Curiosity Heals?!

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I’ve been teaching a curiosity theme in my yoga classes for several years now and I’m always surprised by how powerfully students are struck by this offering. Kind of funny for me to be continually surprised, as diving into understanding and practicing curiosity had such a powerful effect on my life!

In yoga we seek to expand ourselves. Our bodies, our hearts, our minds. Curiosity makes this endeavor possible.

When my depression moves in my whole being tightens and contracts. My thinking gets stuck in loops of negativity that can feel impossible to break free from. The practice of bringing curiosity to my experience has had a powerful effect. By loosening tight spaces in the loops of the negatively biased mind, and opening my mind to multiple perspectives, curiosity allows a new story to come on board, a story that is life enhancing. Curiosity opens my mind and my heart to my experience. This makes space for compassion and acceptance to arise, creating the conditions for healing. Curiosity also increases dopamine to enhance positive feelings by giving us drive, longing, desire…qualities of energy hard to access when depression is on board.

When my mind would get stuck in Anxiety, planning, practicing, and plotting multiple negative future outcomes, curiosity would pierce the pattern on the spot. Since curiosity is antithetical to fear, curiosity became a powerful antidote to my fear based way of thinking!

When I was in pain, my mind would be constantly predicting and assuming activities and movement would always hurt. But when I opened to curiosity, in each moment I could open to the possibility that my prediction was not going to come true. This showed me again and again how inaccurate my predictions were! I used to getting regular crippling muscle spasms in my feet and toes. I could feel a tightening sensation start to build that often preceded the spasms. My mind would assume that spasms were going to happen and so they did, again and again and again. When I started to get really curious about this “preceding” sensation and just stayed with that in the present moment, I found that my foot did not always spasm! That practice dialed down this habit in my body and my foot spasms went away.

Curiosity is healing!

Curiosity is seen as a core quality of the Self, like compassion, confidence, clarity and others (see here). Yoga is a path to coming to know your Self. One of yoga’s 8 limbs, the niyamas, or observances, personal contracts, invitations…is Svādhyāya. The root sva means self and adhyāya means lesson, lecture or reading. Svādhyāya is the practice of coming to know yourself through self study, self observation, by making yourself a lesson. It is mindfulness. Not knowing is ignorance, and ignorance leads to suffering. Curiosity shines the light on your unknowing offering you freedom from the pain of suffering, and this is healing!

If you are indifferent or disinterested there is no learning about yourself or others, and your relationships suffer. Without curiosity, we stay stuck in our old patterns, self limiting thoughts, habits, and beliefs. These are called samskaras in yoga. According to cognitive neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about five (5) percent of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behavior depends on the 95 percent of brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness (Marianne Szegedy-Maszak).

Your unconscious is making your everyday decisions!

When we get curious we can shine the light of awareness on these hidden motivators in our unconscious mind. And no need to make any value judgments here. Your mind’s natural negativity bias is in service to your survival, as are these conditioned pathways…you save tons of energy not having to learn how to walk again everyday! However, if we care about our suffering and desire freedom from it, self study and mindfulness sourced in curiosity are necessary.

You might see curiosity as a trait. This or that person is curious and I’m just not. I used to think that. But children are born naturally curious of their environment. It turns out my environment growing up wasn’t supportive of being curious…”curiosity killed the cat! Mind your business. Do what you are told and don’t ask questions.” My conditioning made my natural curiosity hide in my unconscious! So although curiosity can be a trait, as in some folks are born more curious, like Einstein who wrote, “I’m neither clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious,”

Curiosity is also a state.

It is an emotion we can practice, invite, and invoke. We can become super interested in our moment to moment experience. We can explore that sensation and see where it might lead this time. We can inquire into our thoughts and question them, are they true? Is there any other possibility? Curiosity invites playfulness, a wider perspective, space for a new story, wisdom, and connects you to your passions and desires. With curiosity you can open to an exploratory life that heals!

When you practice curiosity your heart opens and you recognize your true nature, your capital “S” self, that is joyful, expansive, and curious. Your recognition of this in your heart and in all hearts is the highest purpose of yoga.

“Curiosity is the spark plug that ignites other factors that contribute to happiness and meaning in your life. You can’t work with your strengths until you spot them and investigate them. You can’t be grateful without being curious about what benefits you’ve received in your life. Curiosity points the way to an exploring spirit that leads to wonderment, joy, and meaning.”

~Todd Kashdan

You can find a free resource on Mindfulness in Every day life on my website.

It is with imperfect humility that I share these yoga teachings and offer my most sincere gratitude to my teachers; my Guru; her teachers; the lineage of teachers; rishis; yogis; yoginis; and sages who have so generously shared this vidya (wisdom teachings) with us for our great benefit. It is truly a great gift. Shri matre namaha!

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Remember: this post is for informational purposes only and may not be the best fit for you and your personal situation. It shall not be construed as medical advice. The information and education provided here is not intended or implied to supplement or replace professional medical treatment, advice, and/or diagnosis. Always check with your own physician or medical professional before trying or implementing any information read here.