How many things do you have in your life that don't work for you, that you think you have to be/do/have because someone else said so?
You have to study for that exam, go to that school, study that subject, enter that company, learn that language, marry that person, have that many children, attend that event, put that in your body, follow that government directive and so on. How well do you do them? Just because someone else says you need to be/do/have something is a good idea, will it always work out well for you? Who is the one person who does know what will work for you, what is true for you? You. You know if something is working for you. It feels light as a feather. Unlike all the heavy stuff you know doesn't work for you, but you do because you were told to. So if you're not as happy as you'd like to be, start listening and trusting you more by asking "Does this work for me?" Notice whether you feel heavy or light, and if you'd like to change the heaviness, ask "What else is possible?"
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What would you like to have show up in your life?
A great new job, a successful business, smart staff, more customers, reliable suppliers, an investor, more money, greater ease (less stress), better health, more fun? For life to go back to normal or become something even better than lockdown and panic? Whatever that is, invite it into your life with this question, while letting go of any conclusions you might have made about what it will look like and how it will show up. Be aware of the specifics of what you ask. For example, if you ask for the “perfect job,” you may create a job based on other people's expectations of perfect, including how you have to work long and hard, do what your boss says even though you can see a better way, take sides in office politics and so on. So instead, be clear on what you'd like and ask “What's it going to take for [example, a rewarding job that I enjoy and allows me to extend my talents, with flexible, fun, creative people] to show up, that would contribute to my life more than I can imagine, or something greater?” For me, right now that is "What's it going to take for me to be able to see my mother freely in her aged care facility without unnecessary restrictions or having to give my body things it does not need and would prefer not to have?" Or something greater... Have you been asking questions but things don't seem to be changing in the way you'd hoped?
What sort of questions are you asking? Do they sound like this “What do you know about X?” or “What's it going to take for people to get that I know all about X and recognise my worth?” Are these really questions? Or are they conclusions with question marks attached? In other words, you've decided what you want (to tell people about X) and that without people listening to you about X that you have no worth. So if you're not getting the change you'd truly like, check your questions. Ask “Is this a question, or is it a statement with a question mark attached?” (also known as "Am I being a superior asshole?") Then ask a real question. Are you bored, uninspired and unexcited with study or work? With your relationships? Life in general?
Perhaps you were doing something because you decided it was a good career choice, a noble cause, a higher purpose, or just because you've always done it? You'd be crazy to give it up. You'd let everyone down. Right? Before lockdown, were you spending time with people only because you worked with them, they'd been friends forever, they were family, or they'd be upset if you didn't? Since normal living has been turned on its head, have you started to reconsider your life, how you do things and who you do them with? If so start by asking “Who and what truly excites and inspires me?” and choose that. Rather than doing something begrudgingly because you thought it was "right" (for whom?) or expected (by whom?), what if you were excited and inspired by what you did everyday and everyone around you? Would your life ever be hard or tiresome again, regardless of apparent limitations or disruptions? What amazing contribution could you make, by doing wholeheartedly what you love, rather than half-heartedly what you think you should? Do you find yourself behaving in way that is, well, not quite you?
Like getting really cranky, crying like a madwoman, throwing a floor-fist-banging tantrum, being distracted by a pointless fight with some faceless idiot online, or otherwise doing something you know is crazy and not you, but you can't seem to help it? What if it wasn't you? To find out, ask “Who am I being now?” We pick up all sorts of stuff from those around us, from our parents, teachers, friends and pretty much everyone. This question reminds you that maybe it really isn't you. Then you can ask “If I were me, who would I be?” If you're a parent, try it with your kids. Are they mad as hell or being drama queens? Ask them gently without heat “Who are you being now?” (Don't be surprised if they reply “YOU!!”) Then ask “If you were you, who would you be?” and listen. At the very least it might crinkle their universe and stop the drama spiral for a second or two. At best, their whole life might change. Are you addicted to organisation/designing the perfect system/keeping the perfect house/sticking to the ultimate schedule?
I was. And I was REALLY good at it. Trouble was, I also got irritated - even downright cranky - when the ducks didn't line up and the kittens didn't herd. And then lockdown chucked EVERYTHING out the window. Know that feeling? Then I looked at nature. The most highly functional and efficient systems exist in apparent chaos. Do flowers grow (naturally) in neat rows? No. And yet the bees find them, pollinate them, and contribute elegantly to sustaining life on the planet. What if you were more like a bee? What if, regardless of the apparent chaos, you could find the flowers, and contribute awesomely to your life? So ask "What if I created my life from chaos?" I'm not suggesting you create random, artificial chaos. Simply that even if things appear messy, you need not be the effect of them if you can see where to collect the pollen. How often do you feel trapped in a no-choice universe? Feeling that right now?
When did your parents, teachers, bosses, co-workers, friends, children, government and everyone sell you the idea that you have no choice but to do what they tell you? What is that for you? To study a subject you hate, take a job you're not interested in, break off a great relationship, marry a person you don't really like, be available to everyone for everything 24/7, subject your body to something it prefers to avoid, consider everyone but you an expert? What else? Guess what? You always have a choice. Infinite choices in fact. This is a free will universe. So remind yourself. Next time you feel trapped ask "What choices do I have?" Then notice whatever possibility feels lightest and ask more questions about what it would take for you to create that as your life. Of course, it may end up being exactly what other people told you to choose in the first place. But you'll feel differently about it because it was your choice. Have you been doing a lot of reading and research lately, trying to make sense of what's going on in the world? Are you seeking the truth about options for you and your family's/community's best health now and into the future?
Do you get excited when you uncover a new piece of information, only to find that your sense of lightness and possibility growing heavy? Have you experienced this light-heavy-light-heavy cycle continuously? Have you gone down a rabbit hole or two hundred? Remember that what's true for you always makes you lighter and a lie for you always makes you heavy. So what is it when you sense the heaviness of a lie, but it keeps playing on round and round in your head, keeping your attention? Next time this happens when you read an article, watch a video, or have a conversation with someone, ask yourself "Is this a truth with a lie attached?" If you feel a lightness, then ask "What part of this is true?" (it will feel lighter) and "What part of this is a lie, spoken or unspoken?" (it will feel heavy). These questions can help you pick your way through the myriad stories on sale without being compressed into a solid block of granite. How light would you be if you could pull apart all the stories with ease and find what's light for you, rather than feeling like you have to buy the whole bundle and then tie yourself up with reasons and justifications for doing so? Better still, what if next time you find yourself like a stone down a rabbit hole you simply choose lightness? Turn off the trauma and drama, go play with the kids/pets/partner, have a sleep, do some gardening, watch a funny movie, ANYTHING that is light for you. How much of everything we hear is part true and part a lie? What could you create as your life if you considered it all "an interesting point of view"? *** Much gratitude again to Dr Dain Heer for this one. How often do you limit your choices – before you even consider them – by concluding that other people won't approve? “My husband/wife/partner wouldn't agree”, “My parents wouldn't like it” or even “No one else does that, so what would everyone think of me?”
Worrying about what other people think is one of the main reasons you will give for not doing something. What if you took other people out of the equation so you could see what you'd really like to choose? Ask “If other people's points of view weren't real – if everything were just an interesting point of view – what would I choose?” How many of the world's science, social, cultural and business innovation, and even new lands (you know, the world is no longer flat), came from people doing what they loved and knowing what was right for THEM, no matter what other people thought was real, true, or possible. What could be possible for you if you listened more to you? Do you ever think yourself into a knotty ball of confusion? Listing pros and cons, researching "truth" and "fake," collecting background info to analyse to death from all angles, trying to figure out what to do? To get it Right. Whether it's which subject to study, job to choose, car to buy, relationship to pursue, or what choice to make about you and your family's health?
Do you enjoy this process? Is it as fast and easy as you'd like? And how does it usually work out? If you don't enjoy it and would prefer a faster, easier – and dare I say it more reliable for you – approach, next time you find yourself embarking on a thought journey into the abyss ask “If I didn't think about this, what would I know?” You know those moments when you just know something? It feels right and light to you (even though others think you're crazy)? Only you can really know what is right for you. Are you willing to trust you more? Life might become a whole lot easier. Are you stuck in a non-productive cycle of right-wrong-right-wrong-true-fake-true-fake with someone?
Can you see the precise disconnect between you and the other person, and how the situation could improve so simply and easily if you both considered the other's interesting point of view? Truth, can you ever change anyone else? No. The only thing you can change is YOU. YOU are the only one that can cut your mobius strip of conflict. Are you willing to stop hanging on to your point of view that you can change someone? Sometimes change is possible only when you let things go. So if you'd like to extract yourself from a cycle of struggle, ask “What could I be doing differently that would contribute to the change I desire?” Remember when you were a small child and every day was an adventure? Was your To Do list something like this: wake up, have fun, go to bed (maybe, or just fall asleep mid-play)?
Does your life still have that energy? Is your To Do list now more like: drag myself out of bed, do what I have to, work and drink too much and fall into bed, with a few rants on social media in between? Would you like to reclaim the energy of your child? Rather than resigning yourself to being weighed down by responsibilities and perceived limitations, what if you embraced life as an exciting adventure? If so, wake up every morning and acknowledge you're in charge of creating your day by asking “Who am I today and what grand and glorious adventures can I have?” When you start each day like this, will you have the same old study, job, work, business, family, health or money problems and restrictions? Maybe. Or maybe you'll see new, exciting possibilities that you've never noticed before. Not having much fun? Are you in lockdown with no job, no social life, and sinking into the conclusion that you have no future? Is your world full of people telling you to follow the rules and the world as we know it is at an end?
Feeling a little heavy? What if you could contribute to an amazing new future for everyone - including you! - have fun at the same time? Like to find out? If so, ask “What fun could I add to my life?” It could be anything, large or small. Like learning/creating something randomly new online, going on an adventure into the deep dark depths of your closet and creating space for yourself (great workout too BTW), asking your insignificant other to make you breakfast-in-bed and supervise the kids homeschooling while you sleep in, creating a "holiday" anywhere different in your space, or challenging yourself to make up a joke every day over coffee. What if you did anything that made you smile and feel light? If you already have a little of it, add more. The point is: take action, create your life every day, and smile. There's no need to stick with one thing forever. If your fun drops off, ask the question again and make another choice. You'll be amazed at what you can create when you ask. "Fun: am I willing to have more? Are you smart? Are you aware of everything going on around you in all time, space and dimensions, seeing connections, pasts and futures that no one else is aware of?
And yet do you find that other people always seem to be talking down to you, explaining and pontificating on things to you, as if you had no idea? How do you react? Do you nod, smile and think "interesting"? Or do you get annoyed, worked up, and drawn into a meaningless circular argument? Do people ever concede you known what you're talking about? If not and you'd like greater ease in these situations ask "What if I didn't need to prove I was smart"? Does trying to prove you're smart mean that you've actually decided you're not? Is that true? Or did you buy that point of view from someone, sometime? When you try to prove you’re smart, you have to have all the answers. What if your smarts - your awareness - was the thing that could point out where the answers end and the questions begin? What else could be possible then? Are you just your body? Or more? Does your body do things you – or science! – simply can't explain or replicate (like run your pancreas and make babies)? Could it be a whole lot smarter about what it needs than you are?
How's your body feeling now? 110 per cent? Not so great? In either case, invite it to tell you what it would like, ask “Body, what do you desire?” Then listen and give it what it needs, not what you or anyone else has decided it should have. What if, by listening more to your body, your aches and pains melted away? What if listening more closely to your body gave you boundless energy and every cell sung with the vibrant joy of a five-year old? To gain clarity, ask different questions, like "Body, do you desire more/ less/ different food/ water/ movement/ sleep/ sex/ stress/ other?" Then pay attention to sensations your body gives you, or things that come to mind. Could this create the physical changes you've been seeking? If you'd like to find out, start an ongoing conversation with your body today, and listen. Ever heard a story or two million recently? Are they True? Are they Fake?
How much of story telling is someone trying to get you to do what they want? Or at least confuse you about what is really going on? What if none of it were real or true? What if all stories were simply interesting points of view? If you'd like to be free to create your own life as you'd like, ask "What would I choose if I didn't listen to, tell or buy the story?" Then check in with what feels light to you and choose that. Repeat. I mean it. Every time you hear a story. ask "What would I choose if I didn't listen to, tell or buy the story?" And check in with what feels light to you and choose that. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat X infinity. Sure you can enjoy a story for the heck of it. At the end, say “Wow, that was a terrific story! Thank you [for the entertainment]! What an interesting point of view!" And then ask yourself "What would I choose if I didn't listen to, tell or buy the story?" Check in with what feels light to you and choose that. You get the picture. Is something going on in your life that has you stuck and unable to take action? For you to be unable to change something, you have to have decided or concluded something about it.
Ask yourself, what have you decided in your life right now that is perfect, or the answer? A relationship? A job? A business? A government solution to a world-wide crisis? When you can see your decisions – and are willing to let them go – all change becomes possible. So when you're stuck and unable to make the changes you'd really like, ask “What decisions, conclusions, and answers have I made about this?” This does not mean you have to end the relationship, give up on the job/business quest, or become an anti-government rebel. Once you are aware of limitations you have created through decisions and conclusions, you can choose to transform them into something else. Perhaps into even something better than you could have ever imagined. How? Just ask another question, such as "What information do I need?" Are you confused about something? Is something you're being told not sitting quite right with you? Or perhaps you'd like to create something but keep running into brick walls?
What if you were simply missing some information? So rather than spiralling into a confusion dilemma ask yourself: What information do I need?" or "Who do I need to speak to?" and pay attention to what comes to mind. Remember, when information comes your way you can also as "Does this feel light?" What if by adding missing information, you replaced confusion with clarity, and could take the action you'd like? How often do you focus on the problems, the bad and downright ugly things in life?
Even if your intention is to fix these things, your attention will still be on what you have decided is a problem, bad or ugly. What if, instead, you focused on the wonderful, beautiful, phenomenal things in the world and asked what it would take for more of those to show up? In other words, rather than limiting yourself to fixing the not-so-great things, what if you invited in more of the good stuff? If you'd like to retrain yourself to see the wonder of life, every morning when you wake up ask “What beauty can I see today?” And then keep an eye out and when you see it, say “How did I get so lucky?” Do you ever feel heat in your chest or pressure on your temples when someone says or does something you don't like? Do you find you can't think clearly, that you get angry or distracted from what you'd really like to do?
If you'd like to be free from the control and distraction of such uncomfortable physical sensations, recognise them as a sign you are in judgement. Then you can shift gear into allowance. What is allowance? Allowance is where everything is just an interesting point of view and you have total freedom of choice. Judgement limits you to what you have decided (or someone has told you) is right/wrong, good/bad. It's like being on an automatic pushbutton system of resist/react or agree/align, where you have no freedom of choice. So next time you have a physical reaction to someone, ask “Am I in allowance or judgement?” If you find you're in judgement, say “Interesting point of view I have that point of view” and expand outwards and remind yourself “What if I had infinite, free choice?” (Depending on what's going on, you might need to repeat this several godzillian times until the heat dissipates.) What if being free from judgement allowed you to create the change you'd really like to see? What is the point of life? Do you know? Does anyone?
Is it the same for everyone? Have you bought a point of view from someone that doesn't quite seem to fit you? What if you created your own point of life? Would that work better? What would you choose? Would you choose things that were hard and to be suffered? Or would you choose things that were a delight for you to do? And who decided you had to choose the no-fun, problem-filled, version of life that many people seem to create, anyway? Would you like to choose differently? If so, ask “What if the point of life was to have fun?” and then "What action can I take to create that?" Looking for something interesting to do while you're in lockdown? Give this a go.
Sit comfortably. Close your eyes. Find the outer edges of your body. Got them? Then ask yourself, are you only your body, or something else? Think of it in terms of a phone/mp3 player/CD/record with music on it, versus a brand new device/disc with no music on it. If you sense you are more than just your body (the device/disc), then find the outer edges of you, the being (the music). Got them? Wherever you found them, push them out in all directions until they are out past the outer edges of the universe, or farther. Now open your eyes. Do you feel the same or different? Do you have the sense of more space or less? Did you feel any edges or not? There are no right answers to these questions. Only your awareness. This exercise is designed to heighten your awareness of you and space and to remind you that you are a being in a free-will universe, with infinite, free choice. When your life is not how you'd like it to be, or if you sense your freedom of movement, thought, choice or more is being limited or controlled by others, remind yourself you can choose to create it differently. Start by asking yourself “If I had infinite, free choice what would I choose?" Then choose it and ask "What action can I take?" At least, what if this exercise simply helped create a little more space for you in lockdown? Something not working the way you'd like at the moment? Has your world turned 180 degrees upside down and inside out? How many brick walls are you banging your head against?
What if rather than focusing on what's not working, get clear on what change is possible. Sometimes, things won't change no matter what you do. So if you'd like clarity about what will change and what won't, ask “What's possible? Can I change this? If so, how?” These questions will help you see ways you might step around, walk away, dig under, or fly over the brick wall, rather than bang your head against it. The wall is not wrong and has no evil intent to hurt you. It is simply a wall that is happy to stay that way. So get clear on the brick walls in your life and find another way around or away. Your head will thank you for it. On a scale of 1-10, how grateful are you for people and things in your life? Are you finding it a challenge right now? Do you feel less than zero in the luck department with nothing to be thankful for?
What if you found one thing to be grateful for every day, and told someone, even if it's just yourself ? When someone thanks you, how do you feel? Good? Does it make you want to hang around longer, catchup again sooner, work harder, smile more, and go the extra mile? This is the energetic vibration of thanks. It's warm, fertile and prosperous, and it's infectious (in a good way!) and can replicate. So everyday, when you find that one (or more - go crazy) good thing in your life, acknowledge it with a smile and ask “How did I get so lucky?” It's a great way to say you're thankful and to invite more of the good stuff to come your way. In these times when the world seems to be going to hell in a handbag, wouldn't it be amazing if we all caught the Gratitude20 virus instead? Right now we all have plenty of time on our own in lockdown to spiral downward if we choose. To focus on what's wrong with our lives, what's wrong with us.
Are you down on yourself? Do you feel that you're not quite right some how? That you're less than you should be? That you're not what someone else expects you to be? Do you fit in with everyone around you? Or not? Has someone called what you do voodoo, weird or crazy and have you decided that you're wrong for not fitting in? What if there was nothing wrong with you? Ever considered that as a possibility? If you'd like to find out, rather than judging yourself as wrong, ask “What's right about me that I'm not getting?” What if you were not nearly as messed up as you thought you were? What if you were just different?And what if, by acknowledging this, you show up as the difference that the world needs? This is free and it won't hurt anyone, so give it a go will you? |
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