The Impact of Curiosity

I start my journaling each morning by searching for a quote that speaks to me that day. On a morning after a particularly rough night of sleep, I found a quote by Albert Einstein that has so resonated with the core of my being. It represents my one-word intention for the year so well that I thought I would share it.

I have no great talent, I am only passionately curious.
—Albert Einstein

As I have thought about this quote, I have begun to fan the flames of my own curiosity. I wondered what would happen, if we as partners, were more curious about our partner’s experiences, feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas, concerns, and dreams.

John and Julie Gottman refers to these curiosities as love maps. Do we know how our partners experience us when we are happy, or sad, or mad? Do we know and can we detect how our partners are feeling? Do we know what our partners are dreaming about, thinking about, or are concerned about? What would change if we knew? If they knew we knew?

Many times in session I ask, “Does your partner know you feel this way?” Often I get answers like, “Sure”, or “They must”, “I just said it, so of course they do”. Sometimes they ask their partner, “Do you know?”

More often than not, their partner will say “I didn’t know that!” I then ask them to turn to each other and say it directly to their partner.

The results are often a special honor to witness! Partners respond with fondness and love and each turn toward each other. Oftentimes this is the fist time in a long time the two have communicated directly to each other.

I wonder what our relationships could look like if we were more curious about what is going on for our partners. In his book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz shares the concept of “don’t make assumptions”. What would our relationships look like if we were more curious about what was happening within us and within our partners?

I believe Einstein was on to something. We don’t have to be naturally talented to be good at relationships... we can just be passionately curious. Come and be curious about your relationship!