Welcome to Joy Lab!: Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome to Joy Lab.
Aimee: And I'm Aimee Prasek. Here at Joy Lab, we infuse science with soul to help you uncover joy. To do that, we focus on building the elements of joy, the positive emotions and inner states that become the building blocks for joyful life. The element for this episode is curiosity.
So the usual definition of curiosity is having a desire to take in new information, knowledge, uh, new experiences. And to just kind of start us off with a big brush stroke. Uh, curious people can tend to swing toward anxiety more so than folks who tend to be less curious. Now, I think us humans are all curious, certainly, but some of us may be more curious than others, and when we're out of balance, we may be more anxious as well.
I speak from experience here. Hi, I'm and I am a curious person. Little reframe right there that I like.
So anxiety used to be the word that I would've said there in that sentence. So I am grateful I can tap into curiosity to not just move away from labeling myself an anxious person, but to practice that element of curiosity in a way that actually, decreases my anxiety.
Because, there's a lot of research to say that curiosity can be used to calm, anxious thoughts and to reduce feelings of distress, uh, make us less reactive, even less defensive. Love that. So, that's what we'll do in the next several episodes. Learn how to use curiosity to calm, anxiety, and nourish us in good ways as well.
Henry: I really like that way of reframing things, Aimee.
You know, we generally think of anxiety as a bad thing and it certainly can be unpleasant. But you know, maybe anxiety and curiosity have some of the same underlying traits. Kinda like they have a shared platform or something. You know, and it might be that the unpleasant part that we call anxiety just happens if we've gone too far to one end of that spectrum. It's like, like things have spun out of control.
And I actually think that fits nicely with our model of resilience. You know, a few episodes ago we talked about the different resilience types. So here's a super quick summary. Instead of focusing on pathology, we try to start from a foundation of strength. So we identify six different mind body types and they're based on the positive traits or what people feel like when they really feel like, themselves.
Aimee: Yeah.
Henry: When stress or other factors like that push us out of balance, then we might develop symptoms.
And those symptoms actually tend to be a little different for each type as well. So out of those six types, there are two of them who are more likely than others to develop symptoms of anxiety when they get stressed. But when they're in balance, when they feel more like themselves, they actually tend to just be really curious, to notice things and to wonder about the world around them.
Now those two types are what we call the creative and enthusiastic types. And Aimee, I think you and I are, are those two types. So if you haven't already done so, I really encourage you to go to NaturalMentalHealth.com and take the resilience quiz. You'll discover your resilience type, you'll learn more about some of your strengths, and you'll also find out some really good, simple, natural things you can do to keep yourself in balance.
I am also a fan of what's called evolutionary psychology. And that really helps me understand, um, why we're all built a little differently, why we've evolved to have these different mind body types. So for example, if we were all wired just the same, collectively, then we would have a harder time adapting to change or keeping ourselves safe as a group.
So in evolutionary terms, it was good for the whole community if there were a few people who were more vigilant, who noticed things. Who maybe even had an interest in exploring or pushing the boundaries. So if you're one of those people, it's really great to have those traits, and it's also really great to learn how do we keep from spinning into that unpleasant state of anxiousness?
Aimee: Yes. That evolutionary lens, uh, can be super empowering. There are advantages to the way we are. So, what we're exploring in this episode and in the next several as well, is how we can tap into curiosity in really helpful ways, and also to support what we discussed kind of in the last two episodes, which were about cultivating a good heart and creating deep connections. Linking up all this stuff. in those last two episodes, we talked about the power of listening just a bit. Uh, and skillful listening and curiosity are kind of inseparable in my mind. When we're curious, we're listening, when we're really listening, we're curious. We can listen then, uh, to so many ways of knowing.
Listen to our own wisdom, uh, and listen with as few filters or agendas as possible. At Joy Lab, there are seven aspects that we like to use to improve our listening and our curiosity as well. These aspects of deep listening come from Henry's book, the Chemistry of Calm, and we'll actually work through one aspect per episode over the next seven episodes.
So here are these aspects, presence, attention, seeing innocence, seeing goodness, allowing. And then the final two, the aspects of wonder and silence. So we'll work through them independently, per episode, but as we move through the episodes, you'll probably see how they fit and work together to create an even more powerful, cohesive practice for curiosity building and deeper listening.
Henry: So I just love this stuff, and it might be because I'm just drawn to this notion of living more deeply.
Aimee: Hmm.
Henry: And I also see this as another way that we can create a bigger container. That we can open and expand our lives, which we really do want to do. And there's two big reasons for that. One, it helps us to deal better with the challenges that come our way.
And two, we are much more likely to be able to tap into joy. Those might seem like really different pursuits but I think they're just flip sides of the same coin.
So when I think of that list you just gave us, Aimee, I see it as a kind of natural progression as a path, so to speak. It starts with ourselves, cultivating those two qualities of presence and attention that really create the foundation for everything else. And then with that as a foundation, how do we move outside of ourselves to connect with others? Well, we, we try to see the innocence in them and the goodness in the world around us.
And then I think there's this amazing pivot point that we just call allowing, which creates an opening for wonder and for the stillness that is waiting for us at the end of that path. So I see this as being deeply connected to the source of joy. It's, it's like you don't need for things to be any different than they are. Now, I don't really see this as a linear progression where you, you sort of reach a state of enlightenment and then you're done. I see it more as a cycle one that we need to go through again and again.
Aimee: And again and again. Yeah, nothing really when it comes to joy. So before we get into the aspects, uh, in the next episodes, we wanted to take a bit more time to understand curiosity and how it can ease anxiety.
I think a good place to start is what, uh, Drs. Jordan Lipman and Paul Sylvia identified as the flavors of curiosity. They note that curiosity comes in two flavors. "D" curiosity. As in deprivation. And "I" curiosity I standing for interest. D curiosity, that deprivation, is described as those situations where we are left with a gap of information and so we go into a restless, kind of desperate, need to know state. We all know what that tastes like and feels like in our body.
It tastes sour. I think it feels tight, closed up, frantic. And then "I" curiosity, interest, really the opposite. We're not desperate for some information to solve dise. Instead, it's a more positive frame around the situation, and so searching and discovering information becomes enjoyable. It's also more broad.
We still may want to resolve some uncertainty, but we're not going in with a fixed agenda or a closed minded, confirmation bias, sort of salve. It's not a desperate search. This kind of "I" curiosity, I think tastes sweet. And it feels exciting expansive. It opens us up. It feels creative.
And perhaps no surprise, higher scores on "I" type tendencies, are negatively correlated or unrelated to measures of anger, anxiety, and depression. Meaning more of that interest type of curiosity comes with less anger, anxiety, and depression. Whereas higher scores of D, curiosity tendencies, they're associated with increased measures of anger and anxiety.
Henry: Yeah, so when I think about their model where D is stands for deprivation, I think you could also say D stands for desperation
Aimee: Yes.
Henry: and I, they have as interest. And I think that sounds a lot like inspiration.
So when you describe it, that's how it feels to me with with D type curiosity, I feel kind of this desperate, need to know.
It's like I'm grasping for answers, which is very, very different from being interested and letting myself be inspired by what I'm learning.
It's kind of like the really simple model that we've talked about in Joy Lab for how to check in with our emotions. So just in a any given moment, just turning inward and asking,
"Am I open at this moment?" Where there's this feeling of expansion or a sense of flow. Or at this moment do I feel closed, like with a feeling of contraction or some sense of constriction tightening up. And really it just takes a moment to turn inward and I can tell immediately which of those two states I'm in.
A while back, we talked about the dopamine system and we used the metaphor of fast twitch and slow twitch dopamine. That grasping quality is kind of like fast twitch where we need that dopamine hit right now. And then another, and then another, and it just is insatiable.
Somewhere in our minds, we are afraid that the worst case scenario possible is going to happen, and so we just need to reassure ourselves over and over again.
Slow twitch dopamine is like the pleasure you get when you let yourself just be drawn towards something you're interested in and wanting to learn something new. There's no rush here. It's just a pleasant sensation. And you're in it for the long run with a bigger payoff potentially at the end.
Aimee: Yeah. Desperate versus inspired. Those perfectly describe the feelings. I agree. I actually have a great example. Perfect with that desperate description. So I'll tell a quick story. I had to pick up a friend at the airport and my husband. and I had to switch cars to do it. Uh, it was about an hour past the time that he said he'd be there to switch cars with me. So I thought I'd check in with him. I called him here's how he answered:
"Hi, I'm in the back of an ambulance right now. I can't talk."
What?!
I said back, "What?! Are you okay?" And his response was, "It's for work. I'll call you back." And then he hung up. and then I started to think all the things, the terrible things.
I was pretty sure that was the last time I would ever speak with him. Desperate curiosity was seizing me. All of those terrible sensations came in. So I raced to the computer and since he's a firefighter, first responder, I started searching like mass casualty events in my city. Mass, large fires in my city.
Nothing popped up.
That gave me like a microsecond of ease, a bit of fast twitch dopamine, but then I just got more creative with my freaked out thoughts
Henry: Uh huh
Aimee: Cycle. Cycle and kind of a funny example, but I'm sure relatable to all of us, it is really common to fall into d, curiosity, deprivation, desperation, in daily life when we're faced with something we don't understand, something or someone unfamiliar, or a situation with not all the information or answers, which is like all the time.
And so if we don't practice our curiosity and listening because they're skills and it's really easy to fall into that flavor of deprivation, we get stuck just like you said, Henry, on that flavor, rewarded with a fun size serving of dopamine, that decreases our dis discomfort for a microsecond just enough to trick us even when what we're believing or chasing is sort of terrible or false or terribly false. And so those seven aspects of listening and curiosity apply right here.
So with my example, after I paused, realized that I was cycling in deprivation and worst case scenarios. I came back to my presence. attention, silence for a moment. Made room for my curiosity and listening. And with those aspects, I was able to acknowledge a few key things.
My husband was speaking clearly. He seemed fine, I hadn't received any public safety alerts on my phone, phone calls from his colleagues, none of those. But what's interesting here is that I didn't solve anything. I didn't have any more answers, but that pause. . Just giving my attention to sort of what was true. Tapping into a bit of silence steered me away from some of those unrealistic scenarios, and I was able to come back to a more balanced state.
Henry: That is totally relatable, Aimee.
The
Aimee: way. He just the phone cuz he thought I was calling
about car, which I was, don't ever do that again.
Henry: Just needed a tad bit more information.
Aimee: like thought it was helping. Uh, no, you made it way worse.
Henry: Oh my gosh. Well, I have another example that I, I think is also very relatable. So I'm guessing most of us have done something like what I'm gonna describe. So a few years ago, I just, for some reason, out of the blue, developed this. Terrible, itchy rash and it happened right after we had stayed, we'd been traveling, and stayed for a few nights with my sister-in-law, my wife's sister.
Well, when I developed this rash and it, I was miserable. I just did what I think any intelligent modern day person would do. I got on the internet
Aimee: don't do it. Don't do it
Henry: and I have just enough, you know, medical background that I can go down some pretty terrible rabbit holes in a real hurry
Aimee: yeah.
Henry: And based on what I read and based on the look of this rash, I was convinced I had gotten bad bugs. From my sister-in-law's guest room.
So my sister-in-law felt horrible. Although she was pretty sure that her apartment did not have bedbugs.
So anyway, long story short, turned out what I had was an allergic reaction to a medication I was taking to prevent allergies. So, I know it's very weird, but I can totally relate to that desperate need to find answers when you're suffering.
Aimee: Right.
Henry: it. And it seems like the more you're suffering, the more desperate you can be to get those answers.
So I'm really looking forward to going through this series with you, Aimee, I, I feel ready to hit the refresh button. To revisit this cycle of deep listening and awakening genuine interest into getting to a place of, of greater stillness. Maybe I can even learn to do things a little differently the next time something goes wrong.
Aimee: Yeah. Grab your Benadryl. We're gonna do this. Okay.
Little little Um, I, yeah, I'm still looking for this too, Henry, and all of you listening. Clearly, you know, we can put these practices into these moments of daily life, but it, it does, it just takes practice. So as we move through this together, reminders, reminders, reminders to keep practicing. Um, and I, I just think that listening, listening deeply is such a powerful practice to ease anxiety and boost mood, but it's so underutilized. I'm grateful we can venture through all this together. So also over at our new community, we'll have our podcast challenges ready for you, with some really specific, realistic practices you can do for each of these aspects of deep listening. So head over there if you're a member, if you're not, head over to community, uh, at NaturalMentalHealth.com, click on "Community" at the nav bar. You can learn more about it. We'd love to have you join us.
Big bonus as well, is that your membership there helps us keep this podcast alive and free for all. And that's huge. So to close, I want to look to one of my most favorite authors since I was a little kid, Madeleine L'Engle. I think she just got me going with my curiosity. From her book, Swiftly Tilting Planet, here's what she wrote:
" Part of doing something is listening. We are listening to the sun, to the stars, to the wind."
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