My intention remains to share wisdom nuggets from challenge in hopes that these, possibly, aid you in maneuvering through difficulty and opening you to helpful discoveries.
If any ideas don’t interest you, you disagree with them, or you Question them because it/they do not feel like your Truth, I respect that. Actually, I encourage it.
‘Questioning’ was – and still is for me – an aspect of growing through, and finding advantage from, adversity.
Before illness and fall/fall/falling-to-truly-heal, instead of Questioning advice, information, or suggestions of others, books, media, articles, training, social media, you-name-it, I generally went along – gathering others knew better. Or from fear of rocking boats. People pleasing was a factor too.
When ashes surrounded moi, significant doubts arose. I Questioned my thinking – both about the mundane and the deep.
What do I believe?
How do I heal?
What do I think I ‘know’ which, really, no longer serves or is not even true?
What interests me – or not?
How do I really feel about fill-in-the-blank?
The Questions were often internal during Silence, while praying/meditating, or to sages I knew or even read. I listened to wise ones about Question asking, like this former green beret Mike Martel, who describes it here.
Questions seemed nearly endless at times. Hope, especially in the dark, that answers would arrive was, in moments, slim to none.
Humbling, yet liberating. Unknowns abounded, alas aha-s appeared. – – – Thank you, God.
As philosopher and theologian Peter Abelard said, “by doubting, we are led to Question, by Questioning we arrive at the truth.”
Just asking Questions seemed to aim me in the general direction of discovering answers – even though I had no clue if answers were forthcoming.
Continuing to Question, I realized – Incrementally – the benefit of unlearning, relearning, and unlearning some more.
Learning and relearning cycles amidst difficulty even taught that “we learn more by looking for the answer to a Question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself” per Lloyd Alexander.
I practiced curiously querying (instead of judgmentally interrogating) by:
• Asking open ended Questions often starting with ‘What…?’ or ‘How…?,
• Choosing to Listen (with mouth zipped) to various ideas and wise folks – even if/when I had to Act As If before I really felt like it,
• Persisting in and taking Breaks from Questioning – both, and/or
• Practicing Flexibility with what Questions uncovered. Which might be more Questions. Sigh. Just sayin.’
Changing and evolving happened; Truth floated up. Along with realizing I was off-base about different matters. I grew more ok with that, and aim to continue to be that way as – Mistakes are Practice.
New possibilities, perspectives, and viewpoints opened to me.
Increased clarity and answers slipped in, nearly imperceptibly.
Releasing, er, less clinging to old stories that no longer serve, occurred.
Via exploring with Questioning, layers peeled away – and, uhhh, continue to peel away. More of my unique, quirky, healed self emerged.
Questions shepherded in alternate and novel-for-me ways to be, do, and think.
“We get wise by asking Questions, and even if these are not answered, we get wise, for a well-packed Question carries its answer on its back as a snail carries its shell.” Thank you, James Stephens.
I realized, and continue to realize, that the more I learn, the more there is to learn.
Questioning allows for upticks in awareness and Truth to, potentially and possibly, rise.
In the words of Albert Einstein, “the important thing is to not stop Questioning.”
Sending love – and my belief in you and your Questioning-and-Truth-finding genius,
