120. Healing Through Curiosity: Tools for Better Listening and Mindset Growth

When we invite curiosity to replace the judgment and assumptions, it challenges fixed ways of thinking. And if we're like, oh, every time I see this patient, this is what happens, we sometimes reinforce that. We create our own reality and the way we show up.

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Welcome to this almost behind the scenes episode. I am with my Super Co host, Dr. Erin Hurley. And Erin and I meet on a regular basis to talk because we're friends. And then we also review topics that we believe will be important to talk about in the podcast. And we are both coaches for women in medicine. And so we, we review some of the things that we see coming up, whether it's in the social media and the LinkedIn groups that we are or with our own coaching. And what are some of the topics that are coming up? What are some of the struggles? But then also what are some of the tools that come up that we can use to help and, and for our day to day? And one of the things that Erin was telling me in her group coaching was how she was bringing up how we can use curiosity as a mindset shift. And I was like, this would be an awesome podcast, Erin, so that you can share that wisdom with our audience. I want to start there. Aaron, tell us what's your perspective and what do you mean with curiosity?

But when we think of normal, go to thought processes or patterns that we're in. The first two that come to mind for me are judgment and assumption. Think of having a conversation that you've had recently and you already know the answer when you ask a question in your head. And sometimes that drives how the con. Well, oftentimes that drives how the conversation goes. Or we witness a circumstance and we're already judging. And because our mind has this negative bias, if we don't know the whole story, our brain's going to fill it in for us. And usually that story is going to be, it's probably about me and the story is going to be negative. And that may have nothing to do with the truth. And oftentimes we are carrying around heavy baggage because of our own assumptions and judgment. And when we can replace assumption and judgment with curiosity, then the whole world opens up to possibilities. Somebody comes into the office and they race by you and they don't say hello. We could make up our mind and go, oh man, that thing I said to Them yesterday must have really ticked them off. They're mad at me when what really happened is they almost got into an accident at work, it delayed them and they're racing in because they're late and it has nothing to do with you. And they aren't even mad, they're just rushed and feeling out of sorts because their day didn't go as expected. And when we can have curiosity be our go to instead of our automatic judgment and assumption, it can really lighten our load and be a much different way of managing through just day to day circumstances or even inpatient care. Getting curious, what's going on with this patient? Instead of judgy, why aren't they taking their medicine? Why aren't they following through? Why are they late to their appointments? And instead substituting for curiosity and figuring out what's really going on has been a powerful tool that I've found over the last several years and has really taken a lot of practice to implement it, to get rid of those old, well established habits of judgment and assumption.

Wow, that's so powerful. What a beautiful reminder. And it goes back to what we always talk about here in terms of starting with awareness. And then with the awareness then we can make better decisions and be more intentional. Assuming that our brain will have that automatic, unfortunate, like you said, judgment and assumption. And sometimes it also. Right. Like I'm thinking about it as a psychiatrist, that sometimes that assumption will get us into a loop into activating the parts of our brain that gets us into that almost the fight or flight response. I'm exaggerating, but we know that that happens. Those pathways get activated versus curiosity, which activates the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain that then will allow us to make better decisions and plan. And it's right like that. When we judge, it's tight. And when we're curious, we soften. That's how I think about it. And it's not just that mindset shift, but then almost that neurobiological shift if, if we want to think about it in. In what? The wiring that's going on in our brain. What. It's so cool because we can, like you said, we can pause and use this all the time. So I think having the word curiosity in our back pocket, it's so powerful. And tell us, like we were saying before, why is this particularly important for women in medicine?

Several reasons. One is that when we invite curiosity to replace the judgment and assumptions, it challenges fixed ways of thinking. And if we're like, oh, every time I See this patient, this is what happens. We sometimes reinforce that you recreate our own reality and the way we show up. And so we are writing the future path instead of allowing it to go potentially in a new and better direction. There's also this thing that I call emotional toll, and which could come like hooks or claws. And maybe I've shared this example before. I use it commonly with my coaching clients. If you are making assumptions and carrying negativity into a conversation or an interaction with somebody, and it may not even be, you know, based in truth, I call these emotional hooks. And I picture them. If you're watching on YouTube, I've got, like, cat claws. My hands are in these claw legs. And think of these long, spiky claws coming out of this cat's paws, and they're digging into your back, and there's this cat hanging on your back, and it's really uncomfortable, and those claws are digging in and you want to shift and move and get away from that pain and discomfort. And when we have emotional hooks that come from things that may not even be true, you are inviting heavy emotional toll that may not need to happen. And when we can challenge what our assumption is. For example, I had a recent interaction with somebody. There was something that happened at their work during the pandemic. Really chaotic times. Offices were doing their best. Healthcare providers were doing their best. It was a really challenging time. Something happened at that time, and the action that happened made this individual think, I'm not appreciated. And that individual has carried the emotional hooks from that thought, I'm not appreciated. For five years. Every day they show up at work, that feeling, I'm not appreciated. And there was a series of events that allowed this person to get feedback from the very individuals that they didn't. He did that they didn't think was appreciating him, and found out, I am appreciated. This conversation I had with this individual, the weight that was lifted after five years. Imagine showing up every day, I'm not appreciated. Did this mindset shift? They appreciate me. I just imagine how every patient interaction, every staff interaction, when this individual starts their day, ends their day, and they let those claws off their back and that huge emotional weight of I'm not appreciated go. And instead they were open and curious about, oh, I wonder if something else can be true. And it really was. And that shift, maybe that's going to be the shift that allows that person to continue practicing medicine for another five or 10 or 15 years. Instead of that, I'm not appreciated taking them down the burnout route and not being able to recover from that.

Wow, that's so powerful. It's incredible the things that our brain does right and when we hold on to things like that and we don't have to be a negative person perseverating in. In bad things for our brain to do that for us because when it's so charged emotionally, it gets stored in a different part of our brain and then we keep on reliving it, so we keep on rewiring it. And it's so sad. And how neat to have opportunities to use curiosity to challenge those thoughts and come up with alternatives. You don't even have to make that belief go away. But if, even if you just use curiosity to challenge that previous belief and kind of disarms that inner critic that we have. And again, I like to think about it because I. It's something, it's not coincidental that this week in our, in my group coaching, it was something that we were talking about self compassion and how we can use curiosity for self compassion because it's, it's a simple concept that is so difficult for us in terms of being kind for ourselves and how curiosity can really help us with our mental agility and emotional regulation and like you said, also not just help us with our overall well being, but be a disruptor for those burnout cycles.

It's so powerful and it makes us a better listener because oftentimes if you're in a conversation, your mind is already going to how am I going to answer that back? What are you coming up with your conclusion with your own assumptions? And if you are practicing being open to. I wonder where this person's going with this. I wonder where I'm going to end up at the end of what they have to share with me. Instead of already coming back and being okay with a pause, let me ponder what they just said and not going to an automatic which again tends to be the judgment and assumption. Can you be a fully present listener and just listen to what that other person has to say and be open to what possibilities are? And even verifying this is what I heard you say. Did I get that right? Is this what you mean? And they might say oh, I had that had nothing to do with my perspective. Let me correct that. And when we can be a better listener, as some people say, we have two ears and one mouth. And so if we can pay twice as much attention to our listening instead of speaking, our whole world may change.

So true. I love that. Ask better questions. And you, you already shared a few tools but how can we generate more curiosity and have it be something that's more accessible to us?

One way is having a group of open ended questions in your pocket that you practice using frequently. Oftentimes the questions that I share with my coaching clients to dig into this more is super simple. One is you can ask yourself this. I wonder what happened to make this patient late to their appointment today. I wonder what went on in their life to make it so difficult for them to be compliant with their medications. I wonder what's going on behind the scenes that my teenager child is not talking to me about that might be getting in their way to even follow through with their chores. So that's a common question that I encourage my clients to ask themselves. I wonder. And that automatically for me generates that curious tone and also helps us put a more trauma informed lens on things. I've been prepping this week for a trauma informed care lecture I'm giving to some PA students next week. And it just is that reminder of, you know, even going to the ACEs adverse childhood experiences study which says, you know, something that happened to that person in their childhood, which was decades ago, may be affecting how they show up, may be affecting triggers that they have in their lives. So we are complicated human beings and when we better understand that, it helps us be more prepared to interact with other complex humans. So number one question, I wonder number two is the question, help me understand. Help me understand your perspective on this. Help me understand what your thoughts are. Help me understand what you mean by that. So help me understand so that they can paint a more clear picture for you and fill in some of the gaps so you don't have to make that assumption yourself. A third question that you can ask or a prompt is tell me more. Tell me more about that. And a another piece that two other parts that you can do yourself is when you are coming up with your own assumptions or filling in the blank when you don't know and you can ask yourself, is that really true? Is that person really mad at me? Do I know that to be true? And when we can pour into ourself and really get to a place where we can pause before we react. And for me, one of the huge, two huge things that helped me do that is my meditation practice that I've put in somewhere over 2,000 meditations over the last, I don't know, six or seven years. And then getting better sleep allows me to pause, not do those judgments, not do those assumptions. And sometimes when I was a supervising physician, as a medical director, I Had to pause for days until I found the right time and place to address something with a staff member. And I might find that what I would have assumed was completely inaccurate. And so asking myself, do I know this to be true? Can I seek to clarity to make sure that I know what the truth is? And then that helps fill in the big blanks to challenge myself and do those pauses. And the last is if this is really uncomfortable or not your norm. It just means we need to practice it more. Write those questions down. If you're not driving, I wonder, help me understand and tell me more. And if you find it hard to do the pause, then what are the practices you can put into place? Maybe you need to exercise more, maybe you need better nutrition, maybe it's more meditation or sleep. Maybe you need somebody to support you in that, a therapist or a coach. Because if you're not able to get to a place where you can get to the curiosity, then ask what's going on with myself that can help me do that better because it will relieve a lot of emotional drains that might not be necessary in your life.

These are so good. And like I use a lot of these questions also as a psychiatrist. I start so many questions with I wonder, right? Because it, I think it softens the judgment and it also I can express my opinion without it being me, assuming that that's what they're thinking. Or I help them think of other options by starting with I wonder. And I wrote one down that I use a lot, especially in interpersonal relationships of what did you hear me say? Especially if I'm talking about something important and knowing that what I'm talking about my trigger an emotional response in the other person and that their judgment will come in because it's our perspective, it's our filters, it's the way our brain works. There's nothing wrong with that. It's automatic and very appropriate. And then that way it keeps it in a very, like you're saying, not just non judgmental way and curious. And then it gives you opportunity to kind of regulate what's going on. And something that you mentioned, but I, I want to make it a, a point again, is that we use curiosity not just with other people, but then also with ourselves. If you're feeling a certain way, if you're, if you feel like you're, like I said, like emotions right there under the skin, use this exact same questions Erin said to ask them to yourself, like when what's going on? What's really happening here? What else could be going on? What, what am I really feeling or thinking? And curiosity, like you mentioned initially, Erin, as a mindset shift, it's so powerful. We should start every day like this in staying in curiosity and kind of recapping some of the things that you are saying of not beating ourselves up. Because our brain can start with judgment and assumption, but, but then having the awareness that we can pause and use curiosity as a very strong tool that can help us in, in so many ways and, and how it can help us as physicians and in how curiosity invites different ways of thinking. And I'll review some of these questions because they are so important. We need to be better listeners and ask better questions like in starting with things that are very open and then I wonder, help me understand, tell me more and pause before you react. That would solve so many problems. Right. So thank you for reminding us all of that. And Erin, what else do you want to add that we need to, to be reminded of?

I like to go back to our reticular activating system, right. That part of our brain that tells us what's important. And so if we tell our brains that curiosity is important, then that helps us be a better, do a better job at filtering what becomes our reality. So of all the millions of pieces of information our brains are responsible for filtering through per day, we only get to hang on to a handful of those that create our memories. And as we use curiosity, that allows us to be more selective about what we allow through that filter to create a reality that might be more based in truth and that might be more open ended and more of a full picture than just allowing our reticular activating system to run on old programs that don't suit you. That might be, as Joanne talked about, kind of going into those negative loops and saying, no, I'm not going to allow that to happen. I'm going to pause. I'm going to be more intentional about what I pay attention to and what I allow to go through that filter so that I create a better reality for myself. And don't minimize the ability of yourself to choose that reality because your reality is what I'm pointing to my temples here is really what's going on in your brain and can you do a better job at creating the reality that you want based on the filter and, and based on your curiosity that you can implement every day?

So neat. Keep curiosity in your back pocket. A very strong tool. And with this. Stay tuned. Our next episode is coming right up.

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