When we ask ourselves questions, our brains love to go to work to find the answers. When we ask ourselves disempowering questions, our brain will likely find disempowering answers. When we ask ourselves more empowering, curious, open questions, our brains will likely find options that feel more empowering or productive.
What are three disempowering questions that you find yourself asking?
What are some more empowering questions you could ask yourself?
Below are some examples of disempowering (sound familiar?) and empowering questions:
Disempowering
Why do I keep doing this?
Why did I have to make that mistake?
Why isn’t he calling me back?
Why is this so hard?
Why can’t I get it right?
What’s wrong with me?
Why am I so messed up?
Empowering
How is this working for me?
What if this was all happening perfectly?
What if it’s okay that this is hard?
What would this look like if it was easy?
What am I learning from this?
How do I want to show up in this situation?
What’s right with me?
Who do I want to be?
Let me know if you’ve been asking yourself disempowering questions and are struggling to find more empowering questions to ask instead. We’ll work it out together! I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.
Disempowering questions and thoughts can contribute to unhealthy behaviors. And sometimes we’re not aware that they’re unhealthy until it’s too late. And that’s OK. That’s how we learn what isn’t working for us. And it’s a path forward to learning what DOES work for us, in healthier ways.
It’s OK to find out what isn’t working in order to move towards what does work – it’s probably the most common way we learn things. Sometimes we learn from our past experiences, a line in a book we’re reading, a story about someone else’s experience, or just being sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I learned about some of my disempowering thoughts and beliefs through therapy and life coaching. And I’ve been doing the work to feel empowered and engage in my life in ways that DO work for me. It’s been so fulfilling to live differently by living INTENTIONALLY with awareness of what I’m creating in my life.
So I’ve created an introductory coaching series called “Tools to Change Your Life” to support others on their own path to becoming aware of what ISN’T working for them, so they can discover what DOES work for them.
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What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.
The Healing Modalities 