Why is curiosity good for us?
What would it be like to make friends with the unknown? To be curious and to sit with the questions?
Last week I had an ‘epiphany’ moment. I was working with my supervisor. We were exploring the importance of curiosity. It’s such a vital skill when working with my clients and for my own experience of life. Where it wasn’t that suddenly I understood what curiosity was but all of a sudden there was a new layer of understanding. I could see clearly that curiosity doesn’t need answers.
It felt like a huge relief. It felt like a letting go of needing to know answers – whether for my clients or for myself.
It reminded me of Rainer-Maria Rilke (Austrian poet) when he says:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
So often we have the need to know, so we can feel safe, so we can have certainty. We want to know all the answers now, pin life down so we don’t have to be with the discomfort of not knowing. The truth is: we know nothing. Sometimes we just have to sit with the unknown and the inevitable questions this raises.
Photo: Joseph Rosales
But what does it really mean to be curious?
It means allowing ourselves to let go of outcomes, expectations, of our pre-conceived views and opinions, to look at things as though for the first time.
An attitude of curiosity can help us see our loved ones, children, friends, colleagues freshly and in their entirety. Without the judging mind of ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘I like this about you’, ‘I don’t like that about you’...
Vital ingredients for curiosity are patience, non-striving and kindness.
Patience to be with what is right here, right now so we can respond wisely and creatively to change, developing our capacity to respond, rather than merely react. Noticing impatience and pausing, relaxing, taking a breath and another one, allowing space for answers to arise in their own time.
Non-striving, the attitude of non-doing, non-wanting. Allowing things to be in our awareness without needing to do anything. Non-striving is a crucial attitude that we can bring to whatever we do. Non-striving does not mean being indifferent or giving up. It’s an attitude that sits between doing and not doing. Enjoying the journey rather than needing to do or figure out the next thing.
Kindness. It’s the quality of openness, friendliness, curiosity, care, warmth and love. We do not need to fabricate it or make it happen. It’s already present, intrinsic in our human capacity. Kindness can enable us to open up, to care for ourselves and to see and hear our loved ones, friends and colleagues fully.
Curiosity has the potential to enhance our overall experience of life, others and the world around us.
When I’m curious I can feel it in my body. I feel lightness and spaciousness in my chest and heart, my mind feels open and my eyes are soft. And often I have a slight smile on my face.
I also know what it feels like when I feel closed, constrained, tense, judgemental. These sensations let me know that it’s time to wake up to what’s right in front of me – alerting me that it’s time to get curious.
Photo: Ethan Sees
Here is a practice to cultivate curiosity and to make friends with the unknown
Firstly, how do you recognise curiosity in yourself? What does it feel like?
If you don’t know, you could recall a time when you were curious. Curiosity is a quality that we all have. Sometimes it just needs to be reignited.
Secondly, a helpful question to ignite your curiosity is:
What’s happening? What’s happening for me right now, what’s happening for the other right now? It implies that something is happening that I can get curious about.
Thirdly, stay curious with patience, kindness and non-striving, allowing space for openness, friendliness and not needing to achieve anything.
And lastly, I want to encourage you to ponder on how you can create space daily for yourself to give your thinking mind a holiday, from needing to know the answer?
I offer a free initial coaching conversation while walking or online. Do get in touch to arrange a day and time that is convenient for you. Email me at karen@greenspcecoaching.com