{"id":856,"date":"2015-10-29T09:31:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T14:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.med.virginia.edu\/mindfulness\/?p=856"},"modified":"2019-02-28T09:44:25","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T14:44:25","slug":"being-curious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.med.virginia.edu\/mindfulness\/2015\/10\/29\/being-curious\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Curious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve all got habitual, conditioned patterns of re-activity that happen without much (conscious) thought. If something\u2019s unpleasant, we distract ourselves; we leave. Physically, we may turn to the phone or computer, go shopping or running, turn on the news, music, a movie, (over) eat or drink. We veer away from unwanted thoughts or feelings. When these actions, useful and entertaining in some moments, become mindless distractions, they can diminish our capacity to be fully alive. \u00a0How do we intervene mindfully, to move beyond a distracting habit, a conditioned re-activity by the mind to protect the self? \u00a0When we\u2019re frustrated, bored, anxious, angry, fearful or sad, what if we were to greet that moment with curiosity?<\/p>\n<p>Mindfulness means we begin by pausing\u2026\u00a0gently softening the contracted places \u2013 brow, jaw, throat, shoulders, hands, belly\u2026\u00a0aware of breath, paying attention \u2013 opening to our experience. \u00a0What am I aware of? \u00a0How am I responding to that awareness? \u00a0We begin noticing when we are avoiding our experience. \u00a0Any time we use reactive fight or flight or freeze or numbing to get rid of that which we don\u2019t want, we diminish our capacity to be touched, to be fully alive in this moment.<\/p>\n<p>If we invite curiosity into the mind\/body, right at that moment of noticing the avoidance of what\u2019s happening, we can be awake and alive to our experiences with increasing clarity and equanimity. These qualities gradually replace our old reactive habit patterns and become enduring traits of consciousness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve all got habitual, conditioned patterns of re-activity that happen without much (conscious) thought. If something\u2019s unpleasant, we distract ourselves; we leave. Physically, we may turn to the phone or computer, go shopping or running, turn on the news, music, a movie, (over) eat or drink. We veer away from unwanted thoughts or feelings. When [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly-musings"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Being Curious - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.med.virginia.edu\/mindfulness\/2015\/10\/29\/being-curious\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Being Curious - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We\u2019ve all got habitual, conditioned patterns of re-activity that happen without much (conscious) thought. 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