Curiosity didn’t kill the Cat, It made her a better person…
Curiosity — n. 1. a strong desire to know or learn something new about a topic, situation or person 2. to have a sense of wonder about the world and how things work 3. genuinely interested in non-judgmentally understanding something or someone
Always questioning, always learning, curiosity is the foundation of all understanding. Of course it has the ability to empower and further knowledge, but to be curious within a mindful sense is I think one of the greatest tools one can have in the toolbox of their mind.
Most people are stuck in their thoughts, and label every single thought as either good or bad. The good thoughts they engage with, the bad thoughts they suppress. Most people don’t ask why those ‘bad’ thoughts are there, they don’t want to understand them, because they are so emotionally charged. Most people will shut down any form of curiosity toward what they label as negative thoughts as they are not ‘worth’ exploring.
I think this shutting down of negative thoughts and feelings is dangerous, as most of our least compassionate, our most unkind behaviour toward others, stems from negative thoughts and feelings which we don’t even try to understand or engage with at all. What happens then is that the negative thoughts/feelings return over and over again, and can never be defeated, meaning our behaviour never changes and we end up going in circles of hurting those close to us.
For example, say you get in an argument with a close family member, they may be lashing out at you seemingly for no reason. They are feeling negatively and acting on that emotion. Really, underneath it all they may be lashing out because they are stressed from work, or some other reason totally unrelated to you. But because they don’t take the time to explore why they are feeling negatively, they cannot pinpoint that that is the real reason for their aggressiveness toward you, and cannot combat the real issue — the stress at work — because they have ignored it for so long.
I think there are many reasons why people ignore the real reasons for behaviour and thoughts/feelings, but for me I think the most important reason is that it is hard to engage with these thoughts, as humans are so good at labelling everything. One thought pattern I’ve noticed myself falling into often is ‘If I engage with this negative thought and feeling I am a bad person because I shouldn’t be feeling this way, I have a great life I need to suck it up’. But that is where we are wrong, as engaging with a negative thought doesn’t make you inherently bad, it only makes you feel inherently bad if you are judging it negatively. Take away any form of negative judgement and you are left with a desire to understand, which can ultimately empower you to overcome this suffering and potentially the collateral damage you are inflicting on others.
This is why I think every thought, feeling, moral and viewpoint is worthy of understanding, as ultimately the more you understand about why you are the way you are, the more you can become who you want to be.
For years I had struggled mentally. I was always trying to conceal how I was feeling because I was negatively judging every single thought that would come into my head. I was ashamed, meaning every single ‘bad’ thought I had I tried to suppress and ignore. It was agony. It was tiring. It made me so moody, which ultimately was taken out on my closest and dearest people. I was so frustrated all the time that these thoughts were entering that I would treat those around me in such an unkind manner.
It was not until I went to therapy that I started to not feel so ashamed of my thoughts, not so disappointed by every single negative thought that was coming into my head. I started to realise that thoughts were not under my control, they would come and go without any conscious effort from me. I started to have a sense of desire to question why they would come into my head rather than trying to suppress them because I was so disappointed they were there. This was my first glimpse of curiosity of my thoughts.
It was liberating, it was freeing, but I think most of all it was comforting.
Through one of my darkest periods, I remember chatting with one of my closest friends until the early hours of the morning about the hurricane inside my head. I remember that they were one of the first people (outside of therapy of course!), that took a calm, clear and curious approach to my thoughts. They simply would ask in the most soothing, non judgemental manner:
‘Why do you think you feel this?’.
I remember feeling the compassion pouring out of them, because I was not being judged for thinking these negative thoughts, I was not being made to feel as though these thoughts are wrong, I was not being told to stop thinking them. For the first time in my life I was being led to explore them. I was being curious. This curiosity allowed me to understand why I was feeling so many negative thoughts, and ultimately led me to be able to take the first steps in stopping the negative thoughts from being so overpowering. I think simply taking an interest and being curious in others is such a desirable quality, as it can make such a difference to other people. I know being asked in that non-judgemental manner ‘why?’ made the biggest difference to my life, and I encourage you to take the time to actively question those around you (but of course only in a calm and soothing manner), to help them engage and understand themselves a bit better — allowing you to be full of empathy.
To be actively curious about your own mind and toward others’ minds will be the most effective once we have cultivated the first two C-words — calmness and clarity. Within your internal self, if there is no calm, if there is no clarity, how do you expect to be able to engage with what is going on with genuine wonder? Without the calmness and clarity there is likely to be intense emotions clouding your vision, making you act in ways that are likely to stem from a judgemental viewpoint, stopping you from having a yearning to understand the situation. You will start to label all thoughts as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, which ultimately leads to pain.
I think curiosity is one of the most important pillars of mindfulness, as it allows us to be the least judgemental version of ourselves. It allows us to observe, allows us to see what is happening inside our mind without intense emotion, and once we can see what is happening, we can choose to act in a way that is kind, a way that is compassionate… which of course is our next C-word…
Written by Harriet Simmons, July 2021
