The Gift of Curiosity
The Gifts Healing Brings to Ourselves and the World
The Gift of Curiosity
See the note at the end for an explanation of this series!
A strong desire to know or learn something new about a topic,
situation or person in a non-judgmental way.
To have a sense of wonder about the world and how things work.
—IFS Source—
If I were to name the one gift that best enabled me to heal, it would be the gift of curiosity. All children are born curious—it is another birthright. It is also the most likely of all the gifts to be hampered by trauma.
In the book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, Peter A. Levine and Ann Frederick made the connection between hypervigilance and the loss of joy. “Hypervigilant people are keyed to a state of intense alertness at all times and may actually develop a slightly furtive or fearful, open-eyed appearance due to this constant watchfulness. There is a growing tendency to see danger where there is none, and a diminished capacity to experience curiosity, pleasure, and the joy of life. All of this occurs because, at the core of our beings, we simply do not feel safe.”
It is possible that curiosity needed to be discussed before clarity since clarity cannot be achieved without being curious. The greatest clarity was realizing that nothing was wrong with me, bad things had happened to me. But oddly, the perfectly constructed story of my life did not seem to have an adequate number of bad things that would explain the messy me who showed up to therapy.
Slowly I began to realize that what I was calling triggers were actually clues. Accepting triggers with curiosity helped me to overcome the fear of digging deeply into my story. The ultimate goal was clarity, but I had to understand the story my subconscious buried to get there.
“What is wrong with me?” is a shaming question. “What happened to me?” is a curious question. Being curious about myself enabled me to make sense of myself and has allowed me to become more curious and less judgmental toward others. It might be possible to do our best to give unconditional care to others from a heart filled with self-judgment but patience will often wear thin.
Curiosity also enabled me to absorb all the information I possibly could about the impact of trauma. Ten years ago, this information was not nearly as accessible as it is now. The book, The Body Keeps the Score, was published in 2015—one year after I began therapy. The publishing dates of the following books that I most often recommended books—except for the last one which was way before its time—were all published since I began therapy in 2014. It was necessary to be curious—and determined—to learn what I needed to understand.
For those who had nurturing healthy childhoods, curiosity was celebrated and rewarded. Maybe not when you dared to sneak a peek at a present before Christmas. Or maybe you were found shaking the present? Or trying to wrest the secret from someone? Even then, the curiosity was not shamed and the adults secretly wanted to do the same. They curtailed the investigations with a wink.
For others, none of these scenarios fit. It may be that the gift of curiosity you were given at birth was shamed and buried. Yet, it is the most important gift for healing and showing compassion to others. Curiosity is your birthright. It can be diminished, but it is not lost. You can dare to begin being curious once again. There is so much more to enjoy when you allow the curious child inside of you to thrive!
As I healed, I was surprised to find that deep inside of me was a remarkable human being. Shame and religion had taught me something entirely different. It taught me that I was unworthy, flawed, and some would say, wicked. When introduced to the “8 Cs of Self Leadership”—a core concept of Internal Family Systems (IFS)—I recognized a me that had always been there but often got buried underneath layers of pain and trauma-based coping strategies. Un-layering this me was a gift I gave to myself and it has enabled me to give hope to others. For the eight days leading up to and including Christmas, I will be writing about each of these gifts that I treasure every day: Calmness, Clarity, Curiosity, Compassion, Confidence, Courage, Creativity, and Connectedness. These gifts, handed to us at birth, were intended to be opened in safe, nurturing childhoods but it is never too late to open the gift.