Troy Terwilliger’s Reviews > Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose > Status Update

…once I was able to get that inner clarity. I was free!

That is the ultimate I-type curiosity ("the treat").
When you watch a squirrel—whether it’s executing an impossible physics calculation to leap across a gap between two branches, or desperately trying to remember where it buried a nut in the lawn—it is living entirely in the moment. It is pure, erratic, fascinating, non-productive play.

The toddlers dove into the spaghetti challenge with curiosity while the adults struggled, their efforts were stunted by social anxiety, need to establish social hierarchies and subliminal competition. Essentially the toddlers wasted no time while the adults led with their ego. Why do we cut off our own curiosity?

Fear says: “Categorize this, control this, run from this, or kill this.”
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Curiosity says: “Observe this, touch this, wonder about this.”

Almost done! This one is really worth the read. The advice is so bizarre but so unique to the anxiety experience.

Curiosity and fear are linked, like watching Dateline. When we relax enough to follow our curiosity through the fear: we have intrigue. “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Letting go for fun!

Managers vs. Firefighters: are trapped in stories. Exiles are trapped in illusions around feeling safe.

Flopping. Total flaccidity. Your muscles go completely limp, your blood pressure drops, your mind goes foggy or totally numb, and you dissociate. You feel heavy, hollow, and utterly incapable of caring about anything.

Take two quick inhales through your nose (one deep breath, followed immediately by a sharp "top-off" inhale to fully inflate the lungs), then let out a long, slow, sighing exhale through your mouth. Doing this two or three times pops open the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in your lungs, allowing carbon dioxide to dump rapidly. It triggers the vagus nerve & sends an immediate biological command to the heart to slow down.