Curiosity Didn’t Kill the Cat — Complacency Did

Why Curiosity Matters More Than We Realize in Creating a Happier, Healthier Relationship

(as posted in Brainz Magazine February 2026)

In this thoughtful exploration of the human–animal bond, holistic wellness practitioner and inter-species relationship guide Arlana Tanner-Sibelle invites readers to reconsider one of the most overlooked elements of lasting connection: curiosity. Drawing from lived experience and years of working alongside people and their animal companions, she explores how certainty and “knowing” can quietly limit growth — and how staying curious allows relationships to remain alive, responsive, and evolving over time. Rather than offering techniques or answers, this article opens space for reflection on our role in a shared journey that is never finished, and on how curiosity may be the key to deeper understanding, mutual growth, and enduring connection.

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By Arlana Tanner-Sibelle
Holistic Wellness Practitioner • Inter-species Relationship Guide • Speaker • Author of Moving Beyond Words — Our Shared Journey

Many of us enter relationships with our animal companions seeking deeper understanding.

We want to know what they need, why they behave the way they do, and how to create a life together that feels harmonious and connected. Over time, however, something subtle often happens.

We begin to believe we already know everything about them. Certainty can quietly turn into complacency — and with it, we stop actively creating the quality of relationship we most desire.

We think we understand our animal companion — their personality, their patterns, their limits. While this sense of certainty can feel reassuring, it can also quietly close the door to something essential. When we stop being curious, we stop listening, we stop paying attention. And when listening stops, growth — for both the relationship and ourselves — begins to diminish.

Curiosity is often misunderstood as a temporary stage: something we use at the beginning of a relationship, before familiarity sets in. Yet in long-term relationships, curiosity is not a phase to outgrow. It is the very quality that keeps connection alive, responsive, and capable of evolving.

When “Knowing” Replaces Understanding

Certainty has a way of freezing relationships in time.
Labels replace inquiry. Assumptions replace presence. We may stop noticing subtle changes — shifts in energy, behavior, or need — because we believe we already understand what is happening.

In human–animal relationships, this can show up in quiet ways:

• assuming past solutions will always apply

• interpreting behavior through old stories

• responding from habit rather than awareness

When this happens, the relationship becomes something we manage rather than something we participate in.

Curiosity, by contrast, keeps the relationship open. It invites us to meet our companion — and ourselves — as we are now, not as we once were.

As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”

In relationship, patience with the unknown is not a weakness. It is a form of respect — an acknowledgement that living beings are not static, and neither are the bonds we share with them.

Curiosity as an Ongoing Practice

Relationships evolve because life evolves. Circumstances change. Bodies change. Emotional landscapes shift. What felt aligned at one stage may need to be revisited at another.

Curiosity allows us to respond to these changes without forcing conclusions. It keeps us engaged with what is emerging rather than anchored to what has already been decided.

This doesn’t mean abandoning understanding or clarity. It means holding them lightly — allowing room for new insight to surface. In this way, curiosity becomes an ongoing practice rather than a problem-solving tool, used only when an issue arises. It allows us to prevent, redirect and respond before changes become challenges.

It asks:

• What is this moment asking of us now?

• What has changed — in them, in us, or in the relationship itself?

• What might become possible if we remain open?

When Curiosity Ends

When curiosity fades, frustration often takes its place. Misunderstandings harden. Challenges feel personal or fixed. The relationship can begin to feel stagnant, even when both beings are still changing beneath the surface.

The relationship doesn’t stop evolving — unless we do.

Curiosity is what allows obstacles to become invitations rather than impasses. It creates space for mutual growth rather than one-sided correction. It keeps the relationship alive as a living process rather than treating it as a completed achievement.

As Albert Einstein famously observed:

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”

Curiosity is not uncertainty for its own sake. It is an active commitment to stay engaged — to continue meeting life as it unfolds rather than closing ourselves to possibility.

Our Part in the Shared Journey

Every relationship encounters moments of challenge. In relationships with animal companions, we should see these moments less about what is “wrong” and more about understanding how this may be helping in our evolution and growth.

Our role is not to arrive at final understanding, but to remain willing — willing to question, to adjust, and to evolve alongside another living being. This willingness keeps the relationship spacious enough to change, deepen, and mature over time.

The evolution of relationship is not something we complete. It is something we participate in as an ongoing journey.

As I’ve come to understand through my own work and lived experience, the heart of this journey can be captured in a simple truth:

Our shared journey with an animal companion is not about reaching understanding, but about allowing ourselves to be shaped — again and again — by relationship itself.

When we stay curious, the relationship continues to grow.
And so do we.

About the Author:
Arlana Tanner-Sibelle is a certified holistic wellness practitioner, interspecies relationship guide, speaker, and author devoted to transforming the way humans understand and connect with their animal companions. Through her Elemental Blueprint™ framework, workshops, private sessions, and her book Moving Beyond Words — Our Shared Journey, Arlana helps guardians decode behavior, strengthen emotional connection, and create deeply aligned soul aligned partnerships with their pets. Learn more at arlana.ca.

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