The Power of Being Curious
Why Curiosity is Key in Living a Mentally Healthy Life
In founding The Curious Psych, I wanted to create a therapeutic space that felt safe for people to explore their challenges in self-compassionate ways. It takes courage to recognise that something isn't working for you, and to be vulnerable enough to reach out for support. I respect this greatly. So, the name of my practice mattered. I'm a naturally curious person, and I witness the power of adopting a curious mindset in the people I work with everyday.
Curiosity helps people to separate from challenges just enough to view the experience a little differently. When we adopt a curious lens, we open our minds to deeper insights, and it becomes easier to develop genuine compassion for what we have been through. It is a powerful and natural emotional tool, and a great step toward living a calm and centered life. The Curious Psych aligned with this vision. So, welcome to The Curious Psych blog!What does it mean to be curious?
Curiosity is a foundational quality underlying what it is to be human. In the context of mental wellbeing, curiosity can be broadly defined as the desire to pay attention and learn more about an experience. Extending on this definition, curiosity is about going deeper to understand, question, explore and show interest in how the mind and body respond to an experience. Curiosity inspires a sense of wonder and openmindedness, free of an agenda to see what we want or expect to see. Emotion researcher, Brene Brown, describes curiosity as involving both emotion and cognition, an internal experience that goes beyond thinking and learning.
What does curiosity look like?
When we are curious about what we feel, think or do, we are emotionally invested in resolving a gap in our understanding. We desire to understand an experience in deep and holistic ways. We pause, zoom out, take a step back, reflect, wonder and explore an aspect of ourselves in all of its facets. Like a metaphorical drone that hovers over and around an experience, taking snapshots from all angles.
Curiosity inspires us to widen our focus and to consider new and creative perspectives, solutions and opportunities. When we are curious about how we feel, we ask our beliefs, judgements and assumptions to step aside, so we can explore our emotions from a broader perspective. This allows us to reflect on how our emotions fit with the story we are telling ourselves in the moment, as we take a breath, notice, reflect and weigh up how this experience aligns with our values, goals and needs.
We are curious beings
Contemporary research in neurobiology, attachment, memory and emotion can help to unpack the role of curiosity in supporting our mental health. As a species, we are biologically primed to make meaning of our experiences, so that we may predict and prepare for what's next. It's all about self-protection. In each moment, our nervous systems pay attention to our sensory experiences, or what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch (exteroception), and what we sense about our internal needs (interoception). Our minds then need to make meaning of this information to guide a response. All of this happens in an instant, and outside of the conscious mind. We can't know the future, so our minds consult lessons of the past, our memory networks. The moments that wrote the stories we currently believe about ourselves, others and the world.
Stories about our connections with others, our physical and emotional safety, our sense of power, autonomy and control, and our sense of worth are constantly being revised and edited deep in our minds. This is highly unique to each individual, as our stories are constructed moment to moment, through personal histories, family legacies, important relationships and our unique experiences. The parts of our nervous system that hold these stories, alert us when they predict emotional pain and actively influence our response are called our protectors.
We are curious from day one
In order to survive, infants depend on care from competent adults who are invested in meeting their needs. These needs include food and drink, warmth and shelter, protection from danger, emotional support and stability, and feeling accepted, important and wanted. Young children are naturally curious about themselves and their world. They are driven to actively question, take risks and explore as they seek to make meaning of their experiences. Patterns in how an infant's needs are met (their attachment experiences), and in how they feel about what happens to, within and around them, provide the foundation for their future emotional, cognitive, social and internal experiences.
If you felt rejected, disconnected, powerless or unsafe when your foundation was formed, this might sound hopeless. However, this is not the end of the story. With each new experience, the brain is constantly reviewing, refining and editing these narratives through a process called ‘neural pruning’. Importantly, this process is influenced by our confirmation bias, or our internal drive to pay attention to information that confirms what we already believe. It's all part of our protective system. When we are driven by our confirmation bias and existing beliefs, we can get stuck in repetitive loops of thinking, feeling and behaving, making change difficult. Curiosity plays a crucial role here, enabling us to take notice of more adaptive or corrective experiences that challenge what we already believe to be true, thus providing opportunities for change.Curiosity helps us to heal
Here's where curiosity becomes important. In childhoods where our needs were not consistently met, we can be guided by old stories that predict danger, insecurity and disconnection, and we can find it hard to pay attention to healthier, corrective experiences. Sometimes these fears may drive us to have unmet childhood needs met in adulthood. When our fears influence our choices, we may behave in ways that feel out of our control (e.g., impulsivity, emotional dysregulation), resulting in uncomfortable emotions like shame and guilt. Our inner perfectionists, people pleasers, catastrophisers and critics make the choices about how we 'should' feel and behave, out of fear we could be seen as not enough, unimportant, a failure or a dissapointment. This can conflict with what we really want and need, unless we become curious to reflect on the stories these parts of our nervous system hold.
When we step back, reflect and become curious about the stories we hold, we begin reflecting on these narratives, bringing conscious awareness to them. We give our minds opportunities to reflect on adult skills, knowledge, resources and agency. And we are more likely to pay attention to corrective experiences, increasing opportunities to edit old stories that are no longer based in reality. This creates space to develop compassion for our protectors as we move toward ways of living that align with the life we really want. It all starts with being curious.
How can I be more curious?
The next time you notice an uncomfortable feeling, thought or body sensation, turn your full attention toward what you feel. Start with something a little uncomfortable, but tolerable.
Ask your beliefs, assumptions, judgements and opinions to kindly take a step to the side. Pause, take a breath and ask yourself:
- “Why am I feeling this right now?”
- "What do I need in this moment?"
- “What story is my mind telling me right now?”
- "How am I interpreting this experience?"
- "What else could this uncomfortable feeling be trying to tell me?"
- "What could this feeling tell me about my values, goals, needs and wants?"
Resources
Crisis Support Information
If you live in Australia, and you or someone you know requires mental health support, please contact any of the services below:
- Your regular General Practitioner
- Your local Emergency Department
- Ambulance 000
- Lifeline 131114
- Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636
- Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800
- Parentline 13 22 89