highly sensitive power

“Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid.”

~ Patricia Alexander

Curiosity is like a flashlight beam. We aim it at what we want to see more clearly. Or, rather, curiosity aims us. When we’re curious, we’re the beam of light following the feeling of wonder to the next illuminated view. It’s not about answers (that’s where creativity comes in); it’s about loving the questions.

Curiosity Energizes

There’s a difference between information input that overloads and questing that enthralls. For highly sensitive people, it can be important to know the difference. Pursuing wonder purely for wonder’s sake renews the batteries rather than drains them.

Curiosity Enlightens

Wanting very much to know something opens us to being changed by what we discover. Allowing ourselves to be drawn when we don’t know why we are can, over time, show us recurring themes of interest, which then become nameable and even more pursuable.

Curiosity Lightens

“What the…?” With our heightened senses and our appreciation of subtlety, HSPs tend to notice oddness. Seeking the unusual in the everyday can net a host of curiosities to hoot about. More intensely, emerging from a deep concentration on the absolutely riveting is like coming out of a trance or a meditation session. Time has passed unheeded. Breath has slowed and calmed. There may even be a bit of a noticeable humming buzz. Weights have lifted.

Curiosity Directs

Following curiosity, indulging in delving, changes the view. What we discover shifts the place from which we look, redirects perspective. New worlds heave into view.

Curiosity Connects

When we’re plugged into what makes us light up, when we’re enthralled, we’re beacons that attract others (that’s where community comes in). But that’s not all. The best thing about healthy curiosity well-pursued is that it connects us to the power source that’s both within and beyond us, making us feel more connected to our best self and more tuned in to the big picture.

What turns on your curiosity switch to full beam? Holding a camera in your hand? Walking into a library? Wandering through a flea market? Exploring nature? Having unscheduled blocks of time? Travelling? Identifying the switch makes the power of curiosity biddable.

“Could I be a turtle? Could I through an act of ecstasy swim unafraid and never lost, finding, finding?”

~ Russell Hoban

Middle photo by Michael Mundhenk.