Mind your Language!!
The word WHY and its variations, Why not, Why don’t/do, How come etc., can be a powerful ally or a force of destruction depending on how we use it, unfortunately, most of us have been programmed to use it in its negative context.
I would wager most of you have never asked yourself questions like why am I so wonderful, so lucky, so immensely successful, so joyously happy or even just why am I feeling so damn good today. Anyone of the above would bring you a series of reasons or examples of why usually in the form of images you see in your mind or words you hear in your mind that are then translated into imagery.
You would not actually get a written memo listing the reasons as that is not how the mind operates, it only understands images and symbols. If we can accept that imagery is powerful enough to create an emotion within us we can come to understand how our thoughts can affect our mood, our outlook on life and the amount of stress or lack thereof we experience.
Take a moment and note down what automatically flashed up in your mind when you asked the above questions and how it made you feel, the emotions those questions evoked for you. Your mind would only bring you the answers that correlated to the question asked and anything that did not directly answer the question was automatically filtered out as irrelevant.
Even if the question was asked dripping with sarcasm or intended as a joke, you still got feedback or results that were positive. This is simply due to the fact that our minds are literal in the extreme sense of the word, it does not understand jokes, sarcasm, innuendo or implied meanings.
Think of it as a massive database that can only respond to the query sent and you will start to understand how the questions we ask ourselves can either empower us and allow us to see all possibilities or leave us feeling trapped, stuck or even downright hopeless.
To illustrate this further, ask yourself questions like Why do I always get picked last, why don’t I have the amount of money I want, how come no one wants to date me/love me. Why can't I or don't I have what I want/ need, why does this shite always happen to me?
I would be willing to bet that not one of the above questions brought you back information or imagery that left you feeling empowered or gave you any viable solutions to the original problem. What you did get was all the reasons, most likely a running commentary on all the negative beliefs you have about yourself that would substantiate the why.
When you posed the question, you were probably hoping to get information that was more along the lines of... well you see you need to be doing X instead of Y and once you change that you will see the results you are after.
Instead, you got a shedload of information that made you feel even worse about yourself or validated what a failure you are! Not helpful at all!
To get the empowering, helpful responses you were actually seeking you need to reframe the question and reword the query so instead of asking why or why not, start asking what would that look like, what would it take to have this show up, how would it feel to have that in my life?
Do you see how just reframing from a negative query to a positive one the imagery and inner dialogue you are given is completely opposite to the original one?
Take a moment now to 'reframe' the questions into a positive query, what I mean by this is instead of asking why am I such a failure, why can't I get what I really want or how come other people with less knowledge, or whatever your bugaboo is, than me have all the success?
Try rewording (reframing) each question to something far more empowering like;
What would it take for me to be successful or even a simple what do I need to learn or understand to move past this perceived failure? Notice I used the word perceived, it implies that I am only perceiving it as a failure, when it may be the greatest seed of enlightenment I have yet to uncover.
I also ask what would it take to move past this, instead of just stating it as a perceived failure.
For the next question, we could ask what do I need to do or understand to get what I really want in life or what do I need to do or understand to be as successful as Mr/Ms. X. You could simply ask what is possible, followed by what would it take for me to have that show up in my life right now? When we reframe the question to get the real answer we are searching for the great database of our mind starts to give us information that is useful and will allow us to move forward.
Lastly, we could ask what would I need to have even greater success than X or what could I learn from X and replicate to achieve that level of success?
Take a moment now and write down at least 3 or 4 of your go-to questions you ask yourself that you can now recognize as unhelpful or even downright destructive. The ones that leave you feeling even more confused than when you started or worse make you feel helpless and hopeless when you ask yourself them.
You should begin to see a pattern here of what your “go to” queries are and how they make you feel when you get that unhelpful feedback.
Now reword the question and write down what comes up as well, such as the feelings it evokes in you or any imagery you have showing up. Which types of questions gave you the more positive feedback and actual solutions as opposed to another stick to beat yourself up with?
This exercise can be a powerful tool to open us to an endless supply of resources within in that great database we call our mind, we just need to understand how it works to access the wealth of knowledge hidden inside it.
Start asking yourself questions that are going to get you the answers you need and you will find that within your mind you already have a great database of knowledge just waiting for you to utilize it! Understand how to use the language of the mind and you will have created a resource more valuable than you could ever imagine.
Tips;
1. Use a journal to capture your ideas and inspirations as your mind will often unleash a myriad of possibilities in one giant download!
2. Ask the questions right before you go to sleep and then keep a notepad or journal close at hand so you can write down any ideas that seem to pop out of nowhere when you wake up. (Einstein, Edison, and Tesla were all known to use this approach and look what they were able to create)
3. Try out different ways of reframing the questions and see what you get, just by changing the question slightly you may come up with even greater insights
4. Use the answers you come up with to pose other questions, for instance, if you ask what would it take to have that level of success show up in my life you could then ask what would be the next best step to me to take to achieve this outcome
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