Waking Up to You: Tools for The Journey
The autopilot problem: Curiosity saves us all.
Curiosity is the tingling under your skin.
The same part of your brain is activated when you thirst for water as when you thirst for knowledge.
The art of it comes with learning to captain the ship of your mind—the mind, both sea and sailor; alternating between waves.
Essentially, you and I are dropped into the ocean of our minds, collectively and alone, without instructions, without a map.
Most spend their lives believing the territory of the familiar represents the entire map of their minds.
Such beliefs give way to humility when experiencing the quantum potential of self-awareness.
With self-awareness, we earn moments—moments between.
Moments between action and reaction—moments to decide.
Something outside us wakes us to ourselves.
This story dates back to ancient times; the lowly human, challenged by the necessary foe, takes up the mantle and begins the journey of a hero, finding her way back home.
Our modern hero contends with modern foes. Today, the invitation comes because the arc of life bends in a broken way and ends in a layoff, a divorce, or a depression.
The reckoning is the first step toward home.
Home is the familiar known you hold deep in your heart.
The part of you that feels older than this lifetime, the part of you that whispers silent truths you always remember.
Now you are awake, you begin to see through the prescribed life that didn't deliver.
You notice what you have to date ignored, your soul.
If you are willing to believe that you have work to do in this lifetime and that this lifetime is an opportunity to figure yourself out enough to do the job, then waking up is the beginning of the rest of your life.
The Quest
The path that brought you here holds clues.
No matter how old you are, where you live, or how much or little of something you have, reflect on your life, and you will see the patterns of your unique thumbprint as a curious human being.
The prescriptions that failed you are gone, but so is your sense of direction.
The map you made before feels flimsy, a bad copy of a questionable original.
You are the product of what came before and the possibility that now unfolds before you.
Possibility is what you see when the tickle of thirst points you toward curiosity in your quest for knowledge.
A Practice of Curious Questions:
"What is this showing me?" redirects from victimhood to learning
"What wants to die in me?" acknowledges that growth often requires letting go
"What am I not seeing?" assumes there's always more to discover
"Where am I lying to myself?" demands radical honesty
Before your ego is awake, early in the morning, a notebook and a pen, no phone allowed—write your morning pages.
Express the mental goo, dislodge your imagination. The day can begin with a clearing, try it as an experiment with curiosity.
Most of us drift through our early decades on autopilot, following a well-worn script someone else wrote: collect credentials, chase promotions, gather possessions, striving toward our preordained destiny.
Then life happens. The divorce papers. The pink slip. The diagnosis. The death. The depression that arrives with your body's final plea, to you, for change.
The reckoning you've been avoiding is also the homecoming you've been seeking. The yearning you can't place is for what you are just now remembering you left behind—you, in all your pure curiosity.
Little Boat
Little boat, big sea.
Water-tight and ship-shape tidy—
You bob and weave
Butterfly and bee
Synchronicity
Rehearsed steps reliably lead away
from
curiosity.
The water is deep—
You are sea-worthy
Wrestle yourself free
Pardon the pain, excuse it from your body.
You never asked to be diminished
Your path led you here to now
The compass is broken
The map no longer works
The territory is uncertain
Only now you know the truth—
The water is wet no matter the depth.
You swim by the stars
The map of the universe
Unfolds to the curious.
The morning pages are calling. The pen is waiting. The stars are there to navigate by.
If you want to explore this work further, you know where to find us.
The ocean is vast. You're not sailing alone.
— Sonia a.k.a. SuperSonic
Pay attention to your signals. Learn to recognize them.
Inspired by next month's upcoming podcast guest and featured Friend of TheTechMargin, Pia from the Creative Club, author, creator extraordinaire, and inspiration to us at TheTechMargin.
You can check out Pia's fantastic ride through the embodied creative life. Her book Welcome to The Creative Club is available on Audible and Amazon.
More on Pia's book here: https://kollektiv.studio/book
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