I watched Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday show recently with Brian Grazer, the award-wining film and television producer, to discuss Curiosity. You know who he is even if his name is not familiar. He’s that fella you see with the fantastic punk-style-spiked-hair going up to collect awards at the Oscars, year in, year out. He is the creator of many successes from the movie ‘Splash’ to the recent TV success, ‘Empire’.
He has just published a book called ‘A Curious Mind, The Secret to a Bigger Mind’. Oprah was curious to know why curiosity is his key to authentic connection. Brian believes curiosity is a tool for confidence, and a key for story telling as well as a form of courage. He believes it is also the cause of happiness and success. Brian said we can all use our innate curiosity to give us the courage to pursue our dreams. His natural curiosity has led him from picking people’s minds working in diverse fields from science, business, politics, art and even espionage, to landing his first job, to the work he has brought to life in his movies in Hollywood!
So how is all of this relevant to Sophrology, I hear you ask?
Curiosity is one of the attitudes we adopt when we do Sophrology. This is a more personal level of curiosity. We look at experiencing things as if for the first time, within ourselves. We see the world through the eyes of an infant, that is, with curiosity and wonder. This opens us up to seeing all possibilities – that anything is possible. Sometimes by going backwards to what we came from, we go forwards.
Confused? Ok let me put it another way. When we practice Sophrology, we increase our five senses. That is, we increase our sense of of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. So in order to try to go back to the beginning when we were babies experiencing things for the first time, lets imagine that we have just arrived on planet Earth and have found ourselves in a human body.
What do we See?
What do we Hear?
What do we Smell?
What do we Taste?
What do we feel?
When we go back to the basics, we get to enjoy sensations, as if it was the first time. Try to see things from the eyes of a child the next time you are outside with nature. Explore the wonder of seeing something for the first time. It may be a butterfly, a flower, a frog, or even a hummingbird but focus on something in nature that makes you feel good. Be aware of any sensations you experience. Expand upon these sensations and notice how your body feels. How do we feel when nature turns to us to see how it feels to experience life next to us...? Time and time again, a hummingbird hovers really close next to my hubby, when he is quietly outside in the garden. There is no explanation why they do this but I feel absolute wonder when I see this happen.
This is one example of being completely in the present. We also consciously feel the force of love within. When we feel love we share it without realizing it.
So next time you are outside in nature, be curious, like animals! Don’t just walk by without observing, let it all sink in.