How to Live Curiously When Things Feel Hopeless

No one who knows me well would call me an optimist. I think my war on silver linings started somewhere around 2017. It was the beginning of what would be five years of back-to-back huge life events. First I lost a pregnancy. The next year, my dad died. The next year, I gave birth to my daughter, and three months later the pandemic began. And here we still are. Other than my child (she’s so great, I’m so tired), all of these things were extremely difficult to withstand, plunging me into an existential crisis where I lost much of my faith in the balance of the universe, much less belief in the promise that things might get better. 

Whatever your history of loss or personal trauma, we can probably all agree that things are not great right now. COVID is surging, sending many people back into lockdown mode. We’re coming up on the second anniversary of constant stress, uncertainty, and bad news, and even if nothing bad has happened to you or your loved ones, these things are enough to take a toll on your brain.

When will it be over? When will things get better? How do I cope when everything seems so hopeless

Recently, I saw a post on Instagram from therapist Amanda E. White that got me thinking: “If you are struggling to cultivate hope for the future, know you’re not alone,” she writes. “Instead of trying to force yourself to be hopeful, see if you can start with being curious.” 

When I think about living curiously, the first person who comes to mind is therapist Laura Miles. 

“There’s a phrase that has stuck with me about curiosity,” she says. “The moment I stop being curious, I stop having empathy. We all assume empathy is the most important skill for being a therapist, but I actually think it's curiosity. Without curiosity, what motivation do any of us have to explore, change, and grow? What is the point of understanding someone else's feelings if I'm not curious about why they feel that way?”

I asked Laura to tell me more about how curiosity could be a better framework than forcing ourselves to be hopeful. She was quick to point out that living curiously isn’t easy, either. It requires a certain amount of bravery. 

“We shy away from curiosity when we're exhausted, overwhelmed, scrambling for resources–in survival mode,” Laura says. “There's no room for curiosity when we're trying to get through the next 24 hours (or 10 minutes). Curiosity is chaotic and unpredictable. We know that humans hate uncertainty. But what's underneath chaos and unpredictability? Trickster energy. Mischief. Disruption. Creativity. Potential. Newness. When we embrace curiosity, we automatically invite in these things, too.” 

Embracing curiosity requires giving up control and familiarity. But control and familiarity (or, let’s face it, the illusion of those things) can be what makes us feel stuck and hopeless in the first place.

Here are some ideas for how to begin living curiously when things feel hopeless. 

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR INITIAL RESPONSES

Laura says, “I think one of the easiest ways to access curiosity is to identify our initial responses or impulses. We have to know where we're starting if we want to consider that there might be more than meets the eye. This is the practice of radical acceptance–it’s not that we condone, endorse, or fully agree with what we're experiencing, but that we can accurately name it based on reality. Then, we ask questions. If radical acceptance says ‘this is true right now,’ curiosity says ‘...and what else is true?’ It doesn't mean we have to be happy about it, but we have a better sense of our own experience.”

ASK: WHAT MIGHT THINGS LOOK LIKE? 

When you feel stuck, ask yourself “What might things look like in a month/year?” You’re not painting a rosy picture of relief, or even hanging your hopes that your situation will resolve. But you are opening a window of engagement with the possibility of change.

SEEK QUESTIONS, NOT ANSWERS

If you spend any time around a young child, you’ll be peppered with questions–namely, why? 

“Can you imagine,” Laura says, “as a jaded and cynical and definitely not hopeful adult, how different the world would look if we remembered what it felt like to explore like a child? Whoever said we had to stop playing and ask questions? Hint: capitalism and the patriarchy, that’s who.”

To live curiously, we have to resist the systems that silence us and begin to question again. What do I want to learn about myself? What do I want to learn about this other person? If your pattern is to leap to judgments about others or about situations, try to slow your process down by asking yourself questions. What could I have missed about this situation? What could this person be going through that I don’t know about? And in conversation, take note of how much you are talking vs. asking–make it a goal to ask more questions.

It’s also important to ask hard questions of yourself. Laura suggests these as a good place to start:

“Some questions I think are good for sparking curious inquiry: Is my intuition wrong or is it uncomfortable? What is clouding the way I think about this? How can I change perspectives? Let me see what happens if I zoom out and zoom in–what do I notice? Am I questioning humankind or questioning the universe? Am I in a safe space or a brave space?”

GO BEYOND “THE OTHER SIDE”

So much of what makes our current times feel so hopeless is the polarization that exists in the U.S. Families, neighbors, coworkers are more divided than ever. You’re probably carrying tension or anxiety about people in your circle who have made different decisions about the pandemic than you have, or whose values sharply differ from your own. We’re often encouraged to try to “see the other side” or understand alternative perspectives, but you have likely done that already. Remember that curiosity is different from problem solving. 

Instead of only focusing on these conflicts, challenge yourself to ignite curiosity by going completely outside of your world of understanding. Spend more time reading books, viewing art, and listening to music made by people who live other places on the globe. A shift in cultural viewpoint, separate from vaccine and mask-mandate battles, can help expand your consciousness and give you a needed break from conflict that feels too big or too close. Going beyond our own perspective doesn’t always need to feel like hard work. Curiosity should also maintain elements of wonder and excitement at that which is novel. 

SLOW DOWN

In conversations with other people, try to slow things down not only by asking questions, but by repeating back what you think you’ve heard. You may be surprised at what others say you’ve missed.

In your daily life, walking around the places that are familiar to you, try to slow down and notice something surprising or unfamiliar. When you are in a new place or doing something new, try to go slowly so you can be aware of the full experience. 

Write down interesting things people say. Take a quick snapshot of things that catch your eye. 

Give yourself permission to take more time: to do your work, to do the things you love, to make decisions. If you are having trouble making a decision or finishing a project, try to get to the root of why. What would it mean to have things go one way? Another? Slow down enough that every day has some blank space for things to coalesce in your brain. Take a really long walk. Do a mindless chore. Allow the things you’re asking to rattle around in your brain. Allow the things you’re exploring to have time to sink in. 

Laura says, “I think we spend so much time striving for or living in the ‘action’ phase of things that we forget it's okay to sit in the liminal space of asking questions–of reflecting and ruminating on concepts before making choices about what to do next. When we sit in curiosity, we get quiet enough to finally hear the noise. There is endless opportunity in that moment before we choose.”

Ultimately, this mindset shift should “create a sense of potential,” Laura says. “We can be grounded in accepting the present and curious about expanding it beyond what it is now.  It's said that on his deathbed, Michelangelo spoke the phrase ‘ancora imparo,’ meaning, ‘yet, still I am learning.’ And is there any better way to describe curiosity than that?”

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