At the year draws to a close and we look toward a new President and new year, it’s more important than ever that we notice whether we make this journey with a focus on curiosity or on fear.  With curiosity as our constant companion, we can experience an openness to what the future may bring.  If not comfort, we at least can find a way to meet the future without overwhelm, without the added stress of imagined disasters.  When we travel with fear, however, we constrict into

As part of this week’s experiment, I’d like to invite you to play with something for a minute – something I think I’ve probably invited you to explore in the past, as well.  Take a moment and bring to mind something about which you are curious – the way a child might be curious to see a butterfly on a flower.  As you connect with curiosity, notice what happens in your body.  As a rule, curiosity moves our energy outward, into the environment, in an experience of opening to what’s around us.  Take a moment and notice the sensations of curiosity as they emerge in your body.

Next, bring to mind something that elicits fear.  You may decide to focus on the current financial crisis or some other thing that elicits fear in you.  Don’t choose something too big.  I don’t want to invite you to overwhelm yourself – just to have a sense of what happens in your body when you tap into fear.  Generally, fear constricts us, forces us to draw inside ourselves and disconnect from our environment.  At the very least, fear generates stress.  Notice what happens in your body when you focus on fear.

Next, go back to curiosity.  Either bring to mind what you touched on before, or allow some new focus of curiosity to emerge and notice what happens in your body.  Take whatever time you need to allow yourself to reconnect with the open relationship to the outside world that spontaneously emerges when you’re truly connected to your capacity to be curious.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to focus on curiosity as your constant companion as an ongoing state of mind.  In almost every experiment, I end it with this invitation and, for this week, we’re bringing curiosity into the foreground of what we’re about.  For example, if you find yourself feeling afraid of something that’s off in the future, or frightened of something that emerges in the present, play with what happens when you shift to curiosity, to whatever degree you’re able to do that.  Each time you slip back into the fear, make a conscious decision to go back to curiosity. 

This becomes an ongoing mindfulness practice and offers an opportunity for you to have a vivid, sensory-based experience of the impact of both curiosity and fear on your life.  Remember, as with all the experiments, there’s no right or wrong way to do this one.  It’s an invitation to offer yourself a deeper understanding of the impact of fear and the gift of curiosity.