The theme of Monday's Happy Hour on the Simply Celebrate facebook page, was "What questions do we ask ourselves?"
Tricia started off the conversation by saying, "It was brought to my attention recently that the intent and quality of the question I'm asking (to myself or others) says a lot about my mindset and perspective. For example, do you tend to ask more "why" or "how" questions?"
When she asked that, it made me think. At the moment I was feeling really tired. If I asked myself why I was tired, I saw that it took me into the past. It also took me into a place of self-judgment and blame. I was tired because I didn't go to bed early enough. I was tired because I was eating the wrong foods. I was tired because I wasn't paying attention. But when I asked myself a "how" question — "How can I feel more energetic?" — then the response was "how about a drink of water? Or, "what if you listened to music you love?" The response seemed more grounded in the present. It also seemed more compassionate, helpful, and alive.
In exploring this, it seems like it might also be true of the questions I am asking others. I wonder if I ask "why" when I am feeling judgment or blame? I wonder if it feels this way to the person I'm asking?
What's your experience with this? I'd love to hear.
(By the way, I had a chance to test all of this again this morning. I'd been having trouble with the website yesterday and couldn't post the blog entry. So I saved it and decided to publish it this morn. When I opened the file this morning, it was completely empty. I started to ask, "Why did that happen?" But then I realized that would probably be wasted time. And it would just focus on the loss and irritation. It seemed like it would be much more useful to ask myself, "How can I re-do the post in a way that feels joyful, rather than frustrated?" That helped me move into a place where I could see that I didn't want to have to re-write everything I wrote yesterday. I just wanted to truly start anew and let the post be whatever it wanted to be today. Once again, "how" led me to the future place I wanted to get to. Hmmm.)