While living in Vancouver, I managed to score the best neighbors. J&J and their little boy E, welcomed me into their family with open arms. I loved being able to wander down the hallway and grab E for a walk ( he was 2 at the time). We would wander around the hood, usually ending up in the playground or picking blackberries. Great great feeling of community and family. We both ended up leaving Vancouver around the same time. They moved up to Nelson, where Jesse recently opened a counselling practise. I wanted to share a posting he recently wrote which was a gentle reminder to me to be curious and open about my own journey.
Learning to be Curious again
Do you ever pass through days on autopilot? Slide out of bed, dress, brush teeth and devour breakfast without pausing to reflect. A drive to work or a walk into town passes with no memory of the journey taken. You have a conversation with a friend and moments later you forget what was said. What happens in these moments? Where are we?
When life becomes familiar and routine we look for ways to distract ourselves, to create stimulation and evade boredom. We plug into ipods and fidget with phones. We get sucked into TV shows and websites. Our minds take us traveling into the past or daydreaming about the future.
What are we distracting from? Are we escaping from the routine or ourselves?
Having children has changed the way I look at the familiar. Having children has made me aware of the countless ways I distract myself and has reminded me of the benefits of the simple, yet powerful practice of being curious.
Children are inherently curious. This is how they learn. By investigating, exploring and questioning, they discover themselves and the world around them.
So, what does it mean to be curious?
The OED dictionary defines curious as being; eager to know or learn something
For me, being curious means a number of things.
First, it involves a slowing down. As a new parent, I learned that life no longer ran on a fixed time-scale. My son would have a way of turning a 5-minute walk to the local store into an hour- long adventure. Despite my best attempts to hurry the process, simple tasks would take infinitely longer than expected. My son was being curious; his environment was filled with opportunities, new experiences and treasures. A bike rack became a plaything to climb through; pine cones interesting toys to bounce down the street. When I let go of the need to hurry him (it was never that succesful anyway) and joined him in exploring, I too began to make new discoveries. Between cracks in the pavement, ants swarmed working diligently, a local bush proved to be a great source of blackberries. I had been too busy before to acknowledge these small details, the fragments that make life interesting.
This relates to the second component of being curious which is letting go of knowing. When we take the stance of being an expert, we close ourselves to new learning. Children thrive in discovering, in exploring their environments.
My son went through a stage, where over a couple of months he had to smell every flower he passed.
Again, my need to hurry him was supported with the view that these were just flowers. But my son didn’t just see flowers. He saw colour and different shapes, he smelled a range of fragrances, felt the petals and got to know them. When I let go of knowing and sampled the flowers too, I was surprised how some smelled sweet and others musky, while some seemed not to smell at all. I began to take notice of how the petals varied, how they attracted bugs and held rainwater. I began to experience the flowers.
Conversations provide opportunities for us to let go of knowing. When we assume we know where a conversation is heading, we stop listening. We close ourself to really hearing what the other is saying. Remaining curious and assuming a position of not knowing can provide us with rich learning and deeper connection.
I imagine we’ve all been in situations where we haven’t been heard.
I recall visiting a doctor, suffering from headaches and dizziness. I began describing my symptoms and was promptly cut-off, diagnosed as having hayfever and handed a precription to fill. A second opinion, this time with a doctor who took the time to listen, correctly identified the root of my issues as being a neck injury I had sustained months earlier. Curiousity around my condition would have saved time and energy, not to mention the headaches!
The third component of being curious is, to ask questions, to dig deeper.
It seems like a child’s mantra could be but why, but why, but why?
My son, at around 3, began questioning everything. Why is the fridge cold? Why do I have to wear shoes? Why is it raining? Answering these questions required me to stop and think, with each possible answer having the potential to lead to three or more further questions. “You wear shoes so that your feet don’t hurt running on the path”. “But why does the path hurt my feet?” Because it is cement and really hard and your feet are soft”. “ Why are my feet soft?” “Hmmm…?”
This line of questioning and answering, as ridiculous as it becomes, also has the potential to change the way we see the ordinary. What we as adults take for granted, children pick apart and scrutinize. Their learning becomes our learning as we explore ways in which to describe concepts to them. In being asked to explain the world we have grown accustomed to, we reconnect with it.
Looking at our surroundings with child’s eyes opens up opportunities for us to learn. Even the familiar day-to-day objects, a box of cereal, the bathtub or birds singing in the garden, offer discoveries. Where does the water go when I pull the plug? What are these ingredients on the side of the box? What kind of bird song is that? Asking questions is vital to growth and learning.
Curiousity is a gift. It turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, boredom into possibilities.
Standing in line at the grocery store can be a good opportunity to practice being curious. Rather than stressing at the minutes wasted, cursing under your breath at choosing the wrong line, try noticing what the person in front is buying, imagine what they might be eating that night.
Find out the name of the checkout assistant, who is the person behind the job title?
How are you feeling being in a slow moving line? Extend being curious to looking at your own experience. What is going on for you? We assume we know ourselves, but perhaps there is more to discover?
Simple curiousity can bring us more in touch with the present moment and away from the need to be elsewhere. Children are great teachers if we allow ourselves to learn.
I encourage you to slow down, let go of knowing and ask questions.
Be curious
Thanks Jesse!!
http://www.silverbirchcounselling.ca/
