The Power Of Curiosity
Mantra For When Things Light Up
“The contrast is on purpose, look for what lies beyond the fireworks.”
Using compassionate curiosity to look deep enough to see how it’s for you.
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“I can’t believe she’s wearing that!” That’s what I heard my brain say as my daughter came downstairs one morning dressed for school.
Then the onslaught of thoughts that sounded all too familiar: How am I going to navigate this? It’s inappropriate, doesn’t she know? What are other people going to say? How did I screw this up?
Then the fireworks, the sensation of energy exploding into a million more thoughts, like sparks from one firework set off a hundred more, and I could feel them light and burn all over my body, forming little fires everywhere.
We all have thoughts about how things should be (not that we’d want to admit it). We keep them close. We are mostly not aware of them, they are part of the stories we tell ourselves, the ones about the ways things should be. We know them by the way they protect us from harm and keep us safe. We use them as guides to our own behavior and oftentimes as a measure of others. We use them to interpret everything.
When our thoughts come into conflict with what we observe in the outside world, our mind responds with this interconnected web of stories about how things have gone wrong. It can be explosive. Your brain then tries to make sense of things, to put things back in order.
And so we feel this intense desire to reinforce what we believe to be true (according to the ‘should' standards) by either trying to change how someone else does or doesn’t do something or judge them accordingly – and ourselves in the process.
WHAT IF?
What if what you experience at these times is part of something greater about you? What if the fireworks are a means of illuminating or bringing light to something deeper in you?
If conflict happens TO you – judgment, the “should” standards – you generally respond by collecting evidence or building solidarity with your current ways of thinking. And everything stays the same.
If conflict happens FOR you – compassionate curiosity – you have the opportunity to see things from a different perspective, to see what lies beyond the fireworks.
What lies beyond the fireworks is awareness. It is the willingness to see what you are thinking and therefore feeling in your body.
What if the fireworks are not by default a reaction to the outside world, but rather a tool for understanding ourselves, a way for personal growth and healing at a deeper level?
So, instead of focusing on changing how someone else does or doesn’t do something, you shift to look at what is happening – for you.
This simple shift in focus changes everything.
Here’s what happened to me.
After I let my brain have a run at all the reasons why I should be angry, upset or disappointed (take your pick, my mind was very busy), something else occurred to me and it came in the form of ‘her perspective’.
What if she was also in the process of finding her way or expressing her thoughts about who she is and how she wants to show up in the world?
And then, this is what my brain had to offer:
She was willing to make mistakes, she was brave.
She was willing to try something new, she was curious.
She was willing to be herself and embrace who she is today, she was loving.
She reminds me of me… wanting to find my way of doing things.
And she reminds me of you… potentially in the process of finding yours.
Our own unique way to be in this world lives within each and every one of us. When we are not aligned with it, it tends to play out in our lives. This is what it means to be human – feeling the friction between who we think we are (or should be) and who we truly are (at a deeper level).
The secret is in the sparks.
The sparks are what we experience when things on the outside bring up a response on the inside – and set off the fireworks. We are quick to argue that what is happening has nothing to do with us and insist that it has everything to do with what is happening out there. This is normal. Our brain is actually wired this way.
The sparks are there to light our way inward. When things come into conflict, they collide for the purposes of bringing attention to something greater, something deeper.
Sparks will fly between opposing thoughts that we hold to be true, and in the awareness we are given the opportunity to see something greater within us that wants to be acknowledged.
This is how we grow.
And heal.
And become.
Curious to look deep enough to see how it’s FOR YOU?
I promise, you won’t get burned.
Sometimes our truest beliefs, the ones that resonate with our core, get buried so deep within our stories we tell that they become very difficult to see. Follow the sparks (the things that light up inside you) and you will discover your self-expansion which you most deeply desire.
You want to know more about what lies beyond the fireworks? I’ve got you covered:
Sign up for a FREE Discovery Call and learn how to live in alignment and what that means. I promise you “Aha!” moments, practical strategies, short-term relief and long-term resilience. I can’t wait to help you get started.
