Become less afraid of your fear
Why should you create a practice of curiosity?
Perhaps, like me, a good healthy sense of curiosity was scared out of you by religious leaders and teachers who told you that you’re job was to be a good soldier, receive orders and obey them, do what is asked and sacrifice all else.
I grew up and then worked within a faith tradition and church system that stripped me of my God-given and designed spiritual autonomy.
Curiosity and the practice of wonder were almost grouped in with perverse sins.
It was suggested, verbally and culturally, that following your curiosity would lead you astray, into depravity, down the slippery slope of sin and evil. Follow The Word, not your heart, The rules, not your curiosity, The Lord, not your sense of connection with the Divinity within it all.
But listen, I am here to tell you that curiosity is Divine. It is holy. Curiosity is the beginning of wisdom. Curiosity is the antidote for fear. It is the birthplace of creativity. It is the energy of problem-solving. It is the “matter” of abundance. It is the substance of grace and mercy, compassion and healing. It’s what brings you back to childlike hunger (not childish ignorance). It leads you to the state of wonder, right through the gates of The Kingdom.
Jesus said to his friends:
“Let all the little children come to me and never hinder them! Don’t you know that God’s kingdom exists for such as these? Listen to the truth I speak: Whoever does not open their arms to receive God’s kingdom like a teachable child will never enter it.”
Your work is to get back to that place of wonder you saw the world with before fear beat it out of you; to reclaim your sense of curiosity before religious ideas driven by control taught it out of you, to redeem that part of you that ripples with joy at surprises and colour and discovery; to heal the wounds inflicted upon that have you shielding your eyes from the unexpected and living in fear of you do not know to once again feel a sense of hope about what happens when you show up to life as your glorious and holy self.
If God is love, and if we experience God by loving and being loved, and if love is what keeps fear in its rightful place, then the Kingdom of God happens wherever love wins. And to find it, to enter into it, to flow with the energies of the eternal Kingdom, you cannot earn your way there, prove your way there, or win your way there, you can only follow your curiosity - the wide-eyed calling of wonder - right through the gates.
Curiosity fueled by love cannot lead you astray.
Curiosity is vital to your growth and becoming, to your lived experience and your connection with Divinity, because it is what will lead you out of fear each and every time.
I wonder what you will do to begin building a practice of curiosity? Start with the simplest form of it and stay with it; you’ll find your way.
May you learn to become less afraid of your fears, and instead face them with a growing sense of curiosity.
May you give yourself grace for the learning, for the lessons, for the times when fear grips you so tight you feel like you might vanish.
May you discover that you will not vanish but that you will instead rise and rise again.
May you find your questioning voice, your eye for wonder, your tolerance and even appetite for surprise and discovery.
And may you, dear one, follow your curiosity all the way home to love and healing, to where you belong: right in the middle of the adventure that your life is.
Mindful Prompt: “To be wise is to be eternally curious.” Frederick Buechner.
From my upcoming series, "How To Be Curious" this week with a subscription in the App.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
