Self-Help Questions

DYNAMITE STICK QUESTIONS

Want a sure-fire way to launch your personal growth into high speed? As a coach, I’ve always had a great respect for questions-they can be very powerful. I always know when a question has hit the mark, because the person hearing it will say, “Great question!” They too can feel the power of a good one.

Some questions are even more powerful than others. I have three that I use when I think it’s time to really create change. Or there is a great deal of you feels stuck, then it’s time to pull out one of what I call, “Dynamite Questions”.

They’re like dynamite sticks. They can and will blast through the layers of defense, obliterating old habits and anything else holding you back. And if you’re stuck? They’re guaranteed to explode any jammed up places inside you and free your energy to move along your life stream again. Try them.

Let me warn you, however–these are not for the faint at heart. Many people find them uncomfortable. Some people even hate them. Why? Because they will make you tell the truth to yourself on the deepest level. They will make you confront your life. They are not about changing things on a surface level. That’s why they’re so good.

Here is 1 of them. Take your time to BE with the question. As you respond, notice what your mind wants to say, but go past that and notice how your body feels, particularly your heart and gut area. Let each question do the digging it needs to do and you will reap the benefits.

DYNAMITE QUESTION #1

Okay, there you are, in a situation you don’t like. You don’t think you deserve to be treated in a certain way, or you don’t like the way someone else is acting or what the Universe is doling out to you.

If you were my client, you might ask me to help you wrestle with this stuff, often asking if I can help CHANGE the situation or person that you see giving you trouble. I get asked to do this often, to change what’s happening OUT THERE. I totally understand the wish for that. Because I like to give people what they ask for, I would probably toss out a bunch of ideas about how to stimulate another person to change or how to catalyze the Universe to give you something different. As a coach, I’ve usually got lot of ideas. But, I’m always nervous about working on this level.

Why?

Because the problem with changing something OUT THERE in the world, is that usually after the coaching I’ve offered has settled things down, the same problem will pop again, either in the same area of life or in another quadrant.

Let’s get specific. I have a client-I’ll call her Sue, who came to me because her boss was bullying her. We came up with all kinds of strategies to help her boundary him, ways of talking to him and actions she could take that would make him limit his bullying, which he eventually did. All was well and good. For a while.

Then a co-worker started bullying her. Needless to say, she was upset when more bullying showed up, because she was now getting the idea that the bullying was no longer just a one-off, random act, coming her way out of mere co-incidence. She was now starting to consider the fact that perhaps she had a role to play in co-creating it. Yikes-that scared her. It would have been easy for her to keep blaming others and to play the victim, but Sue had too much evolution for that.

Because she was ready, I pulled out DYNAMITE QUESTION #1.

Here it is:

I asked her,

“How do you think you might be contributing to this?”

I could hear Sue gulp. Sometimes when I ask this question, people think I am looking to blame them. That could not be further from the truth. What I’m looking for is a deeper understanding that we are ALWAYS a player in whatever is going on. That doesn’t mean we are necessarily a conscious player, but we are still a player. When we truly get that and go forward into exploring how, we move from being a victim to a victor.

But Sue was ready and we moved into a discussion of her younger life and found that not only did she have a mom who had let herself be bullied frequently, she also had a dad that sometimes fell into the bullying role. Sue had grown up in a bullying atmosphere. As a result, every cell in her body “knew” about bullying and had been trained to both expect and accept it. In neurological terms, her brain’s “bully receptors” were alive and well.

From there, we began our exploration into her current psychology and with courageous self-examination, she realized how often she bullied herself in her self talk. She also had a bad habit of pushing herself to do things she didn’t want to do.

Then she noticed how she let people bully her in little ways-she would sidestep responsibility for making decisions by letting other strong opinions sway her, she would let others tromp on her opinion or ideas. Or sometime, she tromped on other people’s opinions. These were small things, but they kept the “bullying energy” alive and well. She might as well have had “Bullying Depot here.”

Once we had her part nailed, we developed a strategy to contradict all this. She began to stand up for herself EVERY time she could, both inside herself and outside herself. She stepped out of the bullying ring once and for all.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that no one bullies her anymore. She’s ‘de-bullied’ her field inside, so there is no resonance for bullies on the outside to enter. In fact, they couldn’t if they tried.

So, here’s the question:

“How are YOU contributing to what you’ve got going on?”

To view other Dynamite Questions, go to my web site. Thanks.