A little over a week ago I was chatting with a woman and answering her questions about the work I do. What struck me was the amount of questions she had. No matter what I shared with her she kept throwing questions at me. At some point I realized she was really needing to have an intellectual understanding around everything I said. And some of the conversation taking place went beyond intellect and required a willingness to just allow the information to be there without an immediate understanding.
She told me she was just a curious person and liked to gather as much information as possible in all areas of her life. In that moment it occurred to me there's a distinction between questioning vs. curiosity.
Questioning is a process of collecting data so you can figure things out and understand things from an intellectual place. It's a process that requires solid answers.
Curiosity is a more organic and relaxed process. We can ask from a place of curiosity and simply accept the answer we're hearing in the moment without having to have it all figured out. It's a way of taking in information and saying, "Oh, that's really interesting!" Then we simply allow ourselves to let what we've just heard find it's way naturally into our being. It comes more from a feeling place than a mind place.
The next time you find yourself asking a lot of questions with something you aren't quite getting, see if you can shift into curiosity and not have to figure it all out or make perfect sense in that very moment.
Heck of a job there, it absoutlely helps me out.
Posted by: Emily | December 19, 2011 at 10:01 PM