Who Would You Be?

By Jon F. Hansen

Your mind is a powerful tool that loves to think. It loves to solve problems, puzzle things out, answer questions. My clients often find themselves stuck in "thinking mode," looping endless loops around well-worn and frustrating questions, anxieties, concerns, and plans. You've undoubtedly experienced this as well.

At first, the idea of asking a question and deliberately not trying to figure out the answer seems a little strange. And for most of the questions in your day, it would be a little strange. From deciding what clothes to put on in the morning to what you want for dinner, you generally expect a fairly quick answer to the questions that arise.

The more profound questions of life, however, cannot be answered through thought, problem-solving, or logic. Embody them, carry them with you for a while, allow them to percolate through not only your mind, but your emotions, your body, and into deeper awareness. This is true inquiry.

One of the deepest inquiries you can make of your Self is to examine a core belief or behavior. A core belief is a cluster of thoughts that lies at the very heart of your way of being in the world. It's the result of social conditioning, things you were taught as a child or an adult, deep-seated beliefs and thoughts that painfully limit the full expression of your talents, abilities, and wholeness. When you question these core beliefs through inquiry, you bring them into the light of day and you gently allow yourself to perceive their falseness.

One way to pose this question is to ask who you would be without the belief. By asking in this way, you're not telling yourself to change anything, you're just noticing other options. After all, you can't stop thinking or feeling in a particular way, and trying only creates more pain and struggle. Instead, this inquiry allows you to explore from a perspective of curiosity and wondering.

Here are three questions to consider as a part of your own inquiry into who and what you really are. Consider them one at a time, not all together. Start with whichever one connects most deeply with where you are today. Experience them. Don't try to answer them or to force yourself into different behavior or different thoughts. If you find yourself wandering into self-judgment or criticism, you're thinking, not experiencing. These are for exploration, for turning on your inner lights, for finding your way home again. They're not meant for logical, rational answers.

Who would you be if you weren't afraid?

Whether you call it concern, worry, nervousness, anxiety, or even panic, fear in its many guises underlies more of human behavior than most people realize. And fear imposes more limitations on who and what we all are in the world than any other emotion or belief.

Who would you be if you weren't afraid? Who would you be without that cage around your spirit?

Who would you be if you didn't need to be right?

From earliest childhood you were taught by parents, friends, and teachers that it's important to be right, to win, to be the best. From that perspective, being wrong or making a mistake becomes not only an error in judgment or of behavior, but also a personal flaw.

Who would you be if you didn't need to be right? Who would you be if making mistakes and striving for perfection were both simply opportunities to explore, create, and learn?

Who would you be if you stopped reacting to your thoughts?

One of my clients has a set of wind-up chattering teeth on her desk to remind her that thoughts are indeed only chatter or background noise. When you react to that ongoing stream of thought, you become frustrated, self-critical, fearful, and driven.

Who would you be if you stopped reacting to your thoughts? Who would you be if you stopped believing them?

Relax ... stop ... and inquire

Ask these questions gently. There aren't any answers to figure out. There's just a quiet opening of possibilities, a noticing that something other than your mind is engaged, interested, aware.

"A spiritual question is like an alarm clock thrown into the dream. ... It disrupts the dream. That's its purpose. When your alarm clock goes off in the morning, its purpose is not to get an answer. Its purpose is to wake you up." From *My Secret is Silence* by Adyashanti, American spiritual teacher and author

(c)Jon Hansen

Helping bright, creative women break free from others' expectations and reclaim their wholeness and power.

About the Author

I'm Jon Hansen of The Remembering Room.

After a lifetime of being all things to all people, is it possible to live from who you are instead of for other people's expectations?

You can break down the walls and rediscover/reclaim the wholeness that's your birthright. For more information or to access my free resources (including my free guided meditations) please visit The Remembering Room

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