Recently, during one of my longer Zone 2 rowing workouts, a hummingbird hovered briefly outside my window before disappearing again. It caught my attention in a way I couldn’t quite explain. For a moment I found myself thinking of my grandmother, and then of someone from much earlier in my life. The thoughts came quickly and very unexpectedly.
Just as quickly, I noticed something happening in my body. I was holding a steady pace, watching my heart rate and staying with the rhythm of the rower, yet as those thoughts surfaced my heart rate rose almost immediately, even though my effort had not changed at all. The room was the same. My pace was the same. My power was the same. The only thing that had shifted was the thought.
So I treated it like a small experiment. Instead of following the thought, I slowed my breathing and stayed with the row. Within a minute or so my heart rate began to settle again.
Watching that happen caught my attention.
I think part of what made the moment stand out was the simple act of paying closer attention. Logging workouts. Watching heart rate. Noticing patterns instead of pushing past them. When I observe my body with that level of awareness, small shifts that once felt invisible suddenly become very clear.
It made me realize how quickly the mind can move toward fear, even when nothing around me has actually changed.
A few days later, during a moment when I briefly thought my child might not be safe, I felt the exact same reaction in my body off the rower. The same rush of anxiety. The same surge in my heartbeat. When the moment passed and everything resolved safely, something else became clear. Many of the situations I had worried about most had quietly resolved themselves far better than the worst-case scenarios my mind had imagined.
In many ways, I had been very lucky.
That realization began to shift something in me. When anxiety appeared, instead of letting it take over, I found myself becoming curious. Curious about how quickly a moment could change when I remembered how fortunate I had already been. And curious about how clearly my body had been showing me these signals all along.
I’ve discovered that curiosity carries a very different energy than fear. Fear narrows my attention quickly. Curiosity opens it. Instead of racing toward the worst outcome, my mind slows down just enough to observe what is actually happening. My body softens. The moment becomes easier to understand.
I have begun to notice that curiosity creates a small amount of space where anxiety used to rush in. Sometimes that small space is enough to let the moment settle.
Lately, I’ve also noticed that when I begin counting my blessings instead of my worries, anxiety softens much faster than I would have expected. It doesn’t disappear, but it does seem to open the door to something else.
Curiosity.
In a quiet way, this experience has felt like a small reawakening of curiosity. And every now and then, when I’m back on the rower, I still find myself glancing toward the window, curious if that hummingbird might appear again.
