Posted by During a recent session, a client fervently expressed how he had repeatedly asked himself why his relationship with money was so dysfunctional. His experiences were stricken with lack, hardship, and arduous effort. He continued that his answer to the question related to his parents’ relationship to money and the dynamics he witnessed in the household during his formative years. Just as he was about to continue investing his emotional and mental anguish into sharing the plight of his upbringing, I stopped him mid-sentence (along with the anguish, as it were). I pointedly told him he was asking the wrong question.
A puzzled look consumed his face as he wondered why I stopped him from reliving his plight. After all, he was just beginning to share the juicy details from which his troubles stemmed. He was about to unwittingly smoke the crack pipe of doom lit by his historical legacy. I, in effect, disappointed him by metaphorically telling him to “step away from the pipe” as I succinctly informed him he was asking the wrong question. Unbeknownst to him at that moment, the session was transforming into a profound turning point in his life.
I repeated my response so that I knew he heard me correctly the first time. You’re asking the wrong question, I emphasized. I compassionately began to explain.
“You find what you’re looking for,” I said. “If you ask about dysfunction, you get answers about dysfunction – and nothing more. You don’t necessarily receive solutions, emancipation, or relief. Instead, you get reasons, data, and sources.” I paused so he could consider the point I was illustrating. In fact, his line of questioning, although well meaning, simply pulled him further down the rabbit hole of the dysfunctional malaise of which he desired to be free.
As he listened, I revealed a potent principle about life. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” I said. “This means that space will be filled from a catalyst. If you spill a glass of water, it will ‘fill the space’ of the area equal to the volume of its content. This is true when it comes to a question as well,” I continued. “A question creates a vacuum – a space for an answer. Depending on the nature of the question – it’s ‘volume’ – you’ll get an ‘answer’ – a response – that equals the nature of the question.”
“If you are asking, ‘Why do I have money troubles?’ or ‘Why are relationships so difficult for me?’ or ‘Why can’t I lose the weight,’ you invite a response commensurate with the nature of the question. In other words, when you ask why ‘bad’ things are happening, you inevitably get a response – an answer – that corresponds and is commensurate with the toxic nature of the question.”
“For example, the question, ‘Why am I always strapped for money?’ invites answers that explain the circumstances indicating why you are strapped for money. Get it? If you ask, ‘Why are relationships difficult?’ You get circumstances that illustrate why relationships are difficult – not because they inherently or fundamentally are difficult, but because that was the nature of your question.”
By this point in the discourse, I had my client’s rapt attention. It began to dawn on him that he has been experiencing the consequences of the questions he had been asking. As his mindset became sufficiently clear on the erroneous nature of the questions he’d been posing to himself – and vis-à-vis to the Universe – we began to reset his point of reference. Resetting would position him, in effect, to receive “responses” – circumstances – that would fill his life with his desires rather than his perceived limitations.
We began to ask the right questions! To help him constructively construct appropriate questions, I referred him to a Zen koan (a saying) prominently displayed on my desk. It says, “Show me the face you had before your parents were born.”
My puzzled charge re-read the sentence three times before he could complete it because the statement was non-linear and seemingly nonsensical. “Show me the face you had before your parents were born.” Essentially, this koan means that in the true scheme of things, you were already an idea before you were biologically conceived! As you became “an idea whose time had come,” Intention coordinated and synchronized all the influences and circumstances necessary to produce your birth.
Appreciating the subtle ramifications of this reality is to strip yourself of the gross mis-perception that who you are began – and ends – with the influence of your biology or upbringing which is what causes you to ask the wrong questions! In realizing, rather, that you are the offspring of a grand Intention expressing more of its magnificence in the form of you, you then have the point of reference for asking the appropriate – right – questions so that your life becomes filled with the content of the responses to those right questions.
My client and I then began practicing how to ask the right questions. We started with, “Show me why I’m here.” This question invites the Universe (Cosmos, Life, God – whatever resonates with you in terms of reference) to begin filling your experience with fruitful, bountiful expressions. More precisely, this question creates a vacuum reflective of its nature such that you get “responses” (experiences) indicating all the grand and glorious potentials of your real, purposeful nature. Then we asked (and these questions can, indeed, be rhetorical), “What ways am I to reveal abundance?” and “How am I to express courage?”
At this point, the client and I were on a roll. He chimed in with, “How am I suppose to successfully express my creativity?!” “Absolutely!” I responded and then added, “How am I to reveal love in my life?” The session continued very productively from there.
During this session, the client profoundly shifted into a context of his identity that was not incumbent on his personal history, but rather on his true identity. To be clear, “personal” discovery can indeed serve a purpose. The question becomes, however, “What purpose do you want to satisfy?” Are you interested in collecting evidence of malfeasance for the (pseudo) satisfaction of merely knowing? Or, are you interested in the shortest, most authentic route to true freedom and emancipation from trials that bind you to limiting circumstances?
The choice is yours. For my money, I’m betting that you desire freedom and emancipation. As you begin to ask the right questions, feeding your potential rather than your perceived limitations, then the Universe – always responding in kind – will begin to deliver content that reflects the questions you are posing.
Oh, incidentally, that client, an actor, called me a mere few hours after that session to inform me that he just received a call after a long period of career inactivity for one of the biggest auditions of his career. The Universe indeed responds to whatever is being asked!
Show me the face you had before your parents were born.
Related Reading:
These Eyes by Alton Ellis