Always Be Curious
As a therapist, my job is often to help my clients slow down long enough to recognize their own thoughts or habits or relationship patterns. We move so quickly through life, especially us always-busy Americans, that we don't stop to make helpful connections and think through the moments that really could have the power to change things for the better.
I am always learning from those who have gone before me in this field, and from other gentle souls I meet along the way. If you watch some videos of Gabor Mate you can see his pace is slow and grace-filled. Listening to him reminds me of another favorite human of mine, Fred Rogers, host of the kids' show I watched when I was little. Their pace of speaking and the hospitable space they create for others to just be fully themselves - all emotions welcome - always challenges me to slow down. I’ve been working at having more of that energy.
Viktor Frankl is another expert I wish I could chat with over a coffee. A psychologist and Austrian survivor of Holocaust camps, he may have said it best when he explained “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”. He also said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way”.
If we can mimick this kind of pace - the pace we love to feel sitting in nature, like watching waves crash onto the beach or looking at the stars - we can turn even the smallest moments into a pause long enough to change our perspectives, attitudes, and reactions. In conversations, or when you feel the emotions building, practice a PAUSE and NOTICE what your emotions and thoughts are.
“...the last of human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Ask CURIOUS questions, not condemning ones: ‘What am I feeling? How am I talking to myself in my head about this? What am I needing right now?’ Curiosity kills shame and creates a growth environment. You can insert some curiosity into the situation and respond in a way where your needs are better understood and maybe even met.
Always be curious about your emotions. Honor them with your attention. Behind every emotion there is an insight, and each insight brings us a little more clarity, self-compassion, and relief.
Pause.
Notice.
Be curious.
And give yourself some Mr. Rogers-type grace to figure it out.
Take care,
Angie
Curiosity will bring you more answers than judgement.
