The Power Of Curiosity In Problem Solving

Does it feel like you have a lot of problems? Do you feel stuck, stressed and overwhelmed about them? Does anxiety about your problems regularly rear its head?

What if it were easier than you think to solve problems with ease?

Join Clare to learn a simple understanding of how the mind works known as the 3 principles, which will allow you to develop self-awareness and connection to intuition. As a result, you can journey from stressed, overwhelmed and anxious to calm, balance and clarity.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the CalmCast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out head teacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,

And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The CalmCast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music,

With an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today,

Welcome and I'm looking at the power of curiosity in problem solving.

I used to think I knew everything and so was not brilliant around curiosity because I thought I was right all the time.

I'm really laughing at this because this really is like,

It really is the truth.

That really is how I saw the world.

I'm right.

I know everything already.

I know the answers to everything already.

So why would I need to be curious,

Curious,

Curious about anything?

And I'm now much more curious and I've seen the power of that in terms of solving problems.

Because it's almost like,

First of all,

That's how we see a problem and I keep saying this in these sessions.

As soon as you call something a problem,

Your brain goes like that.

It starts to fill up with noise.

It starts to think about what the future is going to hold around that and what's going to happen if it goes wrong and it makes it just much bigger.

Our thinking makes it bigger.

So that's the first thing and that limits,

Of course,

Our ability to be in a calm space,

In a clear space,

In a curious space.

And really that curiosity as I'm seeing it,

As I talk about this in terms of problem solving,

Is really about getting curious about us and how we're relating to things.

Like it's not going to be that much about the problem until actually we're in a better space and we're in a good space to solve a problem.

Really,

Initially,

It's curiosity.

Like if we're looking at something in our lives that needs to be dealt with and we're calling it a problem and we're caught up in the future and it feels terrible and it feels like we're never going to find a solution,

Then it really can,

It closes us down.

And so then the curiosity is about us.

It's always about inside.

We think we've got to be out in the world,

Don't we?

Like fixing the thing,

Sorting the thing out,

Making the thing better,

Solving the problem.

And it's not that.

The curiosity is how am I relating to this?

What thinking am I caught up in around this?

And that is,

You know,

It's powerful to start recognising the role thought is playing in limiting our creativity,

In limiting our ability to solve problems,

In limiting our clarity,

In moving us away from calm because calm is absolutely the best place to be when we're solving problems.

No two ways about it.

That's where your full potential of intuition and wisdom and everything else is available.

It isn't available so much when we're caught up in a noisy thought-filled space around a problem.

So that to me is the key of why curiosity is important because it's becoming aware and curious about the story we've got about the thing that we would like to have be different because that really is a problem,

Isn't it?

That's what a problem is.

It's a thing that's a particular way in the world and you want it to be different or I want it to be different.

I've put in things I want to be different.

But even as I feel like there's another layer here that I'm seeing is,

You know,

Start your curiosity about why you want this to be different.

So for me,

As you will know if you've listened to many of these sessions,

Any of these sessions,

For me it's other people's behaviour.

You know,

What is it about a person's behaviour that seems to be getting in the way of my ability to be calm?

There is one particular person who I struggle to feel calm about.

It looks to me like this person is a problem.

It looks to me,

Not that person,

But their behaviour is a problem,

That I can't have peace of mind until this problem is solved.

That sounds terrible.

It's like,

I'm going to get a hit man.

That's not that.

But until this person stops behaving the way they're behaving,

It looks like there's future problems being created by this person's behaviour.

Yeah,

Straight away.

Look at the story there.

It's huge.

And that for me is the space to be curious.

What's the story I've got about that?

Every time I say,

What's the story,

I want to say in Balamory,

Which if you have children similar age to mine,

Um,

Minor,

How old are they?

23 and 21.

You will have been subjected,

And I feel it was subjected,

To a show called,

I don't know if it's called What's the Story in Balamory?

It was just called Balamory and it was set,

Um,

It was set in a village in Scotland,

Perhaps on an island in Scotland.

Anyway,

There were some very interesting characters in that show and,

Um,

They used to say,

What's the story in Balamory?

So every time I say,

What's the story,

I just want to say in Balamory.

Anyway,

I just thought I'd share that little aside with you.

Hopefully it's made you smile,

Particularly if you are a person who was in the UK with small children,

Uh,

15,

15 to 20 years ago.

I don't know if the show's still on,

To be honest.

Somebody can let me know if it is or not.

Um,

So that,

That,

That piece around the curiosity of,

Of why we even think there's a problem in the first place,

Is a beautiful place to start this exploration,

Really.

Because a problem to me is something that we believe should be different.

Could be anything.

It could be a level of income.

It could be,

Um,

A partner's behaviour.

It could be anybody's behaviour.

In my case,

Let's be honest,

It could be,

Um,

I don't know,

A noisy neighbour.

It could be all sorts of things that look like they have to be different in order for us to be okay.

And that is,

That's really the starting point for anything.

Now,

If we're in this place of this,

This is a problem and it has to be different for me to have an okay lot.

I can't be okay unless this thing,

This person,

This circumstance changes.

That has to happen first.

If we're in that state of mind about something,

Then there's a lot of thinking there.

You can already hear before,

I mean,

I've not gone into the extensive thinking we can have about that and how long we can think about it and how we can overthink about it,

And how we can feel very overwhelmed and stressed and anxious about it.

But let's,

Let's start from the understanding of the inside out reality of how our experience is created and get curious there.

If we,

If it looks like something in the world out there needs to be different,

Better,

Change in order for us to be okay,

Then absolutely those things are going to look like a problem,

Aren't they?

Now,

It's okay to want things to change.

Absolutely.

So,

Recently I had a problem that looked like a problem with somebody's decision about something and it really didn't seem to me to be beneficial to anybody in this scenario.

And at the time when this person was pushing back and refusing to make just a very small change to a schedule that really,

She professed she couldn't make the change,

But I suspect that wasn't actually true.

Anyway,

So I got really wound up about,

Oh my God,

Now look what it's going to look like.

This is not right for,

It's not right for the people involved.

It's not okay for everybody and it's not,

People are not going to feel it.

And I was really caught up in it and then I just thought,

I'm really like,

There's a massive story here.

This is,

I'm making this into a massive problem.

And actually at some point I was just very,

I wasn't really thinking about it and it just came to me like,

Like from intuition,

Which I'm going to be exploring in the next session actually.

It just came to me,

Oh,

I need to just make this,

I need to make the situation very clear to the person who's refusing to make this very simple change.

I just need to make it clear.

I just need to spell it out to her.

Just make it very clear in a very polite way.

Just,

Are you aware that by refusing to make this little change,

This is what's going to occur in terms of schedules and things?

And I just felt like,

And the messages flowed,

Just very calmly flowed out me.

And the message really,

And when I sent the message,

The person just said,

Oh,

Actually,

Let's do the change that you want.

It was really interesting.

And like I'd settled into this place of,

Well,

If this is the way it's going to be,

That's just the way it is.

There's nothing we can do about it.

But then it did make sense to just send this very calm message.

And that interestingly created the change that I'd wanted in the first place.

So that's fun to play and that's fun to get curious about,

Isn't it?

And so this space of curiosity is available to us all the time.

Once we start looking towards the three principles as being the descriptor,

The description of how human experience is brought about,

How,

Why we feel the way we feel,

Why we,

How we create our reality,

Why we see the world one way and other people see the world a different way to us.

This curiosity about what's going on inside me is the most important.

And from that space,

Everything opens up because once we start to see that we're caught up in a story,

In Balamory,

If we're caught,

Once we realize that we're caught up in a story,

That our body's reflecting that because our body reflects the thinking,

The caught-up-edness,

The overthinking,

The body reflects that,

The body just goes,

Oh,

You know,

It comes out in,

You know,

In neck pain and anxiety and stomach aches and whatever else,

You know,

You know your body,

You know how it comes out.

And when we get curious about the source of all that,

With fundamentally a line drawn where the source is not out there,

It's not the problem,

It's not the problem,

Then in that space of awareness,

The solutions just appear.

They really do.

I know that sounds like some crazy person talking to you,

But I see more and more that as we realize,

Become aware of where we're going with our thinking and what we're creating and how things look like a massive problem,

When we're curious about that and we're just kind of going,

Oh,

That's interesting,

I seem to have gone into a bit of a,

You know,

None of these thought patterns are a surprise to any of us because we've been there,

Done that many,

Many times before,

Haven't we?

We've generally,

We're in habitual repetitive thought patterns.

You know,

When they're there and we see they're there,

They tend to just melt away.

And underneath that,

In the space,

In your connection to intuition and wisdom,

The problem is solved.

Either the problem just ceases to look like a problem and you just accept what is,

And then the freedom,

The peace of mind,

That's what we really want,

Don't we?

We want to solve a problem.

We just want to feel good,

That's it.

Or,

You know,

Either there's a letting go and they're just like,

Oh,

Well,

Okay,

That's just the way it is.

Or,

The alternative that happens is that there is this space where something to say or do will occur.

But when we think the problem is huge and our well-being is dependent on it,

The things to do will look huge,

Oh,

I've got to do this,

I've got to make that person do that,

I've got to make this change here,

And how will I do all of that?

It's huge,

Isn't it?

Whereas when we're in this place of curiosity about us and we're going,

Right,

Okay,

I'm clearly caught up in an outside understanding here,

And we become aware of that,

Then the calm comes and then the space opens and then there's a little action to take,

A little action,

Not a great big,

Because it's not a great big problem anymore because our well-being doesn't depend on it anymore.

But there still might be a change to make,

Another step,

A little step,

That's it.

So I hope you found that,

I hope you found that helpful.

That's been a long one today,

But that's okay,

It is what it is.

I hope all your,

I hope you just have a day in a space of curiosity,

Not about out there,

Forget out there,

You can't forget completely,

But you know,

Just be curious about you and what you're caught up in it and enjoy exploring that.

It's such fun and so enlightening.

Lots of love and take care.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been the Calmcast with Claire Downer,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.