• Heartfelt Inquiry Brings a Meaningful Response

    This video focuses more on body awareness and breathing patterns as a way into the inquiry process. By finding supportive questioning within and noticing tendencies where we are judgmental in our inquiries, we can develop more self compassion and capacity to be more caring toward others.

    • Allow inner eyes to see and be gentle

    • Body awareness and rhythmic breathing

    • What is my most difficult central emotion?

    • Foster healing not the challenging feeling

    • Supportively question into heart capacity without judgment

    • Look for improving qualities with the questions

    • Evolutionary step in psychological and spiritual development

    • Deepen self compassion, and with others

    • Highlight best efforts and expanded capacity toward best self

  • Using Inquiry to Awaken Wisdom

    Through self-reflection and inquiry, explore your thoughts, beliefs, and experiences to develop a greater understanding of yourself and the world around you, which leads to the growth of wisdom.

  • Embracing Not-Knowing: The Art of Inquiry and the Path to Wisdom

    The Cultural Bias Toward Knowing

    In our society, knowledge is highly valued. We are taught that it is more honorable to know than to admit uncertainty. However, as we explore this bias, it becomes evident that staying on the surface of life’s issues makes it easier to feel like we “know.” Yet, when we delve into deeper topics—intimacy, purpose, spirituality, psychological insights, or life and death—the experience of not-knowing naturally emerges.

    Many of us equate not-knowing with weakness, embarrassment, or inadequacy. This doesn’t usually come in the form of consciously thinking that we’re inadequate: it’s that we avoid staying with situations where we don’t know how to respond that we avoid because we have these feelings underground. This is very ironic, as it is actually the most valuable starting point for depth exploration. If we know something it’s easy and when we don’t it requires humility and self-confidence to stay with the uncertainty. Unfortunately, few of us have been taught to respect and revere this state.

    Not-Knowing as a Path to Depth and Growth

    In my 50 years of counseling, I can hardly recall a session that didn’t involve an element of not-knowing. Thousands of times, I have emphasized to clients that not-knowing is not only the perfect starting point but also an essential gateway to contemplation and growth.

    Rather than resisting uncertainty, we need to honor it. True depth, contemplation and wisdom come from embracing not-knowing rather than running from it. If we avoid it, we also avoid the deeper components of life that lead to genuine transformation.

    Questions That Lead to a Fuller Life

    Consider the areas in your life where your most honest response is, “I don’t know.” To help uncover them, ask yourself:

    • How can I strengthen my relationship with my partner or closest friends?
    • What courage do I need to summon to pursue my deepest needs?
    • Where in my life do I need more perseverance, and how can I develop it?
    • What is the most important conversation I need to have, and how do I find the wisdom to do so?
    • What small but impactful step can I take toward my sense of purpose?
    • What habit do I need to change, and what has been stopping me?
    • Where in my life do I need better balance, and what is holding me back?
    • What are my true beliefs and feelings about death, beyond one dimensional answers?
    • What is one area I could explore that would lead to a deeper, more fulfilling life?

    Each of these questions invites discomfort and uncertainty. Yet, avoiding them means avoiding personal evolution.

    Small Steps Through Uncertainty

    One of the greatest challenges of not-knowing is that it can make us feel powerless. However, rather than seeking immediate, definitive answers, we can focus on small steps forward.

    For example, if you feel uncertain about how to contribute to a cause, such as addressing climate change or political engagement, the starting point might be as simple as:

    • Registering to vote
    • Writing to a representative
    • Researching influential organizations to join
    • Seeking the closest friend that you trust who is more engaged and connected than you are

    Instead of sitting on the sidelines, paralyzed by uncertainty, we can learn to embrace the unknown and move forward one step at a time.

    The Danger of Stagnation

    If I go through a day without experiencing some form of not-knowing, it signals that I’m taking a vacation from life. Rest and relaxation are important, but allowing this to become our default state leads to stagnation.

    As my mother used to say, some people live their lives on repeat, never questioning, never evolving. She joked that they could simply record their life on video and replay it instead of living it. While this might sound harsh, it speaks to the importance of curiosity and continuous growth.

    I once witnessed my father, in a moment of uninhibited honesty due to post-transplant medication, tell an old acquaintance, “Get the hell out of my house. You’re the most boring person I’ve ever met.” While he would never have said this in his right mind, the truth was undeniable—some people remain trapped in a predictable, unexplored existence. This doesn’t mean they’re not good or even great people, however it means that they aren’t likely to grow in this life.

    Choosing the Road Less Traveled

    Most of us have been raised with a predefined blueprint for life: be successful, get married, have children, follow the rules. But what if we questioned these norms? What if we sought a deeper sense of purpose beyond what society has taught us?

    True fulfillment comes from embracing not-knowing as a lifelong companion. As the classic book title suggests, we will benefit if we choose “The Road Less Traveled”—a path of curiosity, self-inquiry, and continual reinvention.

    Your Invitation to Growth

    What is one area in your life where you’ve answered, “I don’t know” to a deeply important question? Rather than seeing this as a failure, consider it an open door to growth, intimacy, and inspiration.

    We live in uncertain and perilous times. Instead of avoiding these questions, we can ask:

    • How can I help?
    • What will bring dignity to my life in these challenging times?

    As John Lennon famously said, “I hope someday you’ll join us.” Let’s be among those who ask the questions that matter—those willing to embrace not-knowing and turn it into a journey of meaning, depth, and action.

  • Using Inquiry to Awaken Wisdom

  • Embrace Your Challenging Emotions through Keen Inquiry

    Embrace Your Challenging Emotions through Keen Inquiry

    In this episode, we learn to use inquiry to ask questions designed to nurture one’s heart. These questions may include: “How can I care for myself?” “How can I support myself when I’m feeling intense emotions?” When you thoroughly explore the question, you can access your capacity to observe it transparently, without negativity, simply witnessing it as a challenging emotion. Learning how to support yourself when you’re in such a difficult emotion is both subtle and powerful. It is a three-step process of embracing and identifying the emotion or feeling, asking the right questions that will guide you to care for yourself during the experience, then listening to the guidance and giving your best efforts to fulfill what is being suggested. Keep in mind that your tone of voice matters a lot.

    Resources related to this episode

    Note: Below, you’ll find timecodes for specific sections of the podcast. To get the most value out of the podcast, I encourage you to listen to the complete episode. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors. For an exact quote or comment, please contact us.

    Transcript

    00:00 Announcer:

    Awareness That Heals, Episode 103.

    00:05 Announcer:

    The Awareness That Heals podcast helps its listeners learn to develop the capacity to have a more healing response to emotions and situations rather than becoming stuck. Your host, Robert Strock, has practiced psychotherapy for more than 45 years. He wrote the book, “Awareness That Heals: Bringing Heart and Wisdom to Life’s Challenges,” to help develop self-caring and the capacity to respond in an effective way to life’s challenges. Especially at times when we are most prone to be critical or to withdraw together, we will explore how to become aware of our challenging feelings and at the same time find alternative ways to live a more fulfilling and inspiring life.

    00:47 Robert Strock:

    Thanks again so much for joining us at Awareness That Heals where we really give our best efforts to bring our heart and our wisdom to our life’s challenges. And today we’re going to be using inquiry, which is the art of asking questions that are designed to support our heart. So what that means is we’re not asking questions like what’s wrong with you? We’re asking questions like, how can I care for you? How can I support you when you’re feeling something that’s very difficult? And we’re looking for a continuous support of feeling wherever you are, even if you generally don’t like that particular feeling, as a matter of fact, especially when you don’t like that particular feeling. And what we’re doing is asking questions when you have that feeling and you felt it and asking, how can I support myself when I’m in this feeling?

    02:21 And of course every situation is unique. And so it requires you to do this two-step process of embrace and identify your challenging feeling and then ask the questions of how can you care for yourself while it’s happening? Now that might sound simple, but it’s not something that we were taught to do. And the general tendency is when we have feelings that are challenging instead of caring for ourselves, we usually give ourselves a hard time. So do a brief pause and identify your challenging feeling that’s most difficult for you, and see how rare it really is that you pause, feel it, and then are supportive with asking this kind of question. So one of the places that we’re going to support is when you have identified your challenging feeling, starting off by asking what are the specific thoughts that would help you while you’re in this feeling, very tangible.

    03:51 So you’re in fear and you may say something like, I see you fear. I know you’re not doing it on purpose. I wanna support you. Can you hear me? And you’re really listening to whether the fear can actually feel or sense that it wants to be supported. Now, that’s very subtle. And notice that when you’re saying these thoughts that your tone of voice matters a lot. If you bring some caring to these thoughts, that’s another very important subtlety, fear, I know that this is difficult for you, so I’m going to stay with you. I can outlast you. I am the one that sees you and that responds to you. And I’m gonna keep asking questions that are gonna lead me to thoughts that are going to be supportive of how you can best navigate your present situation and find courage, find safety, which is the need that is there when we’re afraid.

    05:17 Now, does that connect with you? And can you see as you look, okay, when I’m afraid I have a need for safety or courage and I wanna focus on that and by asking questions, does that make sense to you? Does it make enough sense to you to where you believe you can start to do that in life? Just start out and pause and recognize that the guided meditation that we’re going to be doing in this episode is gonna put you right in the center of, of your fear, or whatever your challenging emotion is that you wanna substitute, encourage you to embrace it. Embrace the fear or the feeling with just keen awareness, just noticing. And sometimes it can be referred to as an accepting awareness. So you’re not only aware of it, you’re not resisting it, you’re not fighting with it, you’re just recognizing, ah, this is where I am here.

    06:35 The tone, the tone has an acceptance, but more importantly, hear your tone. Is your tone when you’ve faced your challenging feelings? A, are you pausing long enough to identify them? And B, is there that tone that is asking you the question, how can I support you? How much is that a part of your life? And for most people, it’s virtually not at all. So we’re talking about really penetrating in this guided meditation into the feeling that’s hardest for you. And again, using inquiry to find the thoughts at the beginning and we’ll penetrate further beyond the thoughts. But it starts with thoughts that are with you, that are for you, that are befriending you because why would you wanna do anything else? And of course the answer is you wouldn’t want to consciously, but unfortunately, most of us have been taught we’re supposed to be together. And if we’re not together, then we’re going to criticize ourselves when we’re in a feeling state that is not in our approval list.

    08:06 It’s also helpful to make statements to yourself that are empathic. Like, I know this is really hard for you. I know this is a spot where you frequently go down the tubes, you fall into a hole and I see that, and I wanna support you to stay above ground and to learn how to be the navigator. And I’m gonna keep asking questions and I’m going to keep giving guiding thoughts that are supportive of you, recognizing that you’re changing not only all the years of your life and the conditioning that you’ve had, but your parents and your parents’ parents. This is a skill to be able to add a caring response to whatever is most challenging. One of the key features of this is simply remembering because it’s so unfamiliar to most of us, that even if we understand how to do it and maybe even can implement it a fair extent. We, in the heat of the moment, when we have a challenging feeling, we forget. So right now, just have a voice inside you. Ah, remember, remember that this is important ’cause it’s gonna allow me to be where I’m most challenged. And I have a tendency to have a constellation of feelings that make it even worse, or I reject myself or I withdraw from those that I love. And instead, I have the capacity to find these questions that will lead me to guidance and to wisdom.

    10:09 So we’re going to start a meditation now where I encourage you to stay with your most challenging feeling and to put yourself in the center of the meditation. Don’t just listen to my words in your head, go to your challenging feeling and then see if you can accept your feeling. And then start with the inquiry. And we’ll move a little bit beyond.

    10:49 Guided meditation is for so many people, the best way to truly gain benefit in your response to personal challenges. As you invest in bring your own experience to the guided meditations, you’ll give yourself the best chance to change longstanding patterns from suffering toward a state of well-being, peace, and healing. It’s important to put yourself in a comfortable body position in a private space where you’re not disturbed, turn off your phone and be ready to really be alert. So start off by breathing in a way that you recognize that your quality of life and your life is dependent on your breathing. And therefore, of course, the part of you that’s most aware and sensitive to yourself. Recognize right now that you wanna find a rhythm that is going to support you to be as peaceful and relaxed as possible.

    12:10 So pause and just take some in breaths and especially on the out breath, let it be ahhh. You can even make sounds if there are sounds to be made, groans or releases or relief. And as you’ve settled into your body, let yourself identify the challenging emotion that’s most affected you throughout your life. Or perhaps it’s something that’s occurring in present time. And as you drop in to accept this feeling that you’re going through, ask yourself, what is your wisdom? What is your sensibility? What is your intelligence telling you? Would be the best way for you to think about this and to respond to this? So the first one almost inevitably is going to be challenging feeling, I accept you. I’m going to give you a chance to breathe without adding anything onto you. And I want to care for you right now. And I want to ask myself, how can I best care for you? And you pause. And if you don’t know, recognize that means it’s even more important to give it attention. Not knowing is an invitation to go deep. It’s not “not knowing,” period. I don’t know and then I’m gonna space out. Let yourself recognize a lot of the time you’re not gonna know. And then the next supportive thoughts would be, good, you’re going deep.

    14:41 Stay focused on how can I care for you? And recognize that when this is asked more and more from your heart or from a tone that cares for you, that it really allows whatever challenging feeling you’re having to feel like it’s in a safe neighborhood, to feel like it’s okay to be exactly as it is, which then makes it a lot easier to ask the question and to warm yourself up to being warmed up to care for yourself. One of the hardest things is to remember that this is important. And when you have these feelings that it’s not the end, it’s the beginning. It’s the beginning of a process where you get to care for yourself if you both remember, and you can find that place inside you that just intuitively knows, of course, I’d rather care for myself rather than belittle myself or ignore what’s happening. Sometimes it might be just a silence that occurs, you feel where you are. Let’s just say you feel insecure or you feel angry, or you feel inadequate, and then you ask the question and you just don’t have any answers at all. You’re just completely in silence.

    16:40 It’s helpful at the end of the silence to say, good on me. I just allowed myself to be quiet with the question. And that is another sign of taking yourself in the direction of your heart. This may seem crazy or even schizophrenic. How can I feel this worst feeling that I’ve dreaded my whole life and care for myself? I can’t be two people at once. Recognize that, yes, right now you can be two parts of yourself at once. You can feel your most difficult feelings, the ones that you probably like the least, and still find this resourceful resiliency that cares for you. Just pause for a second and just give yourself a suggestion. Do you wanna say to yourself, remember this? Can you see that you don’t want your challenging feelings to be monopolizing your inner world and that you want to integrate it with the wisest and most compassionate side of yourself? Recognize that this is completely universal. All of us in the world have challenging feelings, and what’s needed is to add this intention, this wish, this desire to really care for yourself. And when you’re in that duality, you’re in a really grounded effort to be authentic and to see what’s possible, to move in a direction that’s going to help you discover what it is that you need, and then how you can support that need.

    19:18 It can come to a point where the reverse of how it’s been can be so. And by that I mean that instead of your feelings dominating your life, this wish to care for yourself becomes the center of your life. Now, pause for a few moments and feel into, oh, I’m tired of not caring for myself. I want this to be the center of my life. So no matter what arises, this is a place that I would like to be more and more of who I am. And if I remember and I dedicate myself to this, it’s entirely realistic, but I can’t just go through the motions. This is not, remember as you’re dropping into where you are and caring for yourself, this is not an intellectual exercise. This is an existential experience of you being you and adding these caring, inquiring questions and guidances because it makes the sense to you.

    20:53 One of the important features that you need to watch for, look for it now, is it’s not about being abstract. Like I know you’re a good person. When you’re in the middle of fear, that’s not gonna be very helpful. You want it to be as specific as possible, relating exactly to your challenging feeling. So if it is fear, it’s gonna be courage and safety or something like that that you’re looking at. If you’re in anger, it’s going to be looking for some way of having it be peaceful or more relaxed, more tolerant, rather than acting out. As you’re here, see if you can sense any appreciation or gratitude for you doing this work, being real and going beyond just your feeling to really dig deep, to find the part of you that not only wants to care, that is caring, just sense with where you are with your challenge.

    22:22 Can you sense some kind of a exchange between those two places? So remember again and again that your capacity is to both accept, deeply, accept your emotional state that’s most challenging, and you can see that there’s the possibility that truly for the rest of your life, you can catch that feeling and realize, this is the time when I need my best self. This is the time when I need my intelligence. This is the time when I need my wisdom. This is the time when I really wanna bring my heart as much as possible. And if I can only start off with a little bit, appreciate that. And if you can’t appreciate it yet, then just let yourself see exactly where you are. But you know, you have this deep knowing that you want to increase your capacity whenever you’re challenged to care for yourself, to ask the questions that would lead to that very specifically, and that you can see this is gonna allow you to develop greater intimacy with yourself, with others, and have a greater peace in your heart.

    24:14 So again, see where this leaves you. Is it an encouragement? Do you feel like a hopefulness or a sense of safety that you’re not left with just being challenged and end of story? Or do you feel skeptical about the process? Does it seem too simple? Well, if it seems too simple, you’re probably half right, because it requires enormous commitment to really find that place and remember that you want to care for yourself when you’re most challenged. So I would say appreciate yourself if you’re ah, only a little bit confident, but you think it sounds too simple because just doing a meditation is too simple. It needs to be part of your lifestyle. So I wanna thank you for taking this time to really face yourself authentically and to want to bring your best heart, your best intelligence to this feeling, which is an evolutionary stage of life, and that you are game for it. Thanks so much for listening.

  • The Benefits of Heart-Centered Inquiry

    The Benefits of Heart-Centered Inquiry

    This episode offers a detailed look into the benefits of asking questions from the heart. The benefits of heart-centered inquiry, and honest contemplation supported by guided meditation, can offer a pathway that deepens the understanding of what is most difficult for you. No matter what feelings are present, this awareness provides you with an opportunity to evolve toward healing using the power of your innate wisdom. Being able to ask questions from the heart and developing the capacity to observe the answers opens the door to the possibility of responding to challenging feelings in a healing manner—rather than being owned by them through suppression, absorption, or acting out unintentionally.

    Resources related to this episode

    Note: Below, you’ll find timecodes for specific sections of the podcast. To get the most value out of the podcast, I encourage you to listen to the complete episode. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors. For an exact quote or comment, please contact us.

    Transcript

    00:00 Announcer:

    Awareness That Heals, Episode 98.

    00:04 Announcer:

    The Awareness That Heals podcast helps its listeners learn to develop the capacity to have a more healing response to emotions and situations rather than becoming stuck. Your host, Robert Strock, has practiced psychotherapy for more than 45 years. He wrote the book, “Awareness That Heals: Bringing Heart and Wisdom to Life’s Challenges,” to help develop self-caring and the capacity to respond in an effective way to life’s challenges. Especially at times when we are most prone to be critical or to withdraw Together, we will explore how to become aware of our challenging feelings, and at the same time find alternative ways to live a more fulfilling and inspiring life.

    00:46 Robert Strock:

    A very warm welcome again to Awareness That Heals where we do our very best to focus on bringing heart and wisdom to our life’s challenges. And we start again and again with being aware of what is most difficult for us. And we realize that these difficulties are universal for all of us, whether we recognize them or not, and being clear that we are doing this to guide us to how we can care for ourselves at these crucial times. And I wanna highlight that being able to identify our challenging emotions alone is a rare development that most of us don’t have. And to be able to do that, and at the same time or soon thereafter, being able to ask the question and explore how we can care for ourselves is a mini miracle. So don’t be fooled by the simplicity of the words in real life, to be able to identify your, your challenge and to be resourceful in moving toward your needs is a quality-of-life enhancement that perhaps is very, very hard to find any, any other way as directly.

    02:17 So today will be supported by you doing a guided meditation that gives you a great chance to discover and support what you most need when you’re challenging feelings and situations arrive. And it highlights the importance of being aware of what is difficult for you and deepening your realization that without it, we really can’t move in a healing direction with our wisdom. Even when we realize a challenging feeling, we are being encouraged to say, no matter what we feel, oh good, I can see it and have a chance to evolve. Now, as I say that, do you really understand what I’m saying? You see a feeling like anxiety, instead of moving away from it, you realize you can say, oh, I can see it.

    03:10 I am a witness, I am observer, and I am able to respond to it rather than having it own me. This is a, a humongous victory. Each time you can, or we can observe what we feel without any distancing or judging taking us over. So start off by being aware of whatever is most challenging for you now or during this time period. And hopefully at this point you realize how paradoxical this is, that if you can recognize what’s most challenging, you have the best chance to find what’s most beneficial. And again, I wanna repeat that by finding what’s most challenging, you have the best chance of finding what’s most beneficial. And today we’re going to be looking at asking questions from the heart. And that’s not just any kind of questions. Questions from the heart are aimed at looking out what’s of benefit to you, what’s really going to move you in a direction toward well-being. Like, how can I care for you? What actions do you need to feel best about yourself? Now, the other kind of questions which you really need to distinguish is questions that are not for your benefit, that are actually judgments, veiled judgments, like, what’s wrong with you? Why would you do that? You know, what’s your problem? And instead of those kind of questions, we’re aiming this, so you can see that questions from the heart can be like your best friend, your best ally, to keep you steered in a direction of your own fulfillment and peace.

    05:11 The questions that are from your heart are aimed for benefit. The questions that are veiled judgments are going to create harm. So the whole focus is seeing how beneficial a practice it is to learn how to ask questions from your heart. Can you see this benefit? And if you can give yourself a suggestion, I wanna ask questions from the heart. And I wanna notice when I’m asking myself questions that are really veiled judgments. And when I see that, when I, through my awareness, can see that I wanna be able to stop myself, hopefully just when the impulse arises, or in the middle of putting myself down with saying, what’s wrong with you? Say upp, I see it. And there’s a bit of a celebration that I don’t have to keep torturing myself with these kind of questions and I can return to the questions that are gonna be beneficial for me. So as you let that in, let that guide you in this guided meditation and give it your all to ask your question from the heart that’s most gonna serve you.

    06:27 Guided meditation is for so many people, the best way to truly gain benefit in your response to personal challenges. As you invest in bring your own experience to the guided meditations, you’ll give yourself the best chance to change long-standing patterns from suffering toward a state of well-being, peace and healing.

    06:51 It’s important to put yourself in a comfortable body position, in a private space where you’re not disturbed. Turn off your phone and be ready to really be alert. So let yourself start off by just noticing what state are you in right now? Are you relaxed? Are you tense? Are you irritable? Are you peaceful?

    07:22 Robert Strock:

    Just see if you can sensitize yourself to ask, how’s my heart doing? And whatever you see, ask the question with gentleness and let your inner eyes that are looking at your emotional state, be as kind and gentle as possible. And notice if there’s any body sensations that go along with how you feel and move around to be as comfortable as possible. And finally, let yourself breathe in a way that’s most rhythmic to you, that supports you being relaxed and at peace. And then ask a question, what is my most difficult emotion during this time period or now? And be as clear as possible. Identify one challenging emotion that’s central for you right now, and recognize that by paying attention to what’s challenging, you’re fostering healing, not the challenge. This is not a masochistic exercise. This is a way of finding the deepest healing using the clues that your own emotional body gives you because it shows you what isn’t being satisfied. So you have a chance to care for yourself in that area. So we’re focusing on asking questions that will be strictly for guidance and direction. And that’s not just any kind of questions. We’re talking about questions from your heart that are aimed at looking for benefit and healing.

    09:45 This questioning is another part of your heart. It’s a capacity that your heart and brain being united has. And we’re not talking about the kind of questions that are veiled judgments, like, what’s wrong with you? Why are you doing that again, I can’t believe that you’re there. What’s wrong with you? No. We’re talking about the kind of questions that have your best interest in mind, that are really looking for how can you be the best off. Now, just imagine as you’re staying aware of your challenging feeling, that you have another side of you that questions you in the most supportive way possible, in contrast to questioning you. No, it’s not that kind. It’s continuously questioning in a way that you can have a best chance to improve your quality of life.

    10:55 One kind of questioning is unwittingly aimed at judging you, and the other kind of questioning is for your benefit. So relax into the reality that we’re reinforcing only questions that are gonna be for your best interest. And that, that could be another definition of you. I am the one that wants to ask questions that are for my benefit. Why would I wanna do anything else? Why wouldn’t that be a great way for me to live? Because not only am I caring, but I’m bringing the curiosity of my intelligence to be able to discover new things and new avenues, new ways to care for myself. So see if you can find a question or some questions that you would ask related to your challenging or difficult feeling. So just pause into that because that close to simultaneity of experiencing a challenging feeling and asking a question that could help you is one of the ways we could see life, your life as being endless growth, endless waking up, endless improvement of a quality of your life. An alliance inside you that you very likely have never profoundly fostered. And distinguish between the kinds of questions that support and the kinds that don’t.

    12:40 Can you see, for example, the kinds of questions you’ve asked yourself in the past where they weren’t supportive, they bummed you out, they kept you frozen, they made you feel worse than where you were. And now let in that you see that and you see that does not create benefit for me. And I want to, for the rest of my life, make this pivot toward questions that are gonna serve my well-being and the well-being of those that are dear to me. You might ask yourself, what attitudes do I wanna develop? Do I wanna be more gentle? Do I want to be stronger? Do I want to set clearer boundaries? Do I want to be more self-compassionate? And just asking those questions, if you really do it from your heart is soothing. How much are you able, just ask yourself right now, how much are you able to feel a little bit encouraged, a little bit soothed, a little bit more optimistic that you have this capacity and you could use it. Can you see that this is actually an evolutionary step in your psychological or spiritual, your humane development? But these are questions that are gonna deepen your self-compassion, which will automatically deepen your capacity to share compassion with others.

    14:27 So let yourself give whatever kind of encouraging reminder that you can to remember. And I’ll say it again, to remember, at these times of significant difficulty, you get to ask questions. It’s not that you should ask questions like it’s a slap on the hand. It’s an arising straight from your heart where you get to care for yourself by asking these questions. And that will open your heart and open your intelligence and open your curiosity. So see if you can appreciate your own best efforts, highlighting best efforts, not being perfect, but that I want to expand my capacity to ask questions that are gonna give me a better chance of being my best self. And I wanna summon up the honesty and the awareness, the humility, the courage and the resiliency to be able to ask these kinds of questions. You might say something like, I appreciate that I’m opening my heart doing everything that I can see to do with these questions. These questions are my friend. In fact, they emulate the very best qualities of a best friend. What more could be assisting you in your life to find peace, to find purpose, to find meaning and self-compassion?

    16:27 Now that you’ve just done the guided meditation, just see where it leaves you. Are you more encouraged? Do you see the distinction between asking questions that are gonna support you versus questions that are really veiled judgments? Do you feel more optimistic? And can you see where your challenges are in being able to ask the questions that are gonna create benefit? Is it your memory, you might not remember, then plant a seed. I wanna remember. Is it that you don’t think you deserve to be asked questions that are gonna support you? Then see the absurdity of it and have the conversation about that and see what your motivation level is. How motivated are you to wanna ask questions that are gonna serve your life? And hopefully, you can see that everything else is a bit wacky. It just doesn’t make sense not to ask questions from the heart.

    17:33 And my hope is that you’ll see that when you know you can ask questions, when you have a challenging feeling that are going to be ones that are designed to help you, you’re gonna be encouraged. And you know it’s gonna lead you toward your essential needs and qualities to help you in life. So may this really encourage you, calm you, and actually in a way, almost look forward to the challenging feelings because you know you can meet them with a question that’s gonna ask, how can I best deal with this challenging feeling? And your thoughts are gonna be supportive of your own life. And each of us needs to do this in a very unique way with our own words. So don’t worry about using the same words, but do be concerned about asking questions that are gonna serve you, serve your life, and see if you can let in that this is an ally for the rest of your life. And the more you remind yourself, the more you practice this, the more you’re gonna be on your own side. And as we said many times before, when you’re on your own side, in your heart, it’s very paradoxical. It’s the opposite of narcissism. It means that I’m supporting my heart, which will automatically support everyone. And while you just settle into that, recognize how much the whole world needs to be supported at this critical time.