10 (and a bit more) questions you dare to ask and use your heart to answer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea of asking questions of the client is the cornerstone of coaching. But I wonder how often we (I’m talking primarily about us coaches, those in the helping professions) are willing to turn the tables on ourselves and ask ourselves the kinds of questions that would lift us off our feet and very often out of our very lives, careers, relationships, friendship and return us not quite the same person. I imagine many of us including myself spend our time ducking and diving, dodging the kind of questions that aims for the heart and right to the jugular of what really matters. Ontological coach Julio Olalla reminds us that, “We are full of answers to questions we never ask.”

Inspired by the poem, ‘Sometimes’ by David Whyte and an article he wrote for a magazine – Questions that have no right to go away – here are 10 questions of my own you can make time in your week to begin to discover the answers.

1. How well do I really know and appreciate myself?

2. How well do I really know, love and respect my partner?

3. What difficult or uncomfortable conversations do I need to have with others? Name names.

4. What habits or actions do I regularly engage in that are costing me dearly? What are the costs?

5. Do I really know how other people experience me? How could I find out? Who would I not want to ask? Add that person immediately to the list.

6. How much of who I am do I bring to my conversations with others? Guess a percentage. Where’s the rest of the percentage? What are they getting up to?

7. Where have I been wrong and whom do I need to say sorry to? Again name names.

8. If I gave it my heart and your soul what would I be doing with my life that is different to what I do now?

9. If I allow myself sometime during this week to sit with silence what will I hear in the quiet of my own company?

10. What really brings me alive? More on this question in a later post this week.