Growth doesn’t require a crisis
Why I don't subscribe to the pain-as-prerequisite myth
Edited from an episode of my podcast. You can listen on Apple Pods & Spotify
You don’t need pain to change your mind or change your life.
Sometimes you can just ask better questions.
Quite often, I recite my core values – I have them written on flashcards with the word on the front and my definition/inclusions on the back. And the one for Play has always been the least fleshed out. We can discuss the implications of another time…
My Play card just has 2 phrases written on the back: “Eternal child” and “What if this was fun?”
But something about the word “fun” has not been sitting well with me lately. It just feels a little hollow, lacking a sort of umami punch if you will.
So I was brainstorming what about “fun” moves toward the thing I actually want? And came to this question: What if I were curious about this?
It has opened a beautiful can of worms, which I will unpack with you now!
Curiosity & Objective Truth
When I am experimenting or questioning an idea, a process, a project, etc… I essentially put it in a container and I direct my attention to it. I shake it around, I ask questions, I test assumptions, and I have a very open mind. Within that container.
But when I feel satisfied with my findings (or plainly get bored) and come to a conclusion, I pretty much hold that perception as THE truth until the next time I choose to experiment around the topic again.
I make my chosen beliefs based on the results and I just put that in the back pocket of my mind until a situation draws my attention to it and requires that I rethink my current assumption.
This is a cognitive function that we all share, though to varying degrees. We cannot hold every single entity, thought, system we encounter under intense scrutiny all the time. It would be exhausting.
More often than not there are only a few topics at a time that we hold in the forefront of our mind, that we’re willing to challenge and be curious about in a given season. Everything else, we’re comfortable enough to trust our assumptions/perception about until something comes up that makes you rethink it.
Perfect example is toothpaste. Presumably, you don’t wake up everyday thinking about what brand of toothpaste you should choose. You have the one you use – possibly the same one you’ve used since you were a kid– and you’re perfectly fine with that. Nothing to be curious about.
However, if you develop sensitive teeth or discover the onset of gum disease, you may need to spend some time figuring out which toothpaste brand to use now. Because there’s new information that requires attention and action. So you’ll spend a season testing & discovering new toothpastes (or your dentist will tell you what to try) and during this time, you’re thinking about and questioning a lot of what you thought about toothpaste before this.
Another example is before I sprained my ankle in October, I was never particularly curious about my feet. The assumptions were my ankle supports me, I can sit like this easy peasy, when I jump it can support this much weight. But once I sprained it, none of that was true anymore. Everyday, i was testing what it could handle.
Over the months, I’ve had to continuously be curious about my ankle, because none of that info from pre-sprain is a given anymore. Until I reach homeostasis, I’m going to be questioning and testing a lot. Once I get to a point of stability though, I’ll probably stop thinking about my ankle as much as I do now.
Why This Matters
Why is the question “what if I was curious about this” is so important?
Because it puts you back in an open mindset. That question acts as an internal catalyst to bring you into the experimentation mindset rather than being pushed into it by external force.
When you decide to be curious about something, It necessitates that you don’t take your existing assumptions as fact anymore. It creates the mental space for you to hold your beliefs loosely. You can view the “underlying truths” of the current reality with scrutiny. Which is really valuable when you’re building a new world for example.
It invites an openness that allows you to see what is currently true or what you believe to be true as just one option of many possibilities. And i think it’s a good way to look at a familiar situation with fresh eyes, critical eyes.
So consider that question when you want to re-shape your relationship with anything. Using it allows you to direct what thoughts shift you into a new paradigm, rather than waiting for some external mishap that forces you into the change.
I’m not opposed to external pushes, I just don’t subscribe to the idea that the only way to initiate growth is through pain. I think sometimes you can just decide you’d like to grow.
Much love,
Athena