The Wrong Questions

I used to ask, How can I make more money? How can I prove how smart I am? How can I be successful?

And I sacrificed my health, my relationships, and my peace for decades in answer to those questions.

Life becomes an answer to the questions we ask. 

It’s cause and effect. The cause is the question and the effect is the answer.

Lately I’m asking different questions. The process of searching for the answers is as important as the answers themselves, because of who I become along the way.

I’m asking, Who am I? What’s my purpose now? What do I really want? How can I be more present? 

These questions don’t have simple answers. 

It feels uncomfortable to let go of what I was taught to believe were important: achievement, recognition, status. To turn away from the craving of more. 

If I’m not achieving something significant, who am I?

At first I tried to force my brain to answer these questions. After all, I’m proud of my intellect. It’s taken me pretty far in this life. 

But it couldn’t answer these questions because it was referencing the past. Accessing old data, rules and systems. It kept giving me answers that were slightly different versions of what I’d done before, like writing a book and building another business.

I was still striving for the same things, just choosing different flavors.

Now I’m allowing myself to feel the discomfort of not knowing the answers. To live in the question. I practice staying open and curious so I notice how life answers me. Because my questions are being answered in large and small ways every day.

By the way I feel. 

Listening to the Body

This practice requires something completely different for me: a new way of perceiving. One that doesn’t start with the mind, but with the body. That’s where insight, intuition and inspiration surface first. The problem is, the body is not a place I’ve ever gone to for answers. 

In fact for most of my life I thought my body was an inconvenience. It was frustrating that it would get tired after 10 hours of work when I still had 4 more to go in order to hit the deadline. 

It was annoying that it would get hungry when I still had 3 more back-to-back meetings. It was exasperating that it would catch a cold right when I had to give an important speech.

My body was a problem. 

The signals of alarm that it sent me in the form of emotions were not something to listen to, they were something to suppress. Because they interfered with what my brain was determined to do.

This was still my prevailing belief during my executive coaching program at Georgetown, even though we had an entire course on the importance of somatic awareness. I still thought feelings were something to control, something to master. Not something to listen to.

Slowly I’m releasing my addiction to thinking and replacing it with being present. Because that’s the only place to access the intelligence of the body. 

With AI available as a thinking partner, the ability and effectiveness of the brain is amplified. But what AI can’t do for me is feel. 

It doesn’t help me recognize when something feels expansive vs. limiting. When I feel excitement vs. dread. Connected vs. separate.

Embedded within those feelings are the signals of stop, go, pause. When I ignore them, I get feedback. If I push through when I’m tired, I make mistakes. If I do what I think I “should” do instead of what I love, joy drains from my life.

Becoming Conscious

Becoming conscious of how you feel doesn’t require meditating for 30 years. I know this because I’ve been meditating for 30 years and until recently was still disconnected from my body. 

All that’s required is widening your perception.  

All founders automatically scan the environment for signals. We have better than average intuition and instinct. It’s a small update to include scanning the body and it pays a high dividend. Because the body’s intelligence is native. It’s primal and faster. 

Now when my head starts to hurt, or I feel intense resistance to something, I notice. Then I ask myself, “Why am I doing this when it doesn’t feel good?”

I still hear a voice that says, “You can’t always do what feels good!” But now I think, “Why not? Why should I try to create or complete something when I’m getting signals to stop?”

I’m also practicing being comfortable not knowing. Staying with uncertainty instead of trying to outrun it with constant, urgent action. 

My desire for answers is increasing, but my sense of urgency for them is decreasing. Curiosity is replacing urgency, along with a deeper connection to the intelligence of my body and feelings.

“What will they think of me?” becomes:

How can I be more authentic? To say what I really think?

“How can I prove myself?” becomes:

How can I develop and express my unique abilities and interests?

“How can I get more?” becomes:

How can I appreciate what I have? How can I contribute more?

At the end of my day, my self-evaluation is no longer, “What did I accomplish?” It’s:

What did I notice?

How did I feel?

Who did I help?