Three Ways to Drop Into Curiosity
A Reconsider Reflection on Playful Shifts and Letting Go
Curiosity is surprisingly easy to access.
However, there are times when being open, present, and exploring the moment just doesn’t feel easy.
We might:
• Get tight
• Shut down
• Brace or feel we want to retreat
• Forget to wonder and play
In these moments, what we need is not to “think” our way through… that will never work. The mind likes to keep us mulling on stuff, over and over.
What we can do is remember that we always have an invitation.
An invitation to choose:
• To be more playful
• To surrender and move out of the struggle
• To not take ourselves or life too seriously
It can be a gentle nudge that says: It’s okay to let go…
At Reconsider, we’ve found a few things that might help.
Here are three simple techniques you can explore from the Playbook that can help you reconnect with curiosity, especially when you are feeling stuck. Even really stuck!
1. Radical Amazement
Remember: we don’t even know what it means to be human. Give yourself and life a break and just remember how crazy it is to even be alive.
Start here: You’re alive. Right now. Against all odds.
The probability of being here, on this spinning rock, in this body, is almost zero.
And yet here you are.
Looking up at the sky, we can stop to connect to the moon and the stars and the billions of years that they have been on their journey. Let yourself feel that, remember that, and take a deep breath to just let go.
Notice if anything changes. Sometimes something ordinary becomes extraordinary by just noticing it: the sound of wind, the warmth of your hands, the flicker of light on a wall. It is amazing that any of it exists.
Radical amazement is the practice of remembering that everything is a miracle. That life is miraculous, ALL OF IT!
This is not about thinking your way into gratitude.
It is about letting awe find you… when you stop long enough to notice.
We are specks on a speck traveling through space. Our lives are but a small spark in this grand experience. And yet we have the gift to feel that what happens in our lives is important. That is AMAZING!
• When was the last time you felt the awe of life?
• What do you love about life?
• What do you find amazing?
• What do you find so important?
2. Stop, Drop and Roll
This is a phrase we suggest people remember when they find themselves in situations that just don’t feel good.
When you notice you are in a loop such as judging, resisting, overthinking, arguing, or beating yourself or someone else up, try this:
Stop: Pause. Interrupt the momentum. Stop talking, be silent, stop moving, stop thinking, stop creating.
Drop: Let the energy in your body go. Surrender. Let the story go, the assumptions, the need to be right or to figure something out. Just open yourself to not knowing.
Roll: Stay present and just notice. Just observe and see if you could begin to wonder… hummm… Be with the moment as it is, accepting it all and being curious. Hummmm… And see what might emerge.
We are lucky. When we let go and surrender, we get to drop into peace. How amazing is that!
All we have to do is let go of our crazy way of doing and thinking and we get to feel peaceful.
3. Play Opossum: When You Are Really Stuck
Yes. Really.
When all else fails, act like an opossum and play dead.
Surrender! GIVE UP!
Fall back on your back, even put your legs and arms up in the air, and just play opossum.
Playing opossum is about stepping out of any struggle.
It is choosing acceptance over resistance and levity over loops.
It is giving up, totally surrendering, and letting go.
And even being able to laugh at yourself for how serious you can be.
Often, when we stop trying so hard, clarity naturally comes through. There is an intelligence that is wiser than we are, waiting for us when we are ready.
These are three ways to play during times when you feel stuck.
As time goes on, it becomes easier to:
• Wonder
• Laugh
• Loosen the grip
• And to PLAY!
“To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Let's play!
