Radical curiosity is a great power. Over the years, many people in various fields have described the benefits of this approach. In 2017, Bill Nye (the science guy) proposed it as a way to empower people to stop climate change and contribute to a better future. He recommended cultivating curiosity throughout one’s life in order to effectively identify and solve problems.
In 2022, designer and entrepreneur Seth Goldenberg argued that only by encouraging and rediscovering curiosity “can we hope to reinvent our organizations, our politics, and our lives.” This year in his book How to Feel Loved: Five Mindsets That Will Give You More MattersPsychologists Sonia Lyubomirsky and Harry Reiss have identified radical curiosity as one of the five valuable mindsets.
Radical curiosity allows for a kinder, more open, and more interesting exchange between us and other people. For example, it can help to break the division with the most quiet teenager: “This school is bad!” … “How do you mean?” Those four words, repeated in various forms during such a conversation, can give us a wide window into the emotional world of teenagers.
Radical curiosity can also make otherwise difficult conversations with our partners easier: “Your tone used to bother me when we were talking about our budget. I don’t like it when we disagree, so I want to know what you were thinking when you said that.” It’s a non-attacking approach to a difficult issue that allows the partner to explore the topic without getting defensive.
Radical curiosity can encourage productive business conversations: “I disagree with your assessment.” … “Tell me more, how you see the problem?” This allows the discussion to expand and lead to more opportunities.
It occurred to me that in addition to harnessing this superpower to improve our interpersonal world, we can also use it to improve our relationships with ourselves. What if we were close ourselves with radical curiosity? What if we were truly open about our choices, reactions, and desires? What if we could look at it in an objective and non-objective way? The challenge is to live our lives without our usual assumptions, expectations, and comparisons; how to overcome the obstacles in the way of maintaining this mentality. Important to this effort are:
Be aware of your critical inner voice
Our self-defeating thoughts stem from deep-seated critical attitudes we have internalized toward ourselves. In a sense, our self-concept is divided between this “opposite self” and our real self. Our true self is formed by the nurturing experiences in which we identify with the positive qualities of caregivers and their caring behaviors, while our anti-self comes from the opposite—those painful experiences in which we have observed or experienced critical, abusive, or angry interactions. These rooted critical inner voices have helped to shape our sense of identity, which is a false identity because it does not reflect who we really are, that is, who we would be in the absence of these attacks.
We can identify our critical inner voice with certain ways of thinking. For example, it creates assumptions (“You’ve always been shy. You don’t do well in interviews”), raises expectations (“You should be making more money at this stage in your life”), and fosters comparisons (“Everyone else is in a relationship. They broke up. What about you?”).
By recognizing this enemy within, we can take a more compassionate and realistic view of ourselves and break away from its distorted and negative views of us. At first, this can lead to increased anxiety and self-doubt, but as we insist on being open and curious about ourselves, these will subside.
Be kind to yourself
Christine Neff, a leading researcher in the field of empathy, has identified Three components of self-compassion: awareness, kindness and general humanity. Mindfulness allows us to “be” with our thoughts and feelings as they are. Self-awareness helps us treat ourselves with care and understanding rather than harsh judgment. Common humanity teaches us that suffering and mistakes are part of being human and make us worthy of compassion.
Self-compassion allows us to experience the events that shaped our sense of identity and separate our true identity from the harmful influences of our past. Practicing compassion for ourselves leads to a kinder and more just experience.
Look for clues in your emotional reactions
Having a radical curiosity about ourselves is looking for clues and discovering what they mean about us. The most important clues are our emotional reactions. This is especially true around our big emotions, What makes us especially angry, sad, and angry? Instead of judging them negatively and trying to avoid them, we can be curious: “Why are these feelings so strong? What are my thoughts about this? Is some of it old and familiar?” Being curious in the moment about what is really going on, about our physical and emotional reactions in a given situation, leads to fuller self-knowledge.
The same is true of positive emotions. When something excites us, it is an understanding of what it means to us. A valuable part of being curious about yourself is figuring out: What makes me tick? What lights me up? And so who am I?
Radical curiosity is a great power. Adopting this approach breaks down the usual ways of seeing and defining yourself and allows for greater kindness and clarity. We become more aware of the depth and breadth of our lives—our fears and passions, our strengths and strengths, what we value and whom we value. All the ways of being and feeling that make us unique in this world.
