Stay Curious
One of the most important pieces of work I do with clients is to help them get curious in life.
We’re born curious. Across species and continents on our little blue-green planet, tiny beings arrive here with an inherent curiosity to them. Curiosity is the animating force behind how and why we try to make sense of our world. It is behind our quest to understand the way things work, also called science, which explores potential philosophies regarding the nature of our existence and reality. The one enigma we all have in common is this mystery that is life.
In the same way we are all born with curiosity, many of us learn to dampen it as an adult. Curiosity can get in the way of “productivity,” as measured by the material. Curiosity naturally questions established structures, customs, and phenomena. Our current culture deeply fears change and the unknown, strangely even if the known is itself rather uncomfortable.
Curiosity implies a kind of surrender. A spicey mixture of “I don’t know” and a “hmmm how/why/what can I figure out about ____” that attribute meaning, significance, and purpose to this curious existence.
This intentional allowing is inherently at odds with controlling your experiences, demanding your life be a certain way, and managing the emotions and/or expectations of others.
In health, curiosity often enables a perspective shift of what is truly happening in your body.
One of my favorite tenants of Naturopathic medicine is Vis Medicatrix Naturae, translated as “The Healing Power of Nature.” This foundational understanding asserts that the body possesses an inherent, intelligent, self-healing capacity. To be sitting in the perspective that your body is responding appropriately to something, is conveniently an inhospitable narrative to judgement, or the conventional view that your body is broken and needs to be fixed.
When I got curious about what messages might be behind my physical symptoms, a part of me softened. I relaxed into the idea that the same energy that was trying to control (my symptoms) was in fact the same energy that created them. And what if I stayed curious?
To have symptoms in a toxic world is the opposite of broken. It means your body is responding appropriately to the world you’re living in. If you are unsure of exactly how our current environment (air, food, water, culture) is sick, then you can check out any of my previous posts!
Decades of research into the fabric of reality, quantum physics, has demonstrated that we are co-creating with this life via our awareness and intention (conscious or unconscious).* Life is as unpredictable as it is magical. To see the magic, you don’t need to do anything, you simply need to be aware that it exists.
And thus, many ancient systems of medicine involve some form of an awareness practice. A practice of Being without doing. The movement practice of yoga was originally developed to prepare the physical body for meditation.
Surrendering our do-er-ship is no easy task. But that’s why curiosity exists – it brings us back to inspiration, compassion, and ultimately the paradox of our whole humanness.
Our emotions are our greatest teachers. Let your curiosity break free from its mind cage and gently guide you. It’s okay to feel stuck at first – especially if you’ve lived years from a place without marvel. It might sound funny, but you can get curious about where your curiosity went ;), what purpose this muffling of your inquisitive nature served, and maybe what you used to be curious about in childhood.
Einstein famously said “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
I envision a more beautiful world where one day, we all live from the latter.
*many of us are walking around in an operating mode that is actually unconscious – that is, reactive to our environment and below the level of our conscious awareness. Years (potentially decades) of programming based on fear and handed down trauma perpetuate this cycle. We might frequently feel angry, resentful, or like a victim – even if consciously we don’t want to experience these emotions regularly. A large piece of my work involves dissecting emotional health, sometimes referred to as “intelligent energy management” which helps us better engage in community and tremendously supports physiology. Message me to find out more about biofeedback and emotional regulation!