where they find their next meal and not about contemplating the meaning of life. As I have mentioned in my this and previous articles, my childhood felt like I was mostly in survival mode, in order to protect myself, I shut down any thoughts of being curious about how I wanted to live my life, where I wanted to go to University or traveling to beautiful places and having adventures. Everyday was about how I could make myself feel safe and how to be invisible to avoid getting caught in my parent’s arguments that took place in our home on a regular basis. As an older adult, I have had to train and condition myself to be curious to make the necessary changes to live a thriving life. It wasn’t always this way, but now I find myself being curious and when I am not grinding it out, there’s a void – it’s definitely a daily practice.
Livio says there are different types of curiosity. The two main ones he discusses are epistemic curiosity and perceptual curiosity. Perceptual is the curiosity we feel when something surprises us or when something doesn’t quite agree with what we know or think we know. It’s a bit like an itch we need to scratch and that why we try to find out the information in order to relieve that type of curiosity. Livio goes on to say, “Epistemic curiosity, which is a pleasurable state associated with an anticipation of reward. That’s our level of knowledge. That’s what drives all scientific research. It drives many artworks and education.” It’s through the education system that Livio believes we can improve our epistemic curiosity. We lose some elements of perceptual curiosity or the ability to be surprised as we get older, but the epistemic curiosity, that love of knowledge appears to be roughly constant across all ages. During the pandemic, I did many online virtual courses and live events, and many times, there were other participants in their 70’s and 80’s wanting to learn new things as I did. Livio says the topics we may want to learn about may change with age or with time as people are curious about different things and the level of intensity maybe different but the desire to curious is still there.
Our minds have two halves: the one half that has new experiences and the other half that tries to understand those experiences. Many adults stop being curious and focus instead on understanding what they’ve already been through. Curious people use both halves of their minds and are able to stretch to new heights. Many sites online focus on teaching people to have more curiosity but I know for me, it’s setting aside the time to be curious with myself. Whether that’s in the morning while journaling or setting the intention for my day or in the evening reflecting back on how the day went. This platform is also a gift for that as each week I ask myself where I’m at and what I want to talk about to ensure I’m moving the needle forward in my life. Boredom sets in when we aren’t curious as do our bad habits. Curious people can always find something interesting to explore. Also setting time aside to look out on what you want your future to be in a one, two or three years. I like doing this on New Year’s Eve, it allows me to focus on what’s next, what needs to change to get me there and how I want to be as a person. This year back in February, I started a gratitude and an extra ordinary achievements jar. Every time something happened that excited me or had me feeling blessed or any work I accomplished that I know was for the betterment of myself or someone I had an impact on, goes in those jars on a piece of paper. This New Years, I will take the time to read through all the messages I put in there and it will be an amazing opportunity to get curious with myself around each message as well as question how to up level myself.
There’s research out there now that shows being curious can improve social relationships as you are viewed as more interesting and engaging. Curious people are more open to newer opportunities and not afraid to try new things or meet new people. The research also says that being curious seems to protect people from negative social experiences, like rejection which can lead to better connection with others over time. In the new year after I did my reflection back in January, I decided I wanted to expand my experiences and be open to try new things, be more adaptable to what comes my way, be in flow and not against it, and be curious as much as possible. Even though there are still a few months left of the year, I can already see the benefits because of this intention. Mindfulness is being willing to be and pay attention on purpose in the present moment from a place of non-judgement. It helps us begin to watch our lives and circumstances in slow motion and it’s from here that we can begin to make changes and allow ourselves to see things we couldn’t before. I chose to write about this topic as I was reminded last week by my friend just how important it is to be curious. I hope it will be a reminder to you as well in your life, whether it’s to have new doors opened, expand your experiences, to increase your knowledge, to understand and have more compassion or to improve your behaviour and life, but cultivate curiosity where possible. You will be amazed at how great things and wonderful people will show up in your life – it’s exciting to know you are in control of that!
“We keep moving forward, opening new doors & doing new things because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths” Walt Disney