I Was a Different Person Then 5

This time last year I said yes to curiosity and allowed it to take me where I needed to go. I’ve spent a lot of time interrogating myself, and curiosity has taken me to places in my soul I never expected.

Curiosity tends to do that. Alice went down the rabbit hole ‘never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.’

I jumped into curiosity, never considering how in the world I’d ever get back to where I was before. But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? Once we go down the path of curiosity, we can’t come back. We may retrace our steps, but when we do we are not the same.

At a women’s leadership conference this time last year, the host of the very first session said, ‘Turn to the person next to you and tell them what you’re most afraid of ’

Wow! No forewarning. No gentle introduction. No shallow say-hello-give-a-fake-smile-and-platitude-and-move-on moment.

I turned to the person next to me and said, ‘I’m afraid of God and what he’ll ask me to do if I give in and follow what I think He’s telling me to do.’

The shocked look on her face  indicated that I may have been just a little bit more open than she expected! The rest of that day I was curious. Curious about where that comment had sprung from. I’d been feeling angry. Frustrated. Uninspired. Unsure. But why was I afraid?

Since then, I’ve risked vulnerability and sucked up the courage to allow curiosity to take me places I didn’t want to go.

Curiosity has only led to more questions. More self-interrogation. More adventures of the soul.

I read a LOT, and as I read, curiosity took me to new places, confronted me with new ideas, new possibilities and even, new beginnings.

Rising Strong by Brené Brown, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron have been partners and guides to my curiosity this past year.

Conversations with all sorts of people, in all sorts of places, have been paths to even more questions and drawn me deeper down into the rabbit hole.

Curiosity is the essence of human existence. ‘Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?’… I don’t know. I don’t have any answers to those questions. I don’t know what’s over there around the corner. But I want to find out. Eugene Cernan

Curiosity is a paradox. It’s about accepting things, but always learning and growing. I have my core beliefs and values, but I also have a desire to never stop questioning.

A year on, like Alice, I’ve realised that it’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.