Some years ago, a teacher I was working with made an observation about me. He said I was always seeking. At the time, I was attending a mediumship development group, having become increasingly curious about energy following my introduction to Reiki. I don't remember feeling particularly offended by his comment, although it has stayed with me over the years, perhaps because it made me curious about what seeking actually means.
Was he suggesting that I was always looking for something more? That I was moving from one interest to another without allowing myself to settle into what I had already learned? I can't say for certain what he meant, and perhaps that was simply how my enthusiasm for exploring different subjects appeared from his perspective.
What I do know is that I've always loved learning. I enjoy discovering something new, exploring different ideas and gradually recognising connections between things that initially seem unrelated. Change and curiosity have always felt quite natural to me, so I didn't see my desire to explore as something that needed to be corrected. But his observation raises an interesting question. When we describe someone as always seeking, what are we actually seeing? And does observing what someone is doing necessarily tell us why they're doing it?
When I first learned Reiki, I could have continued practising what I'd been taught without exploring anything further. There would have been nothing wrong with that, and I know many people find considerable depth and fulfilment within one particular practice. For me, though, Reiki opened up a whole collection of questions about energy. I became fascinated by what I was experiencing and wanted to understand more. That curiosity eventually led me into the mediumship group, not because Reiki was somehow lacking, but because I was interested in exploring another perspective.
Later, I discovered Soul Realignment, and that opened another doorway. I was fascinated by the idea of a human energetic blueprint, by what makes us the way we are and how our experiences might shape the lives we create. I wanted to explore the different influences that could be at play, and how understanding them might help us recognise patterns within ourselves.
Then there was NLP, which I came to through a rather different experience. While working with clients, I had begun noticing physical sensations within myself when certain words were spoken, either by me or by the person I was working with. Something was happening, but I didn't really understand what I was experiencing. Rather than dismissing it, I became curious about what might be taking place.
Learning NLP helped me explore the relationship between language, thoughts, feelings and our physical responses. It offered another way of understanding something I'd already begun to notice through experience.
As I continued working with people, another question emerged. I could help someone recognise patterns or gain a different understanding of themselves, but what happened when that understanding began to change how they experienced their life? Sometimes a person might feel unsettled as familiar beliefs or behaviours began to shift. I recognised that being able to help someone discover something about themselves wasn't necessarily the same as having the skills to support them as they navigated what followed. That realisation encouraged me to explore coaching and other approaches to supporting personal change.
Looking back, I can see that each area of learning emerged from something I was experiencing or questioning. I wasn't necessarily looking for a replacement for what I'd already learned. I was following threads of curiosity, and as I followed them, I began noticing how much the different approaches had in common. Sometimes a concept would be presented in unfamiliar language, but as I explored it, I would recognise something I'd encountered elsewhere. Other times, a different perspective would help me understand an experience that hadn't previously made much sense.
I began to appreciate that we can describe similar experiences in quite different ways, depending on the language, tradition or approach we're using. And perhaps that's one of the things I enjoy most about learning, those moments when something suddenly connects with something else, and a little more of the picture becomes visible.
Of course, that doesn't mean every course I've taken has become part of my work, or that every new idea I've encountered has felt right for me.
There was a period during my Soul Realignment studies when I became so enthusiastic about what I was discovering that I signed up for several additional courses. They represented a considerable investment of both time and money, and I was genuinely excited about the possibilities they seemed to offer. Looking back, however, I can recognise that some of those decisions were influenced by a fear of missing out.
There was so much available to explore, and I didn't want to overlook something that might be important. Perhaps the next course would reveal another piece of the picture, or introduce something I hadn't yet considered. It's interesting how easily genuine curiosity and the fear of missing out can become intertwined. We may begin exploring something because it fascinates us, then gradually find ourselves feeling that we ought to continue, perhaps because there's more available or because we don't want to miss an opportunity. I don't think I necessarily recognised that distinction at the time.
What I did discover, as I worked through the material, was that some of the approaches being taught didn't particularly resonate with me. They weren't things I felt drawn to incorporate into my work, despite my initial enthusiasm. But that didn't mean I regretted taking the courses. Through exploring the material, I'd gained a deeper understanding of energy and encountered different perspectives on how we use our energy, how we might influence it and how we experience its influence within our lives.
Some ideas stayed with me, while others didn't. There were aspects I found interesting without feeling any particular desire to take them further, and I think this is where experimenting becomes so valuable.
When we begin something new, we often have an idea of what we're hoping to gain from it. We might imagine that a course will give us a particular skill, that a book will answer a question or that an experience will help us understand something that's been troubling us. But what if the most valuable thing we discover isn't what we expected?
Perhaps we attend a course believing we're going to learn a new technique, only to realise that the most significant discovery is something about how we respond to unfamiliar situations. Or we explore a subject that initially fascinates us and discover, through experiencing it, that it isn't something we want to pursue. We may even recognise that our motivation for beginning was rather different from what we originally believed.
I wonder how often we judge an experience by whether it delivered what we thought we wanted, without considering what else we may have discovered along the way. That doesn't mean every experience has to be wonderful, or that we need to convince ourselves there's a hidden benefit in every decision. Sometimes things simply don't turn out as we'd hoped. But perhaps there's value in remaining curious about what actually happened, rather than measuring the experience entirely against our original expectations.
Something else I've noticed over the years is that an idea or practice doesn't always resonate with us the first time we encounter it. We might read something, attend a workshop or listen to a particular explanation and find that it doesn't really connect with our experience. Then, perhaps months or years later, we return to the same material and discover something entirely different. The words may be unchanged, but we aren't quite the same person who first encountered them.
We've had other experiences, explored different ideas and perhaps developed a new understanding of ourselves. Something that previously seemed uninteresting or difficult to grasp may suddenly make sense. I don't necessarily think that means we weren't ready the first time. Perhaps there was simply something else within the experience that was more relevant to us then.
One of the things I appreciate about online learning is the opportunity to return to material whenever we feel drawn to it. We don't have to absorb everything during our first encounter or decide immediately whether something will be useful. We can explore, leave it for a while and perhaps revisit it later. And if we never return, that can be perfectly appropriate too.
I wonder whether some of the difficulty around seeking comes from the expectations we attach to it. We might believe that if we're investing time and money in learning something, we ought to become proficient at it, use it regularly or somehow demonstrate that the investment was worthwhile. Or perhaps we believe that once we've discovered something meaningful, we should settle there and stop looking elsewhere. Yet why should curiosity necessarily have an end point?
I can understand how seeking might become a distraction for some people. It's possible to spend so much time looking for the next answer, course or experience that we rarely allow ourselves to explore what we've already discovered. We might continually postpone putting something into practice because we believe we need to learn just one more thing before we're ready. But I don't think that's the only way seeking can unfold.
For me, learning and experimenting have often happened alongside one another. I've explored something, brought aspects of it into my life or work, noticed what happened and allowed those experiences to inform what I became curious about next. The different approaches haven't remained as separate collections of information. Over time, they've influenced how I understand what people share with me, what I notice within myself and how I respond to the situations I encounter.
There are still questions, of course. In fact, the more I explore, the more I recognise how much there is that I don't understand. But I no longer see that as a problem requiring a solution.
I think there's an interesting difference between exploring because something fascinates us and searching because we believe we're somehow incomplete without the next discovery. And perhaps that difference isn't always obvious, even to ourselves. We may begin with genuine curiosity and gradually become caught up in the idea that we're missing something. Or we might start looking for an answer to a particular difficulty and discover an entirely new interest along the way. Our motivations aren't necessarily fixed, and I suspect they're often more complicated than we realise.
Perhaps that's why I find it increasingly useful to notice what is happening within me when I feel drawn towards something new. Am I excited by the possibility of exploring it? Does it connect with something I've been experiencing or questioning? Or is there a sense of urgency, a feeling that I ought to do it because I might otherwise miss something important?
I don't always know the answer, and I don't think I need to. Sometimes we only begin to understand why we chose something after we've experienced it.
When I look back at the teacher's observation that I was always seeking, I can appreciate that he may have been noticing something quite real. I was exploring different subjects, attending courses and following one interest into another. But what he could observe from the outside was only part of the picture. He couldn't necessarily know what was motivating me, what I was discovering or how those experiences were gradually becoming connected within my own understanding. And perhaps I didn't fully know either.
I can see now that some of my seeking came from a genuine fascination with energy and the human experience, while at other times excitement became mixed with a fear of missing out. Neither observation requires me to dismiss the experiences themselves, because they've all contributed, in different ways, to how I understand myself today.
I still love learning. I still become curious when I encounter an unfamiliar idea or recognise a connection I hadn't previously noticed, and I suspect there will always be something that catches my attention and invites me to explore further. But I'm increasingly aware that I don't need every exploration to become something permanent, and I don't have to know in advance what I'm going to take from it.
Sometimes what I discover becomes part of my work. Sometimes it changes how I understand an experience, while at other times it simply helps me recognise that something isn't for me, at least not at that particular moment. And sometimes the most interesting discovery is something about myself that I hadn't expected to notice.
Perhaps that's what I've come to appreciate most about seeking. We can become so focused on finding the answer, reaching the destination or acquiring the next piece of knowledge that we overlook the experience of the journey itself. Yet it's often through that experience, through what catches our attention, what challenges us, what resonates and what doesn't, that we begin to understand ourselves a little more deeply.
I wonder whether we always need to know what we're hoping to find. Perhaps sometimes it's enough to be curious about what draws us towards something, to allow ourselves to explore it and to notice what we discover along the way. Because what we learn about ourselves through the journey may turn out to be far more interesting than whatever we originally set out to find.