The Wonder Report: October 29, 2021

Becoming Curious About Yourselves and Others

Happy Friday!

O, wonder of wonders … October has five Fridays! Since this is kind of a bonus week, I almost took a week off from publishing The Wonder Report. Then I realized how much I still have to share about curiosity. So instead of skipping a week, I’m leaning in even harder, including offering a book giveaway you won’t want to miss. (Details are below.)

Let’s jump right in.

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1. Exploring Your Why

At least once a week, and usually a couple of times each week, our family likes to eat dinner out. Sometimes it’s a sandwich from a fast-food restaurant; other times it’s a sit-down dinner at one of the casual restaurants in our small city. On Fridays, we always go out of town to eat, and usually at one of two of our favorite restaurants.

The decision to eat out is easy. It usually springs from my lack of planning or Steve’s desire for a night off of dish duty. But if deciding to go is easy, deciding where to go is not.

“Where do you want to go?” I’ll ask.

“I don’t care,” Steve says. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care.”

If the boys are here, the conversation usually extends to each one of them, always circling back to this: None of us seem to care where we go.

Were this simply an issue about dining out options, it might not be so frustrating. But we often get stuck in the “I don’t care” loop about lots of things: movies, dog walking routes, book selections, snack options, weekend plans. Somehow, for mature, educated, caring people, we don’t seem to care about much.

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But what do we really mean when we say, “I don’t care?” Recently, I got curious about that. First with myself. I’m not usually indecisive. In fact, I’ve lived to regret more than a few quickly made decisions. So when faced with a choice about what to do as a couple or a family, why do I hesitate?

I thought about a few recent situations when I said those words. How was I feeling? I was tired. I’m still walking around in the fog of grief. I’d already made lots of decisions in my work. I didn’t want to be responsible for a decision others would have to live with. But instead of saying any of those things, I said, “I don’t care,” when in fact I did care where we ate or what we watched. I just needed help making the decision.

Later, I got curious about what my husband means when he says it, too. I explained to him my own process, how “I don’t care” had become kind of a shortcut way of explaining lots of complicated emotions and circumstances in my life. Then I asked him what he really means when he says, “I don’t care.” Like for me, there was more to it for him. And after we talked, we came up with a plan for how to proceed.

This curiosity about the words we were using ended up being a deep dive into the circumstances we were living and the emotions we were feeling. It helped us to move past frustration and into greater understanding of each other and ourselves. In our case, asking questions helped us uncover a “why” that made sense. That’s not always true. Sometimes, “I don’t care” really means “I don’t care,” and it’s frustrating. Other times, the “why” feels more like an excuse than a reason. Still other times, there really isn’t a good reason. In that case, curiosity can lead us down a dead end road.

But experience tells me there’s often more going on than meets the eye. And being curious about ourselves and others can, at the very least, help us deal in reality or even possibility rather than incorrect assumptions and unrealistic expectations.

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Starting with “Why?” isn’t always the best way to end up there. Sometimes, starting with the softer, “How?” or “What?” or even “Where?” gives us information we can use to ask harder more direct questions later. Jesus was a master at lobbing softball questions to get to the hardball answers he eventually wanted his hearers to get to.

• “What do you seek?”

• “What does this have to do with us?”

• “Who do you say I am?”

• “What do you want me to do for you?”

• “Do you wish to get well?”

• “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”

• “Woman where are they? Did no one condemn you?”

Over and over, Jesus was asking his followers to be curious about themselves and others, to understand how their emotions, motives, and circumstances were effecting what they believed and how they followed him. He wanted them to see that what was going on deep inside of them wasn’t always as it appeared on the surface.

After a particularly contentious visit to Capernaum, when Jesus’ sermon about being the bread of life caused several disciples to abandon him, Jesus turned to those who were left and asked: “Do you want to go away as well?”

The real question, the question Jesus knew the disciples would have to answer eventually, was “why?” Why are you really following me? But whether or not they could articulate exactly why they were staying, Peter is the one who explained why they wouldn’t leave: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:60-71).

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It might go without saying, but being curious about ourselves always seems like a good idea before we get too curious about others, especially in conflict. I think of Jesus’ advice to deal with the log in our own eye before we worry too much about the speck in others’ (Matt. 7:1-5).

But when the time is right, being curious about others can also help us have better relationships. It can be a gift we give to our friends and family when we help them dig deep into their own “why?” And it can also help us become more empathetic, as we recognize the potential for something beyond what we can see in every person we meet.

I wonder … what would it look like to be curious about yourself? What about others? How does it make you feel when someone asks you “why?” you’ve done something? Is it better when they start with a softer question? What are some questions you could ask yourself to explore your own “why?” in frustrating situations?

I’ve been doing lots of drawing and painting lately … fall might be the best time to be an artist.

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2. Curiosity and Friendship {BOOK GIVEAWAY}

My friend Afton Rorvik recently published a book called Living Connected: An Introvert’s Guide to Friendship. It’s a wonderful resource for anyone who is an introvert or is friends with one. I had the opportunity to read an early copy of the book and offer an endorsement. Here’s what I wrote:

“In Living Connected, Afton Rorvik has created a guidebook out of the old adage if you want to have a friend be a friend. This book takes some of the guesswork out of the complexity of friendship, particularly for introverts, like me, who might otherwise resort to just going it alone. And for extroverts, this book offers insight into the introvert mindset that might get in the way of meaningful friendship. In an age where loneliness has become epidemic, Living Connected is a must read.”

I recently interviewed Afton about the book’s connection with our theme of curiosity. (She included a whole chapter on curiosity, in fact!) Here’s a little bit of what she shared:

CHARITY’S QUESTION: What questions led you to write this book on friendship?

AFTON’S ANSWER: That’s how I start writing … I put down the questions. The main question was how do I become a better friend? I’ve wondered that most of my life. Then also part of that was how do I become a better friend as an introvert. Because when I started reading about friendship and introversion, I realized that friendship is different for an introvert. And then the third question is okay, what does my faith have to do with all of this? A lot of the introvert stuff out there says, “I’m an introvert, go away.” And that might be my natural inclination, wanting quiet and wanting time alone, and yet my faith in God calls me to something different. He calls me to live connected, to be his hands and feet. So what does that mean?

CHARITY’S QUESTION: What role do you think curiosity plays in friendship?

AFTON’S ANSWER: I think it’s huge. I think it’s fundamental. We all have a story and we all have a story that needs telling. And we need witnesses to our lives, people who listen to our stories. And curiosity, I think, leads the way. “Who are you?” “What’s happened in your life?” Who of us doesn’t want to have someone ask that of us? “Tell me about your life, tell me your story. What makes you you?”

(By the way, paying subscribers will receive an email later this weekend with a link to the video of the whole interview! It’s only 11 minutes long and filled with wisdom about curiosity and friendship.)

Now, for the best news!

I purchased an extra copy of the book to give to one lucky reader! Just leave a comment below (or reply to this email) with a story about friendship or any thoughts you have about friendship and curiosity. I’ll draw a winner next Thursday, November 4, in time to announce in Friday’s Wonder Report.

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3. Emotions as Data

An important way to be curious about ourselves is to be curious about our emotions, to pay attention to how we’re feeling and what those feelings might have to tell us.

In a recent episode of her Everything Happens podcast, Kate Bowler talked with Susan David, Ph.D. a leading management thinker and an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist. David encourages people to see emotions as data that helps us learn about ourselves rather than a directive that forces us into certain behaviors.

“If we can show up to [our emotions] with curiosity and with compassion, we can start saying, ‘What are they pointing to about what I care about? What are they pointing to about my values?’ So now we aren’t being driven by the emotion, rather we stepping into a place of wisdom.”

To tap into our emotions in this way, she says we first need to “create psychological space between us and the emotion.” This helps us see emotions as part of who we are not the sum. “We’re moving from ‘I am sad’ into ‘I’m feeling sad’ or ‘I’m noticing that I’m feeling sad’ or even "‘this is sadness,’ which is what we’re describing in that experience.”

“So what are you starting to do here is you’re not pushing aside the difficult emotion, but rather what you are doing is you are creating linguistic space. So the other parts of you are able to come forward and there’s breathing room.”

Next, she suggests that we learn to label our emotions more granularly (much the way Steve and I attempted to do when we dug into “I don’t care”).

“We’ll say something like, I am stressed. Your body, your psychology, doesn’t know how to deal with that. It’s stress; it feels like there’s no boundaries. It feels like it’s so dark; it feels so murky,” David says. “And yet there’s a world of difference between stress versus disappointed, stress versus unsupported, stress versus that feeling I’m in the wrong job or the wrong career.”

Finally, once we’ve given our emotions space apart from our identity and named them specifically, we can look at them as signposts for what’s really going on behind the curtain. When we get curious about our emotions, they can actually tell us something about our lives: our hopes, fears, desires, and more.

“If you’re feeling bored, that boredom is a difficult emotion, but it might be signposting that you need more growth. If you are feeling lonely as a caregiver, that loneliness might be signposting that you value more intimacy and connection, and that this is a value that you need to move towards,” David says.

“If we think about the arc of showing up to a difficult emotion, stepping out of it, so it’s not defining us and then walking away saying what is the emotion signaling about what I care about or what I need in this moment? You then create the opportunity to have this tiny tweak, this micro experience, this agency that is small and yet powerful.”

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4. A Daily Examen

One of the best ways I know to be curious about ourselves spiritually is to take time each day to prayerfully reflect on where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and how we invited God (or not) into the details of our lives. This spiritual curiosity will help us root out sin in our lives, recognize where God is leading us, and create a habit of sincere gratitude.

Traditionally, this is known as a daily examen, and Christians from many traditions have practiced this for centuries. I’ve done various versions over the years myself, but generally, the examen consists of some version of these five stages, which I’ve borrowed from The Ignatian Examen.

1. Place yourself in God’s presence, giving thanks for God’s great love for you.

2. Pray for the grace to understand how God is acting in your life.

3. Review your day — recall specific moments and your feelings at the time.

4. Reflect on what you did, said, or thought in those instances. Were you drawing closer to God, or further away? (This is sometimes referred to as consolation and desolation.) Confession and repentance might also be appropriate in this step.

5. Look toward tomorrow — think of how you might collaborate more effectively with God’s plan. Be specific.

More recently, I’ve been using The Monk Manual as my daily planner of choice, and it includes similar questions for reflection as an integral part of its process, including the following:

1. Highlights of my day …

2. I was at my best when …

3. I felt unrest when …

4. One way I can improve tomorrow …

I wonder … have you ever practiced a daily examen? What did you like (or not like) about it? Do you have other ways of reflecting on your day?

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Thanks again for sharing this time with me. This wraps up our October curiosity theme. Next week we’ll start over for November by talking about the senses, just in time for the end of year holiday season.

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Until next time,

Charity