16 Questions That Can Change Your Life
Reading time: 8 minutes
“The journey towards finding our unique talents and innate predispositions is life’s most arduous and most rewarding journey.”
Changing our perspective turns out to be an endless source with which we can continue to surprise ourselves with new insights and the associated 'eureka moments.' Image: Pixabay
Let’s kick off with a thought experiment.
Imagine that we made the conscious choice to be born into our current human body. Imagine that we choose our parents, and thereby the environment into which we are born. Imagine that we choose every dream we dream, choose every thought we think, choose every feeling we feel, choose every word we say, choose every act we do; and moreover, choose every sight we see, every sound we hear, and sense every smell, taste, and touch that we sense.
How does that make you feel?
Until not so long ago, a thought experiment like this made me feel uncomfortable to the point of frustration. There was a comforting and clear division between what I did and what happened to me: the former emerged out of my free will (and encompassing all my qualities), the latter by some force outside of me (often malignant, and encompassing all my faults and adversities).
Until I heard, some years ago, the following statement by Alan Watts in one of his lectures:
“I am responsible for the way the world is. Because if I am not, then I will inevitably accuse and blame others, and I don’t want that.”
In some inexplicable way, that sounded fully reasonable. Moreover, all of a sudden this thought experiment was seen from a different perspective. Because if I am completely responsible for all my dreams, thoughts, feelings, and deeds, that means inevitably that I have power over the kinds of dreams, thoughts, feelings, and deeds, that my organism does, or doesn’t, produce. As a perspective, a point of view through which we can experience life, it feels rather appealing.
Then, recently, I read the following statement in The Art of Listening by psychologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm:
“A person is responsible not only for what he thinks, but for his own unconscious.”
If we are responsible for our own unconscious, can we then also determine the contents of our dreams? Illustration: Elf-Moondance
Admittedly, these kinds of ideas can sound pretty scary at first, especially in a culture that almost seems to have abolished the whole idea of responsibility, despite all the lip-service that’s often paid to it by public figures. One feature of this abolishment of responsibility can easily be observed by our daily, and fully accepted, use of the word ‘have’.
According to Fromm, a statement like: ‘I have a happy/unhappy marriage,’ is actually only a cover-expression with which one puts a state of mind in terms of a property-relationship. In other words, by placing the marriage as a separate entity outside of ourselves, we project our own feelings about the marriage onto said marriage – thus outside of ourselves – and in that way we try to protect ourselves from feeling and experiencing anything.
My marriage might be unhappy, but I am peachy![1]
Moreover, by placing a situation or institution outside of ourselves, we no longer have the feeling that we have to (or can) take responsibility for it. But that comes with a questionable side effect: powerless passivity. For if I am not allowed to, or cannot, take responsibility for myself and the situations and institutions that I am a part of, or engaged with, then what’s my purpose of being here at all?
Now, it sounds reasonable that in a psychotherapeutic setting, it is important that patients can mobilize their own sense of responsibility and activity for their healing process. Yet, how many of us are not in a psychotherapeutic setting, yet also experience a certain feeling of being trapped in an unfulfilling, or even toxic, life or work situation? Therefore, here’s a method that might help you to regain control over your own life, because there’s no stronger aphrodisiac than to experience for yourself how much power you have in shaping your own destiny.
The Method
The method is simple. For each aspect of your life, investigate how you feel about it by attributing either nourishing or pathogenic feelings to it (from the illustration below). For example, ask yourself:
‘What are my current living conditions? How do they make me feel?’
If your current living conditions make you feel joyful, energetic, or other nourishing feelings, you can be fairly certain that they are beneficial to your health, emotional development, and spiritual growth. If, on the other hand, they make you feel anxious, frustrated, or other pathogenic feelings, then your current living conditions are most likely detrimental to your health, emotional development, and spiritual growth.
Possible pathogenic or nourishing feelings caused by different aspects of life. Illustration of the heads: Mohamed_hassan
As soon as you have established which aspects of your life structurally[2] cause pathogenic feelings, you then all of a sudden are presented with a choice: either remain stuck in circumstances and/or patterns which keep you emotionally imprisoned and immature, and potentially make you sick, or change them. As scary as that might seem, you DO have the power to make that choice. And if you do, you are empowering yourself because by examining yourself in this scientific way, you have discovered what is healthy and unhealthy for YOU.
Moreover, since this course of action is by definition conducive to your health, emotional development and spiritual growth, you will find out that unhealthy thought and behavioural patterns will eventually be cut off, as you are now beginning to move with the tides of life.
Thus, here’s a list of life-aspects to inventory, and to investigate whether or not they are conducive to your health, emotional development and spiritual growth. Naturally you can expand the list with aspects that aren’t named, yet are important for you.
So here we go:
What are my current living conditions? How do they make me feel?
Living conditions refer to the circumstances of life, such as access to suitable housing, food, clothing, clean water, etc.
What is my current living environment? How does that make me feel?
Living environment refers to the general atmosphere and condition of your home, neighborhood, city, and country where you live.
What is my current diet? How does that make me feel?
Here it is important to sincerely look at what you eat, and how much you eat on a daily basis.
Moreover, we are not interested here in short term gratification, but rather how our food consumption influences our over-all state of being. So if eating satisfies only because it was done to repress a certain frustration or other negative feeling, there’s a good chance you’ll experience pathogenic feelings on one or more of the other life aspects.
What are my current eating habits? How do they make me feel?
This refers to the amount of meals per day, the presence or absence of a regular meal consumption structure, snacking in between meals, and eating to feel better.
Who are the people I currently engage with? How do they make me feel?
This refers to (love)relationships, family, friends, colleagues (superiors, peers, subordinates), roommates, neighbours, and anyone else who currently has a direct effect on your life.
How do I currently provide for my livelihood? How does that make me feel?
This refers to the line of work you’re in and whether or not your job is meaningful and fulfilling for you.
On which activities do I spend my time? How do they make me feel?
This refers to the actual activities you do at school or work, but also in and around the house, or any other activities you’re currently engaged in (family activities, sports, music, arts, hobbies, charity, photography, political party, etc.).
Moreover, if drinking, drug consumption, or other activities of an addictive nature are part of your daily life, note them down under this question for investigation on how they make you feel.
What thoughts and dreams currently occupy my mind? How do they make me feel?
Usually our thoughts and dreams can be categorized as they tend to revolve around current important topics or problems, but also individual thoughts and dreams can create profound effects. Write them down as you see fit, and investigate which feelings they cause in you.
What sports am I currently doing? How do they make me feel (or, if not engaged in any kind of physical or mental activity, how does that make me feel)?
With sports are meant activities that require intensive physical and/or mental exertion (e.g. football, chess, etc.).
How does my daily schedule look? How does that make me feel?
This refers to the presence or absence of a regular daily structure, and if that fits your constitution or not.
What kind of music/art/entertainment do I currently consume? How does that make me feel?
I grew up in the 1980’s as a hard rock/heavy metal aficionado. Yet, most of the music I listen to nowadays varies between jazz noir, Indian, Latin, D&B, and trance, because they make me joyful and, every now and then, ecstatic (even though I can still enthusiastically bang my head from time to time).
In other words, our taste changes as much as our bodies change. Hence this question: is the entertainment that we currently consume nourishing or detrimental to our health, emotional development, and spiritual growth?
What kind of possessions do I own? How do they make me feel?
The way, rate, and speed, with which we accumulate things, usually only becomes painfully obvious when we move into a new house. Therefore deliberately asking ourselves this question can have cleansing, humbling, and healing effects.
How do I breathe? How does that make me feel?
It’s no secret that becoming aware of the way we breathe can have empowering and healing effects, hence the question.
How is my posture while walking, standing, or sitting? How does that make me feel?
As with becoming aware of the way we breathe, becoming aware of how we sit, stand, and walk, also harbours empowerment and healing through the medium of body awareness.
What religion (if any) do I currently practice? How does that make me feel?
For many of us who are in need of spiritual guidance, religion plays a big role in daily life. But different people have different temperaments. So despite all religions sharing the same purpose (in my humble opinion, that is), it is our task as individuals to find out which one is best suited for our particular temperament, at this particular moment in time.
If your current religion makes you experience nourishing feelings, you made a right choice. Yet, if your current religion predominantly evokes pathogenic feelings, you might want to try another one, or let it go for a while to investigate how that feels.
What political party/movement am I currently engaged with? How does that make me feel?
As with the previous question, investigate which feelings your current political engagements evoke in you, and act accordingly.
Now, I appreciate this exercise being far from easy. Moreover, as the physician Theodor Dalrymple discovered while treating the British lower classes for almost all his working life, many people would much rather trade their personal freedom for the (illusory) idea of security.[3] Yet what he also discovered, was that everyone who did so were drowning in pathogenic feelings, while hardly experiencing any of the nourishing ones.
Be that as it may, the fact that you’re still reading up until this point tells me that you are on a path towards self-discovery. May this method be added to your toolbox if it speaks to you, and as difficult as they might sometimes feel, may you over-all enjoy your investigations. Because the capacity to surprise yourself remains a wonderful phenomenon!
Jolly greetings,
Erik Stout
[1] A similar statement sounds: ‘I have many physical problems, but mentally I’m fine.’
[2] Feelings such as fear and anger are serving when they help us out of a dangerous situation, and sadness is a healthy expression of emotional pain, which can then be processed. However, when certain aspects of our lives structurally evoke these feelings, they lose their serving power and can change into pathogenic factors.
[3] In his book ‘Life At The Bottom’, Dalrymple describes the sad, and oftentimes (self)destructive behaviour of the British lower classes at the end of the 20th century. The biggest problem is not so much that they are poor in the sense of being deprived of basic necessities (for they all have houses, TV’s, clothes, and food), but that their lives seem to be so utterly meaningless to them, that their destructive behaviour almost seems to be a means in trying to forget how empty and devoid of purpose their lives are.
Share your way!
Dear reader, even though the process of finding of our own way in life can be a tough and difficult road to travel, everyone who gathers the courage to walk it shares the same view: they wouldn’t have it any other way. Have you broken free from conventional life to find your own way? Do you have a knack for writing and would you like to share your story via this website? Feel free to leave a comment or contact us via the contact form. We’d love to make our community grow!