What is expanding your mind this week? What are you curious about? To what extent are you seeking greater cognitive and behavioural exploration of the world in which you live?
And what sort of a question is that anyway?!
‘Tis not my question. The drive for constant ‘cognitive and behavioural exploration’ of both our external and internal worlds is a key feature of those who are highly creative, according to research from the Imagination Institute at Pennsylvania University. (Who knew there even was such a thing?!)
What does that actually mean? It is about being curious, and open and willing to try different things in a quest for new and mind-expanding experiences. Who knows what ideas might then spark off and ignite into something extraordinary.
It is about learning to ask more questions – why am I feeling like that? What is actually going on here? What emotions are rattling around in this situation? What was here before? How else could this be done?
It is about noticing and paying attention to things that we might normally bypass in our busyness or elsewhere-focus, and stopping to ponder.
Daydreaming and stillness both fit in here. There is a common theme of letting go of plans, structures, expectations and preconceived ideas, and being open, present, free to go off on tangents, purely for the fun of it.
I am by nature quiet curious. Nosy, you might even say.
What happens if you poke this? Or go down here? What does this taste like? How high can I climb up that?”
I am very curious about people, and especially their internal worlds, their stories. Motives, values, behaviour driven by past experiences – all are bread and butter for a life coach.
And I like to think that I am quite curious about life in general, and open to new experiences and sensations. But when I stop and really consider, I am much less open than I would like to admit.
My suspicions are that I am not alone in that.
What stops us being completely open to and willing to seek out new experiences?
I think there are a couple of key things going on under the surface. And my understanding of them is challenging me to be more aware of my own blinkers to curiosity.
Firstly, fear stops us being curious.
That might seem like an awfully harsh and bold statement. But how often do we like to stay in our comfort zone?
To remain with what is safe, familiar, known? This is comfortable, ensures that avoid being put in the position of not knowing how to handle a situation, or worse, being exposed for being the fraud that we sometimes feel we are.
[People might see through me and see that I am not really any good at this, whatever it is – so goes our inner dialogue.]
If we know what is expected of us in any given situation, then we can prepare our behaviour and responses accordingly.
Open up the new, different, challenging, different – and we risk being all at sea.
But what do we stand to miss out on? What opportunities for creative exploration and expression might be lost that would have lent richness and understanding to ourselves and our lives? Allowed us to be vulnerable, lent understanding that we become more self aware, learn and grow within our vulnerability?
We can learn instead to ask – what am I afraid of here? What is the worst thing that could happen? What might I gain from dipping my toe into the waters of the unknown, rather than staying firmly in the lifeboat of my comfort zone?
Secondly, dogmatic or closed mindsets stop us being curious.
“This is how it is….
This is how it has always been….
My way is the right way….
My way is the only way…
We’ve always done it like this…
Why can’t everyone else see it like this?
Sometimes we limit ourselves from trying out a new idea or solution because we are convinced that our way is right. Pride is an issue here. Insecurity too – risk of our way being exposed as not necessarily the only or the best way. This also comes back to fear. What are we most afraid of? Perhaps having the certainty in our views – views that might in part make up our identity – called into question. Or having a new way opened up to us that stretches our understanding of what can be done, and challenges us to rewrite our own paradigms.
Instead we can learn to ask:
You see this differently from me. I’m curious – help me see what you see.”
Or, to step out of the normal rut of how things are always done, and try a different path that might offer new and creative solutions that we had not considered before.
What do we stand to lose by not being curious? And what do we stand to gain?