The Power of Curiosity
Have you ever noticed how expansive a child’s sense of wonder is? You might spot a young child in a park awestruck by a ladybug. They study it with such presence, interest, and delight. They haven’t yet been fully steeped with cultural messages that bugs are gross, scary, uncool, or unimportant. They have an openness to discovering without any preconceived notions. This kind of presence makes curiosity, and its gifts, possible.
For many adults, it’s difficult to relate to the openness of this child. Some might even relate more to the bug, feeling that there are emotions, reactions, or parts within themselves that feel socially undesirable and would garner judgment from the outside world. Much like we would relate to a bug, our first reaction might be to shoo these parts of ourselves away rather than to get to know them. Just as the bug is an essential part of our ecosystem, so too are these emotions, reactions, and parts an essential part of our own internal system.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a type of therapy that focuses on getting to know all the parts that make up who we are, including the ones we might not always like. In IFS, we connect with these parts from an open-hearted place, which often begins with curiosity. We do this not so we can outsmart, dominate, banish, or fix these parts. The latter can feel invalidating and sometimes produce the opposite effect that was intended. For the child that is enraptured and open to the ladybug, they’re not going to accuse the ladybug of being wrong or try to convince them to be a different way. Instead, the child has space to understand the ladybug from an unbiased place.
So what does this open-hearted curiosity look like? How can we begin to extend this kind of presence to ourselves? You can start by slowing down, taking a few deep breaths, and exploring your present experience through some of these reflections:
What do you notice right now?
What is happening in your mind? There could be an inner dialogue, you might see different images, or even watch scenes playing out of things that have or haven’t happened. Or you might notice your mind is especially quiet and inactive.
Where do you feel sensation in your body? You might notice sensation in your forehead, jaw, neck, chest, stomach, pelvis, hands, feet, or any other area of the body. You might notice sensation on the front, back, or side of your body. Perhaps even feeling like the sensation extends past your body, like a cloud surrounding you. Or you might feel none of these things and instead notice a complete lack of sensation and feel disconnected, numb, or apathetic.
What are the qualities of these physical sensations? The sensations might feel heavy or light, tight or loose, motionless or expanding, hot or cold, ambiguous or defined, sharp or dull, or anywhere in between.
What emotions are coloring your experience? You might have a sense of overwhelm, grief, excitement, fear, anger, sadness, peacefulness, shock, confusion, nothingness, or any other emotion present.
After noticing what is here for you, ask yourself “How do I feel toward this sensation/experience/emotion?” There might be dislike, shame, fondness, curiosity, feeling indifferent, or any number of other reactions. If you are feeling open-hearted curiosity, continue to be with whatever came up during the first reflection. If you notice another reaction coming up, like the need to fix or get away from the feeling, you can then repeat the reflection exercise to be curious and get to know this new experience that is coming up.
This reflection is actually one of the first steps of getting to know the different parts of yourself through Internal Family Systems therapy. The process of being curious about each reaction that surfaces provides a wealth of information about things you're concerned about, how you protect yourself, what you need, as well as an opportunity to understand yourself more fully.
Sometimes extending this open-hearted curiosity to what you are feeling is comforting. It can feel validating to welcome and accept the present experience exactly as it is. Other times it might increase the intensity of that experience and offer clarification of parts of you that have unmet needs or are struggling that could benefit from further attention in therapy. Both of these are valuable outcomes. So after you finish reading or the next time you notice yourself having a particular reaction, this can be an invitation to be like the child in the park noticing the ladybug. To slow down, take a few deep breaths, and see where the power of curiosity can take you.
Erin Sathyamoorthy is a Self Space Seattle therapist who specializes in working with people who feel stuck in negative beliefs about themselves, live with high levels of shame, or have experienced abuse.