Twisted Thinking Revealed Through Questions
What are the questions you aren’t willing to ask yourself?
What do you know to be true that if you opened yourself just a bit you might find another truth?
What do you believe that if you took another look at it you might realize you’d gotten it backwards?
It took one question and my life changed. Twisted thinking started to unwind.
A friend asked me a simple question. (I’d been teaching her to ask questions and she nailed this one on the head. She’d been all nervous to ask it because it was a yes or no question and not open ended.) Do you believe it is possible to have a life without headaches?
I took the question seriously, even though, I was tempted to answer automatically. After all, wasn’t it obvious?
Instead, I asked myself, what was my body actually feeling as a result of this question? (A yes response is relaxed and expansive. While a no response is constricted and heavy.)
My body surprised me. No, I couldn’t imagine a life without headaches.
I asked myself, “What’s that about?” And a random thought popped in. I’d been working with one person because he helped ease the headaches and I felt dependent on him. A side benefit is that he is super smart and I learn a lot from him. (I LOVE learning.)
Had I been keeping the relationship because learning was so important to me that I was willing to have the headaches so that I had access to his smarts? Again, the answer surprised me. I had it twisted up. I had headaches in part so that I could learn.
Finding this twist started an unraveling that has led to fewer headaches and more learning. The questioning continued within my head. “What would I do if I no longer had headaches?” and “What do I do on those days that I do feel good?” I found that I did the same thing on “good” days as I did on headache days.
It was time for a change. I stopped relying on the guy who’d been helping me and started relying on myself more. I switched up my supplements. I tried new treatments that I’d been resisting. I chose five areas to focus on for 2023 and started focusing on them a month early by preparing a power point and writing in a journal entry anytime I had a result related to my focus for this year. My energy soared as I placed learning at the beginning of my day. I started rereading a book that had been on my mind. And so on.
Here is an example of how something random came together to support my focus. While talking with my daughter-in-law about a personality test (DISC) that my sister did for me last year, I pulled it out and was shocked to see that I rated 100% on learning. It was my strongest trait. I hadn’t remembered that learning is like breathing for me. Necessary. I thought it was just something I liked to do.
So, I followed the energy and pulled the book I’d been nudged to reread off the shelf. Well, it suggested a forgiveness exercise. I changed it a bit. Instead of sitting quietly, I gently rode the exercise bike as I forgave everything I could think of. (Movement helps energy move through more easily.)
I found another twist in my thinking. The day (and probably my life) shifted. It was that deep.
The 20 minutes flew by. I felt lighter.
The immediate result was unexpected – meaningful connections (which by the way is one area of focus for the year). My husband asked me out to lunch and we had a deep meaningful conversation that will change our relationship for the better. This is a far cry from our normal lunch when we sit and stare at each other without talking. Then later in the day, I had a deep conversation with my father. Something we hadn’t had in a long time.
Are all the headaches gone? No. I still do stupid stuff like take a supplement that I know my body doesn’t like, but I really want it to like so I take it anyway and get a headache. Some things take longer to learn than others, like trusting my body’s answers and following what it tells me. We get it when we get it.
It all started with a question. In addition, I was open to not being right. I was open to following the energy (that time).
So, what is the question you are afraid to ask yourself that will turn everything upside down?
It’s worth it to ask the question and listen to your body’s answers. It might be the very thing you need to change your life. It’s your choice what you do with the answer. Happy questioning.
