Loving Questions

I LOVE questions. All kinds of questions.

And now that I’m wiser, I love most the questions for which I’m not seeking an answer. Questions that may not even have an answer.

Because in the end it’s not about the answer.

Does that sound weird? Does asking questions and not expecting or getting answers make little sense to you?

Well, that’s the beauty of it. That’s how the magic happens.

How, you may ask…good question.

If you have been hanging out on our 100th Monkey Facebook page, you may have noticed I LOVE “what if” questions…

What if we let go of all the pre-21st century sayings, idioms, “wisdoms” and start FRESH!

What if we are in new territory? And we are the creator and navigator and the past, once we let it go, no longer applies?

What if we at least get rid of all the limiting, restricting thoughts, beliefs, and sayings first then?

What if we all believed the good in everyone and treated everyone like an empowered loving being we all really are?

What if your life was one big question mark? What would it be like to continually be in the space of question and creation? How would your life unfold then?

Open ended questions and by that, I don’t mean digging around in the past, hoping to excavate nuggets of “truth”, clues to explain why or how something came to pass. Re-living events, over & over again, hashing & re-hashing, is counter-productive to changing your reality. Replaying that story is actually perpetuating the very drama you want to end.  So yes, while things may look the same, they are and they aren’t. Same story, just repeated, again in time and space.

And if you are living exactly the dream life you want, then the script you are following or re-writing is working. Congrats! But for many people, we do ask the wrong questions. Or worse, we don’t ask ANY questions.

So why are questions good?

What if finding an answer puts you in a comfort zone? And people like comfort…they tend to stay in comfort zones, thinking “this is good”. What if there’s more? What if, if we keep asking, we keep moving the energy, re-writing the plot of our story? Consciously.

Generations were taught to have an answer, an agreed answer. We’re not taught to question (because the higher ups don’t want us to question the system, the way things are). Have you noticed that most people are uncomfortable with questions? Maybe they worry they will look stupid when they can’t answer. Or they get anxious when they think you are questioning their beliefs, when sometimes you are only looking for clarity?

Playing a role is so ingrained, letting go of the need to know, to be right, to be accepted, to be smart (fill in your own labels) may feel wrong. Maybe even against the grain?

But deleting the “always have to have answers” program is just the way to go. In school we were taught to seek out the answers. The scripted answers. We learn to ask “safe” questions like who is the protagonist, which is the adverb, what is the formula of benzenesulfonic acid, etc etc. Or we learn to ask fear-based questions like “why me?”

But asking questions is freeing. When we ask questions, we are putting out there the idea that different possibilities exist. And basically asking the universe to show us what is possible. What MORE is there? What ELSE is out there?

And yes, it may feel a little awkward initially asking questions, rather than just answering questions (yes ma’am) or having others answering them. But when we let go of what an answer is, what it looks like, we let go of how we think something should be, must be. We let go of having something round come through, when we’ve only left a slit for something rectangular.

I’m not suggesting leaving it all willy nilly, by chance. No, I’m suggesting asking from a frequency of joy, of innocent curiosity and happy excitement. Have fun with the “what ifs”. What may have felt alien at first will start to flow and the “what ifs” will become a song (a Dr Seuss song!). Before you know it, the “what ifs” will get far beyond what you gave your imagination credit for. And that’s when the magic happens.

And when ask questions, we’re letting the universe know we are open and ready for MORE…for the magic to happen in our life.  What if just asking the question is all it takes…just what if.