Is That Question Helpful?

Not all questions are created equal.

I talk a lot about questioning your thoughts and feelings because that's the strategy I've been given intuitively on my own healing journey.

When I first started healing, I was doing it for two main reasons. The first was to fix a couple of big problems in my life at the time, but the second was because I wanted the truth. I wanted to understand why my life had turned out the way it had. I wanted to understand how what I was doing or not doing was affecting things. I wanted to understand the people around me too. I just wanted life to start to make sense, which it very much didn't at the time.

My healing journey started with asking thousands of questions about everything that had happened in my life. But because I was asking the questions, I had to be ready to accept the answers. Have you ever asked a question you really didn't want the answer to? What happened when you got the answer you didn't want? How did you feel about it?

Very early on I had to learn to accept those answers, especially the difficult answers, the ones where it was my own stuff that was the problem, the ones where I couldn't blame it on anybody else. I got good early at this concept of acceptance because it was the only way I would be given the truth about my experience. To this day, if I'm not ready for an answer, I don't get the answer. Full acceptance of what shows up is part of the journey.

All that leads me to this idea of which questions are helpful and which aren't. I do ask questions like:

• Who does this belong to?
• What's my responsibility here?
• What do I need to see?
• What do I need to heal or release?
• What's the truth?
• What are they trying to show me?

I don't ask questions like:

• Why did they do that to me?
• Why is it always my fault?
• Why do I have to take responsibility for their stuff?
• What's wrong with me or them?
• Is this a trick?
• Why am I never good enough?

Can you see the difference in those questions?

Looking for truth means removing stories of blame, shame, guilt, and victimization. Every question in that second set is a story. Those are all questions based on pain and based on the idea that you're a victim of your own reality. Not only is that not true, but it also puts your power outside of you meaning you're at the mercy of whatever happens in your life.

These types of questions keep you stuck in problem and don't allow you to take responsibility for your own well-being. What will happen is that if you try to gain clarity this way, you're only going to find yourself deeper into the story of pain that you're telling.

Clarity comes through recognizing your own behavior. It comes through not making yourself a victim of other people's stuff. It comes through not needing other people to change so that you can be okay. You get to learn how to manage yourself regardless of what other people are doing or not doing. What you learn ultimately, is that the clarity gives you a way to handle yourself respectfully even when people are throwing their stuff around.

One of the main lessons that I've been experiencing lately is that I don't need to defend myself. That looks like not engaging in arguments with people unnecessarily. That looks like just simply managing my own behavior without worrying about what other people are thinking or doing. It's taking responsibility for myself and recognizing where I end and other people begin. It actually creates more firm boundaries. It makes it really clear what I'm willing to take responsibility for and what I'm not. It also has the added benefit of showing me where I was engaging in useless debates and conversations.

I spend far less time than you think trying to figure other people out. That's because my response to people is only based on what I'm willing to take responsibility for. It's only based on what I actually need to own, not what other people would like me to own. That means I don't need to waste my time trying to understand other people and their pain. The recognition of pain is enough. I don't need the gory details to be able to understand my next move.

When we feel like we've been wounded by other people, we tend to put a lot of time into trying to understand why people do things. When bad things happen in the world, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out the motives of other people. Why do people do the things they do? Every time the answer is that it doesn't matter. They acted from pain. That's all you need to know. The idea that we need to understand everything in order to heal keeps us stuck.

This is the mind looking for a place to judge or blame other people. It's the mind looking for a sort of escape route to not have to deal with what's going on. Let's focus on the other person because it's easier. But if you think about it, when we engage in lengthy court battles that are trying to establish the motives of other people, it drags the pain out for years. People willingly tie themselves to the back of the bus to get dragged through the pain for years because the mind has decided it needs to know. It puts everything outside of them, takes it completely out of their control, and causes a huge amount of pain which is what the mind was actually trying to avoid to begin with.

The problem is not the trial. The problem is the external focus. The problem is the distraction from dealing with our own internal world. The problem is the encouragement to go looking for understanding that may not be available to us. We need to be okay with the limited perception and recognize that it is, in fact, limited. We can allow that to be okay when we stop asking questions about why other people are doing what they're doing.

So, if we stop questioning the motives of others, it puts the focus back on ourselves. That's a good thing because that's where it always needs to be. That means that we can begin to ask questions that are more internally focused. This is what allows us to gain clarity and find truth. The truth is not out there. It is within you to find. Your job is to be willing to go looking for it.

The most helpful questions to you will be the ones that allow you to understand the truth within yourself. You will always be redirected back to yourself because that's where everything you need is, within you. Learning to ask questions that give you clarity around what's happening and what you need to do next is what will be the most beneficial to you. Always, you will only get the answers you are ready to hear. You won't get another answer until you've fully accepted the one you got.

The Universe pretty much makes you get everything you need before moving onto the next thing. Sometimes, even though I'm pretty quick at accepting, understanding, and moving on, I get to hang around in place for a while too. I'm not allowed to move quicker just because I want to or because I think I can. Everything moves when it's supposed to and not before. Don't be impatient with the process. That won't help anything!

If you're just starting out your questioning journey, pay attention to the types of questions you're asking. Where is your focus? What are you paying attention to? Is this giving you what you're after? Is it beneficial? If you do that, you'll start to see what types of questions bring you better answers and more clarity.

What happens if you don't like the answer? Figure out how to accept it. That's the goal. Yep, those answers are painful sometimes, but acceptance is the fastest way to heal. There will never be anything scary to find in the dark corners. You already know about everything that's there. Your only job is to be okay with the fact that there are some dark corners and then be willing to go looking in them.

You will never ever be told you're awful or you don't deserve to exist. You will never be told you're not good enough or you can't. You will be shown how to heal and where the answers you're looking for are found and that's it.

The journey of questions isn't easy. There are lots of little twists and turns all along the way. But if you're patient with yourself and you're willing to accept what shows up, you'll be well on your way to untying yourself from the pain you've chained yourself to.

Just keep working at it. You'll get there.

Love to all.

Della