Exploring Curiosity: The Key to Unlocking Life's Hidden Opportunities

Sep 29, 2023

How curious would you say you were?

Im Just Curious Bree Washington GIF - Im Just Curious Bree Washington First Wives Club GIFs

Curiosity is one of the character strengths that is correlated with life satisfaction and feeling good; the other strengths being hope, zest, gratitude and love1.

Yes, folks, this week’s emotion in the Permission to Feel series is curiosity.

You may have grown up with the saying, ‘Curiosity killed the cat’, which doesn’t exactly portray curiosity in a good light... unless you dislike cats.

Incidentally, that saying apparently originated in a play written by Ben Johnson and adapted by William Shakespeare in 1598.

Sure, what did they know?

I’m all for curiosity, but it does come with a caveat.

Engaging curiosity is a vulnerable step, because we are entering into the unpredictable.

“The definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”
Brené Brown.

Being curious could lead to discovering things that we would rather not… but it’s also a doorway to opportunity and progression.

To be curious, we have to feel safe; to know that, whatever our curiosity may uncover, we will manage to survive it and work through it.

I’m tempted to offer tips on how to be curious, but to be honest I’d just be regurgitating something I found on ChatGPT. Do you really need me to tell you to ‘stay open minded’ or ‘take a new route to work’?

How about I show you how curiosity has worked for me?

A few years ago I did a show called ‘Light in life’s shadows’ which was really about the messiness of being human. It morphed into existence after an abysmal trip to Winchester literary festival.

I had had an inner narrative of ‘I don’t get to’ when it came to be writing; the full story being, ‘I don’t get to be published.’

Well, I don’t want to live life in the cradle of my limiting beliefs, so I decided to throw my hat into the ring and I sent my ‘Fake News Fairy Tales’ to 3 literary agents at this festival for their ~~slating~~ perusal.

I had created the stories of ‘untold characters’ from fairy tales - the mattress seller in Princess and the Pea, or the cobbler in Cinderella, for example.

Under researched and overly enthusiastic I went from agent to agent peddling my wares. The first agent said my stories were too confusing, the second said my tales were too unoriginal and the third agent said that they were just… not worth the bother and to go back to my day job.

I came home and felt a bit foolish for an afternoon and wrote a poem called Bitterness. Now, you could think that that is a little tale of curiosity neatly tied up in a bow with a label that says, ‘Don’t bother’. I was curious about whether I could get an agent or not, I clearly couldn’t QED curiosity doesn’t work.

And yet…

I rooted down into that feeling of bitterness and got curious. You can read that full story here.

Spoiler alert, it led to humility because I connected with the wounded part of me which had formed that limiting ‘I don’t get to’ belief. That helped me to feel seen by the only person who could really help me change.

Me.

Oh, ok, for those among you who are slightly curling your toes at this getting a bit cheesy, I hear ya…

AAAannd get curious about that 😂.

We live in a fast paced filtered world, but messy vulnerability is the ONLY place we can truly connect, with ourselves and with others.

This is the beauty of feelings. Whatever is going on, you can use this feelings wheel to get curious about how you may be filtering your feelings.

The feelings wheel documents the feelings that we can ALL feel, simply by being human.

I know, feeling feelings can be a whole lot of *rather not*, but I really believe that all we need is a feelings roadmap, which has to start with us allowing ourselves to feel whatever we feel.

I use this wheel a lot with my clients because it helps to develop a vocabulary around what we are experiencing and that can create more emotional intimacy and better communication with the people in our lives.

Where has curiosity lead me? To writing and performing two one woman poetry shows, performing at Edinburgh Fringe festival, having my own private practice and… a published book!

Finally, after it already being in the world for 18 months, I had my book launch this Monday!

I had a lovely evening with two other authors in which we discussed our journey into the publishing world. We all had similar stories of difficulties with agents and publishing houses (one story was that the publisher went bust just before the author’s book was printed).

We all had a similar desire to get our work out into the world because we felt that it could entertain or help people, not because we wanted to be a ‘published author’.

We all self-published, and whilst that used to carry labels of ‘vanity publishing’ it is now a legitimate path for writers who are overshadowed in the publishing world by celebrities who can guarantee publishers a return on their investment because of their audience reach.

Yes, being curious is a vulnerable process but then so is living!

Oh crikey, I nearly forgot again, here is my poem for this week based on the theme of curiosity. If we are curious then we can see behind the labels we not only give others, but also give ourselves.