Hello, Gorgeous Soul.

Let’s talk today about one of my favorite favorite feeling states. The feeling state that is such a little POWER player and soooo often overlooked and underutilized: curiosity.

We are inherently curious. We’re BORN curious. It’s the feeling state that encourages exploring and learning and questioning. I remember when both my kiddos discovered their hands. They would just stare at it, moving it different ways, that curiosity helping them learn that they have a body and they have control over how it moves.

But.

Curiosity, as we get older, tends to be an emotion that we are told, often indirectly to SQUASH. I remember VIVIDLY sitting in Sunday school at Faith Presbyterian Church. I was YOUNG, siting on the cold tile floor and the teacher teaching the whole creation story. First God created the sun and turned the lights on, then the animals and the people and all the things and then he rested. I mean, I had a LOT of questions about this, but mostly the one that I was SO curious about was…well, where did GOD come from.

If God created all these things one day, who created god? Well, Kristen, God just always was there. So I raised my hand again….So God was just sitting around forever and one day decided to create this galaxy? “I know it’s hard to understand but God just always WAS.” She moved on in her teaching, I raised my hand again.

The little empathic sponge that I was, I saw the look on her face turn from tolerating to UNAMUSED. I put my hand down.

I was asking too many questions.

My curiosity overwhelmed my dad. And listen, as a parent of a very curious kiddo, I GET IT. It can be exhausting answering all the questions of a curious person. I am VERY in tune when my curiosity is annoying people because I was indirectly (and sometimes directly) taught that curiosity was annoying.

OBEDIENCE was preferred.

Just accept the answer, Kristen. God always was.

Just stop asking questions, Kristen. I don’t KNOW how to explain this differently.

You can ask a couple questions if you’re curious, but TOO much is too much.

At the end of the day, here’s the truth:

Curiosity is a threat to obedience.

Obedience is a virtue, highly rewarded. How many of us are taught ALL the rules of how to be GOOD. What you’re supposed to do, according to whatever group is in charge of your rules.

That’s just the way it is.

Because those are the rules.

THIS is what we hear over and over that squashes our curiosity.

Curiosity leads to questioning the rules and in order to maintain the status quo…curiosity is not a welcome character trait.

So we start acting on our curiosity less and less.

Curiosity starts gathering dust.

We just start accepting THIS is who I’m supposed to be.

This is how I’m supposed to look.

THIS is the right way to be.

Go to school, be good, go to college, get married, buy a house, have some babies, have a good steady job with a retirement plan.

Wear these kinds of clothes, make sure your body looks like this.

Here are the rules for being a girl, a boy, a woman, a man, a mom, a dad, a friend, a good employee, a responsible adult.

We learn not to question what we want, we learn to figure out how to be who we’re expected to be.

Until all of sudden we look around and realize that this life looks A LOT like the life that I was supposed to have so I would be happy….except…I’m kinda not.

Like, it’s fine. It’s ok. But it’s not ME.

And after a lifetime of making obedient choices, following the plan laid out by society, you’re like…who even AM I? How did I get here? Do I even LIKE this?

THIS is where I encourage people to start….when you are looking around at your life thinking “How did I even get here? Who even AM I? Do I even LIKE this?”

You gotta put on your curiosity glasses. Look around at the world through these sparkly lenses of curiosity.

Because curiosity IS sparkly!

Curiosity is SUCH a FUN way to move stuck or paralyzed energy.

Its got a playful feel to it, almost childlike, right?

You’ve got to ACTIVELY and MINDFULLY choose curiosity because what’s LIKELY going to happen when you one day realize that you don’t even really know who you are is that your lizard brain is going to freak the FUCK out.

It’s going to sound all the emergency alarms, sirens blaring “OMG HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THE ANSWER YOU HAVE TO FIGURE THIS OUT RIGHT NOW RIGHT THIS MINUTE DON”T LET ONE MORE MINUTE PASS YOU BY FIND THE EXACT RIGHT ANSWER”

And then of course you’ll shut down because that’s what we do, freak the fuck out before shutting the fuck down.

So.

Make sure you are tending to your Nervous system first. Reminding the lizard brain that This question is NOT an emergency. There is no rush. We can either figure this out the awful way or the fun way.

Through curiosity.

Curiosity is the reminder that it’s not an emergency, it’s an ADVENTURE.

An adventure where you get to DISCOVER what you like, who you are all the things while experimenting.

Seeing what works and what doesn’t. What in your life you really DO enjoy and what things you don’t.

Curiosity lightens EVERYTHING up because it isn’t looking for ONE definitive RIGHT answer. Curiosity is all about wonder. Curiosity is playfully looking for options.

I have a client who is getting curious about her life. From the outside it’s fine. Husband, nice house, kids, good steady job and what she’s realized is that NONE of the choices that she’s made came from curiosity. They came from obedience.

She knew what she DIDN’T want because of the childhood that she endured. It wasn’t safe. She was not safe in any way, mentally, physically, financially, emotionally.

Her nervous system definitely wasn’t allowing curiosity when she was old enough to get out of there. Her nervous system was like “Just safe. No more, no less. SAFE.”

So she followed the path without questioning any of it.

Like MOST of us do, again, because curiosity, particularly when it comes to societal norms is squashed.

In the last few years my client has had these glimpses though. That maybe she wants more. Like, not just this picture of what it’s SUPPOSED to look like, but wait….a job I enjoy? A partner I enjoy? A life I enjoy? She started getting curious about whether or not it’s even OK to believe that.  She doesn’t believe, yet, that she deserves it but she’s getting curious.

And she’s starting to ask questions of everything. WHY? Why do I have this? She told me one day about her deep dive into curiosity around her deodorant. Do I even LIKE this kind of deodorant? And she was like, pretty neutral about it. Like, it’s fine, but is there maybe a deodorant I would like better? She realized she hadn’t ever had a mindful thought about it. When she started asking herself “Why do I buy it if I don’t love it?” She realized that she learned someone else used it, probably someone she thought was higher up the worthy ladder than her, and so she just bought it and has always used it.

THIS is where I encourage people to start….when you are looking around at your life thinking “How did I even get here? Who even AM I? Do I even LIKE this?”

Curiosity is going to help you reconnect with who you really are, what you like, what you don’t like, what you want, what you don’t want.

So you gotta put on your curiosity glasses.

Put those sparkly lenses on and look around at all the things and just ASK QUESTIONS.

Ask questions about the things you see around you in your life. Do I like this? Would I buy it again? Why did I buy this in the first place?

Ask questions about the rules you’ve been obediently believing. Where did I learn this rule? From who? Why was I taught this rule? Is this rule expanding or limiting for me? Do I like this rule? Do I HAVE to follow this rule or am I just afraid of the consequences?

Ask questions about the stories you’ve been told.  Are there holes in this story? Does this story serve me? Does it feel true?

Get curious about why people are the way they are, especially the people closest to you.

And once you start getting answers, just keep in mind this is just information to have. It doesn’t mean you have to sell your house and all your belongings. There’s no need to get upset about the past. It’s just now that you know, now that you’re getting clearer on who you really are and what you really like and what you actually want, you can make more empowered and discerning decisions moving forward.