We are complex and layered creatures. We have multiple viewpoints and various brain wave states from which we can approach the world. Interestingly, humans often dig into one perspective and one approach, which limits our potential.

What if we approached the world with a sense of curiosity and possibility instead of focused certainty? And what does that even mean? 

Curiosity is most easily understood as seeing the world through the eyes of a child and discovering experiences for the first time. As adults, and busy adults at that, we become accustomed to meeting the world from what we now know; from what we have gathered in both experience and knowledge. This becomes our set point from which we meet the world. 
 
As adults, curiosity evolves from our childhood place of pure and new beginnings into a sense of possibility and the understanding that there’s always more. 

Two ways into the space of curiosity are the inquiries: “What’s underneath this?” And the simple but potent, “Tell me more”
This space of curiosity is incredibly serving in places where we’re stuck and/or feeling strong emotions—with ourselves, our work environment, our children, mates, communities, and even with our relationship to our source of life itself (the unseen or unmanifest). Openness can be a difficult place to cultivate, especially when we’re trying to solve problems and create lasting change. 
 
‘What’s underneath this (or that)?’ can assist our minds into wider, more open spaces. When we’re problem solving, whether it’s a work or personal challenge, we are in solve it mode and our brains begin to focus down options and narrow our view. As a brainwave state, this is the hi-beta state (some even call it gamma). It’s a more fixated state, associated with selective attention.
 
When we’re in this state, we’re more locked into inflexible ways of thinking and less able to free ourselves from this state. These are rhythms slightly faster than beta (our ordinary waking state) called hi-beta brain rhythms. These are also the rhythms where we feel agitation and anxiety. The solution? Find a way to settle our brains by either going to higher rhythms of gamma or lower into alpha rhythms.

HOW do we move out of these stuck, agitated  and fixated places? First order of business is to recognize we’re stuck, agitated or in a repeated pattern. Awareness begins the change.

Once we’re aware, as the poet David Whyte often says, we need to stop having the conversation we’re having. Once we notice, we need a pause to stop what’s happening. One simple and easy way to meet this is to take literal step back or lean back in our chair and consciously receive a full, deep inhale. Then let it out slowly.

Once we’ve paused, even for a moment, we give our minds space to find a new rhythm. Here we create room for a fresh perspective. This is where we can employ, ‘What’s underneath this?’ 

This simple question cues our mind that there actually is something underneath, but it hasn’t yet revealed itself to us. It opens us from just our mind-space into our heart-space. We create space for the answer to emerge. 
 
Open-Hearted space is where inspired answers and a sense of connection arise
When we pause or stop looking and/or feeling, we allow space for answers, experiences and new insights to emerge. We can’t force it, control it or demand it. We have to move away from our thinking mind and widen our perspective. The unseen needs space to be seen and heard. When we cultivate a wider view, we make room for more. 
 
What this pause and curiosity also does is shift us into an alpha brain rhythm, which is a more receptive brain state. We’re not after restructuring our thinking or feeling state consciously here, we’re after allowing our minds and bodies to have room to shift. As noted earlier, once we pause, we have the possibility to move either further into the ‘in the flow’ alpha state or wider into the ‘compassion and connection’ gamma state. 

Moving Our Rhythms To Our Heart-Space
Shifting brain wave states takes both action and softening. Alpha and gamma rhythms move us out of our default thinking, beta rhythm strategic mind into more receptive heart spaces. We literally move out of our head.

How do we do this? For alpha rhythms, we simply need to relax our thoughts and pay attention to our breathing, become mindful of something as simple as leaves blowing in the wind.

To move into a gamma state, we move into wholeness, compassion and/or connection. This is a wide heart space. It could be through yoga, mindfulness, meditation or simply settling down and moving into our grateful, empathetic or compassionate heart-space.
 
In the alpha state (slower than beta), we allow room for the ‘aha’s’ which are more like an emotional state of relief. Into this alpha rhythm space floods feel good hormones and allows us more ease, flow and a more open heart. The alpha state deepened can take us either to theta states (slower than alpha), which are the places of profound healing in between dreaming or awake, or to gamma states.

The gamma states (faster than beta), provide a sense of wholeness, well-being and possibly joy, calmness and bliss. Here we find a deep sense of connection, oneness, wholeness and open heartedness. In gamma states, our brains actually create a unified rhythm that sweeps from front to back, bringing our neural network into a state of harmony and coherence.

It is even theorized that here in gamma rhythms our brains share information and combine their efforts into a unified consciousness and field of awareness. This place often takes practice to experience, but it transformational when we do. 

The key, though, keeping it simple, is to find ways to move out of stuck, locked in thinking. The story goes even Einstein took those daydreaming naps and that’s where he found many of his groundbreaking theories.

How do we do this? We have strategies and tools at the ready like, ‘I wonder what’s underneath this?’ and ‘tell me more’ to move us to different states of being and allow inspiration and connection to be experienced. It all takes awareness and practice, but the rewards make it all very much worth the effort.

Please send me a note here if you’re looking for more clarity, understanding or practice reaching into more harmonious, open hearted spaces.