[00:03] Jason: Welcome to the Autism and Neurodiversity podcast.

[00:06] Debbie: We’re here to bring you helpful information from leading experts and give you effective tools and support. I’m Jason Grygla, a licensed counselor and founder of Techie for Life, a specialized mentoring program for neurodiverse young adults.

[00:19] Jason: And I’m Debbie Grygla, a certified life coach. And maybe most importantly, we’re also parents to our own atypical Young Adults.

[00:30]

Hello, friends. I am Jason Grygla. I’m here with you today on the Autism and Neurodiversity podcast. Today it’s just going to be me. I just returned from a conference in California. I’ve probably been going to conferences for over 20 years. I would say probably an average of three conferences a year, seven to ten presentations per conference. That’s a lot of presentations. 

And I just got back from one in California. It was the Young Adult Transition Association, or YATA. And most conferences I come away with a few things that were gems. The speaker said something a little bit new, but probably things that are things I already know or understand and things that I think I wouldn’t do it that way. And so I learned a lot from others based on what they do and what they don’t do. 

And once in a while I come away just so excited about a principle. And it happened this time, and the presenters talked about something that I think I’ve heard, but it never clicked for me before. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that experience, but the topic was staying curious, and I want to talk about that today. 

Let me back up when we go from parenting into a mentoring or developmental priority approach, where we specifically and intentionally go from trying to fix a problem to trying to help someone develop. And that’s kind of my quote for the day in general, not necessarily related to this topic, is that our goal isn’t to go fix problems, and when we get into the problem fixing mode, we’re in trouble. And if we remain in our mentor mode, then we are focused on development, not fixing specific problems. 

Anyway, our mentality changes from a list of tell me what we have to do, should do or not to do into how to be and when we’re trying to focus on how to be, our list, our checklist changes, and it looks like be kind, be charitable, be empathetic. And I want to add to that list of being curious. It sounds fine. 

One of the problems with it is we typically hear the word curious in terms of the cat, and that curiosity is bad. When I talk about that, I watch our cats out in our two acre property with lots of trees and right next to a creek, we have lots of foxes, wolves, owls, hawks, even some eagles, mountain lions once in a while, and coyotes. And our cats typically survive an average of twelve to 18 months. Some of them don’t make it very long. We don’t keep them indoors because they want to go outside. And I think that’s great and they help us keep our mice and snake and album population down. 

But those cats, if they’re curious, they’ll sit and watch behind a tree for any movement for hours and they’re curious beyond reality. They’re curious to an extreme and they’ll walk way around something to get a better view of it so that they can be curious and figure something out. And maybe they’re natural hunters and that’s what it is. 

But what makes them survive a lot longer is our cats that are really curious, aware, they’re focused on details, they’re really trying to gather as much information as they can, unlike a dog that wants to just bound in clumsily and excited and happy to be there and have fun and cause all kinds of problems. But I love dogs more than cats. I really do. 

In this case, curiosity didn’t kill the cat. It probably saved their lives because they watched and they were careful and they were gathering information. 

So when we are curious, it’s a way of being, it’s a way of focusing, it’s a way of approaching, it’s intentional and it creates a partnering relationship that there isn’t a power differential. It creates an immediate connection and attachment. 

And you know that we are very much focused and that we prioritize relationships of influence as the best method or goal of being effective in mentoring and helping people to develop and grow. So when we’re curious, we want to gather information and we are naturally asking questions and intent on understanding what’s behind behaviors. 

One of the things we learn in the therapy world is that all actions make sense. And when you think about that and you think about a neurodivergent person struggling and you think that their actions aren’t logical at all because clearly they’re not working or they’re painful or they keep someone stuck, all of their actions make sense if you understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. 

And really good mentoring and being an agent for change requires a lot of good questions and curiosity. But you can’t do it fake. You can’t just ask a ton of questions. The most obvious example of that would be how did you do that? As if you’re asking a question when you’re not. You’re really condemning their behavior and judging what they’ve done. And it’s clearly sarcastic and it puts up an immediate wall between you and the person you’re talking to unless there’s a joke behind it and you’ve done enough. Really good curiosity and information gathering, that that’s more of a lightning of the situation. 

So one of the quotes that I love Albert Einstein for a minute, he was big on curiosity and I didn’t realize that until this presentation yesterday. He said, the important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity of life, the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day. And the second quote about it that I really love is he said, I have no special talents. And this is Albert Einstein, right?

 I am only passionately curious. I love that it doesn’t matter how smart you are, if you don’t care and you’re not curious, it doesn’t matter how charismatic you are, in the end, you’re not going to influence people except for by being a celebrity maybe without any engagement whatsoever. And so people want to follow them and be like them without any actual care. And the danger in that is that role models have no idea what people situations are, what their needs are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their goals. And so it’s a very one sided, one way mentoring because there’s no real relationship. It’s all about gallow very narrow influence. There’s no curiosity from the celebrity to their people. But when we ever do see somebody that’s a celebrity take a personal interest in somebody, we just on over that. We love it because there’s a part of us that knows that the personal touch, the personal relationship is such a great thing. 

When we talk about curiosity, there’s also a couple of things that I’d like to point out. One is that here’s a quote by Eric Chemstrom and he actually wrote a book called Wild Curiosity. Let me just read the quote and then we’ll talk about it. Curiosity may be the very thing that moves us toward a more just world. The alternative and in curious world may be one where prejudice and misery reign. 

Curiosity may be one of the essential ingredients to empathy. Say that again. Curiosity may be one of the essential ingredients to empathy, something that we can all agree the world could use a little more of right now. So when we’re curious, what happens in the situation if we’re one on one with someone or a small group of people, is that we immediately connect and attach and walls come down. And the power difference showing the power struggle from I’m above you to where equals immediately happen. And the cool thing about that situation is that being curious is an immediate tool that allows us to help the person emotionally regulate, get out of their lower brain, get out of their fight or flight mode, and get into a thoughtful introspective I’m safe and cared about. I’m not alone. 

And when we model curiosity for someone else, it immediately teaches them how to interact and how to be mentored and how to attach. And after a while, they just get used to coming and saying, hey, they don’t say this, but they say, hey, I know you’re curious about me because you care and I know that you want to partner with me. 

So I would like to speak to you about what’s going on, how many times have we gotten into just a mindset of we’re going to fix that problem, we’re going to change that behavior. I know what needs to happen, so I’m going to dictate it. Or when we see a situation, we think, oh, there they go again, we know what that is. Or we meet a new person for the first time and they’re struggling and we put them in a box and say, I already know who they are. They’re just like so and so, or this is just like last year and I can’t do it anymore. How can they not learn? Every one of those statements was absolutely narcissistic and selfish on my part and it’s a one way thinking and dictatorial anti attachment approach. 

And so curiosity here’s, that solves that. I love that being curious as a way of being and not what to do, because how to be is so much better than what to do now, asking questions is what to do if you’re genuinely curious. But you can’t ask questions without actually being curious and not come across as patronizing. Anyone these days smells out someone who is patronizing or insincere just doesn’t work. It has to be real or it doesn’t work.

Here’s another quote when the relationship is central to our work, it demands ongoing curiosity. One of the presenters asked the crowd, what hinders you from being curious? And here are some of the responses from an audience that was actually very intelligent, very educated, good people. All every one of them was there for the right reasons and want to be a benefit to those that they help and serve and work with. 

And so here are some of their answers: I’m afraid to be curious because what if I don’t know the answer? What if I don’t know how to fix it? I’m afraid to be curious because what if I open up a can of worms and I can’t put it back and I don’t have the time or the energy to do that? And so it’s hard to be curious and I may not want to hear the answer. What if I don’t want to be curious in my relationship with my children or my spouse or a loved one because I don’t want to hear that I’ve hurt them or I don’t want to own any of my own mistakes and it would be too vulnerable? What if I don’t have the emotional bandwidth or the emotional units to keep being curious all the time? I just can’t care about everything all the time and it becomes exhausting.

All of those are very valid responses. And I think if you’re aware of why you’re not being curious and you own it by saying it and just speaking it out loud, you can be curious and still have all the benefits without having to hurt yourself or take away from your own mental health, emotional health, stability. 

All you have to say is I really want to hear what you’re saying and I want to know what’s going on. I just want you to know I don’t know if I can fix it, but I would love to listen. I would love to understand about I really want to talk to you about this. This is really important and I would love to do that tomorrow over lunch, or can we do that on Sunday when I have enough time to handle this in a way that would be beneficial to how important this is to me? Sometimes if someone is really a mess and you know you can’t dive that deeper or it will actually send them back into ice, I think that’s a wise move not to be too curious. 

Sometimes people who are helpful but also naive dive in and open up pain as a therapist or trained not to open up too many layers of emotional pain or understanding, because it actually might stable the person, which takes me into someone who’s in a really pricey situation. They just need to talk. They don’t necessarily need cures, answers or solutions, and they don’t need you to fix it. We know that. 

But if you want to be helpful, it is so important to have them say, but here’s my problem. And you might have been right about the answer all along, about what they need or about what to do. And if you jump into mentoring mode, fixit mode, without letting them speak first, you’re not really mentoring because the goal isn’t to fix the problem, it’s to develop and to help them to develop. And by asking them what’s going on, they process a lot of their own information. It requires us to be in our own good place, standing on our own solid ground, enough to know that it’s helpful for them to just talk. 

So this way of being curious, it was such an eye opening thing to me. There’s another quote that I really liked to be more empathetic, we need to be curious about other people. We need to listen, be present, and most of all, be curious about other people, their experiences, motivation and desires. If there’s something to remember so that you can be a better mentor, parent, feature, therapist, psychologist, it’s ought to be curious, not memorize what questions to ask, but it’s how to be, which is so much deeper and better and not shallow. The times that I have stopped and been curious with my students, I almost always get down on their level. So if they’re on the carpet, I get down on the carpet. If they’re standing, but they’re in a defensive posture, I sit down and take a one down approach so that they will see that I’m comfortable and I can help them regulate their offensive, angry stance a little bit. And sometimes I’ll take the time to offer them something to play with fidget wise, or something to snack on, so that it fluffs off some of that overt emotion and anger. Sometimes I’ll find a way to touch them very quickly or friendly if it’s appropriate and only when I know it’s not going to trigger them and make it worse so that it brings down their walls and other tricks you can do that are real and they work. There’s something that an empathetic curious person does naturally. 

But I thought I’d point them out because it’s good to have them on your mind if you want to be that person. So if you’re not good at being curious, it’s okay to practice. It’s a muscle, it’s a way of being, it’s a skill set, it’s a characteristic and equality and just like anything else we do, if we practice it, we get really good at it if it comes across as cold. And this is one of the problems that Freud had when he did psychotherapy with people is he was asking intellectual questions, just intellectually or in the brain only. And there was no relationship, there was no empathy because Freud believed that getting involved in their process was unethical. 

We believe that the relationship actually is the most important piece. Not what is said, not the words that are used, not the advice that’s given. But how you are in the interaction is way more important than how expert you are and how big of a word you can use. 

So the good news is that anyone can be an amazing mentor. You don’t have to have a PhD. You have to have a heart if you want to be genuinely curious and care. 

One quick warning if you’ve ever met somebody that was too intimate too quickly and I’ve been accused of that and I’ve gotten that feedback that I get too close too quickly sometimes that’s someone who’s trying to be curious to meet their own needs. 

And if you want to be curious so that you can be enmeshed with someone because you like to rub up against an emotionally charged situation. If you’re like an intimacy junkie, which I think a lot of really naturally curious and empathic people are, they have to learn where that balance is. So be aware of being too curious. Or if curiosity is there to meet your emotional needs, you’re not in a good head space or that person is not in a good head space. 

So make sure that your curiosity is about being there for them and that will be helpful. Well, thanks for listening today. I got really excited, which is not something that happens very often at these conferences. There is a lot of information starting to come out about the concept of curiosity and I love it because it’s a way of being and it builds in a spot in development that is so effective in how to be as a mentor. Thank you for listening and we will visit with you again soon. Bye.

[13:07] Debbie: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Autism and Neurodiversity with Jason and Debbie. If you want to learn more about our work, come visit us at jasondebbie.com.