Curiosity and Repetition

Journey to Inner Wisdom

This episode may seem repetitious to you…and we often don’t like repetition. That is probably because the word repeat has been associated with repeating work in school when we didn’t get it! It doesn’t carry a very pleasing meaning. However, if we look more closely at the work repeat, I think it will make sense why I am repeating and not just reviewing my last episodes.

Repeat comes from the prefix Re- meaning ‘go back’, and ‘peat’ from the Latin “petere” which means ‘to seek’. When we repeat something, the purpose is to go back and seek or look for something that we may have missed or not noticed the first time through. When I teach the Awareness Exercise, there is a lot of repetition because as we enter into different levels of awareness by using our senses, our energy centers, our intuition, our memory and imagination, we will discover new and different perspectives.

Review, another word that education may have muddied for us, needs some attention. WE were told to review your work for the exam or the mid-term. We weren’t always told why it was a good idea to sharpen the neural pathways of learning the material, we just did it because the teacher said or not!

Again, ‘re-‘ is about going back and view is about seeing.

Both are beneficial to learning and as we now know when we review, we are reinforcing our neural pathways and anchoring our learning.

Today, I will use the word repeat because I want you to go back and seek…another word for seek is search…I want you to search for new meanings and new insights to your understanding of awareness and beliefs and perspectives.

Difference between repeat and review: Review is to look back and repeat is to about going back to seek…

1520s, "inspect, examine," from view (n.). From 1765 as "to regard in a certain way;" from 1935 as "to watch television." Related: Viewed; viewing.

early 15c., "formal inspection or survey" (of land); mid-15c., "visual perception," from Anglo-French vewe "view," Old French veue "light, brightness; look, appearance; eyesight, vision," noun use of fem. past participle of veoir "to see," from Latin videre "to see" (from PIE root *weid- "to see"). Sense of "manner of regarding something" attested from early 15c. Meaning "sight or prospect of a landscape, etc." is recorded from c. 1600.

Think about meditation and the chanting of a mantra during your meditation. You are repeating the mantra in order to seek something deeper.

When we learn a new motor skill, we repeat in order to create a body memory so we can perform the task again. Once it is learned our body remembers.

Today through repetition we are going back and seeking new perspectives on what I have been talking about in the first episodes of a journey to inner wisdom

Here is a great poem by Marion Woodman that is a great description of going back and repeating!

‘Linearity does not come naturally

to me. It kills my imagination.

Nothing happens.

No bell rings

No moment of here and now.

No moment that says yes.

Without these, I am not alive.

I prefer the pleasure

of the journey through the spiral.

Relax.

Enjoy the spiral.

If you miss something

on the first round,

don’t worry.

You might pick it up

on the second – or third – or ninth.

It doesn’t matter.

Relax.

Timing is everything.

If this bell does ring,

it will resonate

through all the rungs of your spiral.

If it doesn’t ring,

it is the wrong spiral –

or the wrong time –

or there is no bell.’

The journey to inner wisdom is the journey to becoming ourselves…

First let’s look back at wisdom: Marion Goodman, was a Jungian analyst, feminist and poet. From her book, “Coming home to myself” she writes…

‘A life truly lived

Constantly burns away

Veils of illusion,

opening our eyes

To our uniqueness.

A life truly lived

Burns away

what is not longer relevant

Gradually reveals

Our essence

Until, at last,

We are strong enough

to stand in our naked truth’

Coming Home to Myself is really a great way to describe the journey to inner wisdom. We are journeying to our true essence and stripping away the limiting beliefs and conditioned beliefs that we have taken on from family, society, all the influences around us.

It is often during a transition that we begin searching for a deeper understanding of what is happening to us and around us. A transition is about going to the other side of where we are now. Without awareness of what is happening to us, we may miss opportunities or not even recognize what is happening.

In order to see how we can deepen our understanding and application of awareness and beliefs I will unfold the topic of curiosity. Remember, we have to be awakened to be aware! As we become meta aware, have a deeper awareness, we are able to begin to notice patterns in our life that will reveal our private belief system. This private belief system has been made up by us so we can get our needs met and survive in our world. We created it during our early childhood, and it is the unconscious operating system that guides our decisions and actions. We will also begin to notice certain beliefs that we have inherited, appropriated, or assimilated from our family, our society, our friends, our community. These conditioned beliefs also long for our attention and full awareness to determine if they are serving us on our journey.

I invite you to reflect on the following question:

How have you been paying attention to your inner world?

How have you been paying attention to your outer world?

What senses have been prominent in your awareness?

What energy – mind, heart, body - do you experience when you take time to be aware of your day or week?

What patterns have you noticed that surprised you?

Have there been other surprises when you have practiced being more aware of your inner and outer world?

Have you been curious or judgemental about what you have noticed?

As we begin to examine our life patterns and our private belief system, it is helpful to take a stance of Curiosity.

Let’s take a closer look at the word, curious.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

: having a desire to learn or know more about something or someone

: marked by desire to investigate and learn

mid-14c., "subtle, sophisticated;" late 14c., "eager to know, inquisitive, desirous of seeing" (often in a bad sense), also "wrought with or requi...