How Do I Turn This Thing Off?

How Do I Turn This Thing Off?

I am fascinated by the fact that the same cards come up over and over. I like to think that it’s because they are the most potent questions, the most transformative questions, we can ask.

There are lots of types of questions. What’s for dinner? Why did you do that? How do you turn it off? Where’s the switch?

Creative Questions are special because the question holds the answer. The way our brains work, our unconscious mind loves to have stuff to do, it is doing something like 88% of our thinking. Asking a Creative Question sets that part of the mind to work on coming up with answers.

This is one of the reasons that Creative Questions blow affirmations out of the water. Imagine this: An affirmation and a Creative Question are each like a pebble. But. When you drop the affirmation pebble, it lands in the sand and that’s it. A Creative Question pebble lands in water, the deep pool of your amazing mind. It sends ripples out and dynamic movement all the way down. Statements stop, questions go.

When we pause a bit and ask a Creative Question like, “Why am I grateful?” and let it sink in, it goes deep. A Creative Question can scour through old mind gunk and leave it shining. When we add a word like “else” to the Question, it can be even more potent, especially good when we are practicing gratitude. Notice how you feel when you ask, “Why else am I grateful?”

The other interesting feature of Creative Questions is that, since they work in the unconscious mind, we often don’t get answers in our conscious mind, but you may well notice, and will notice as you practice them, that your body will feel different. I think that is so cool.

Here’s why your body will feel different. Thoughts in our minds produce energy, and that energy moves through synapses in our brains, our very physical brains. So while we can’t measure a thought, we can measure the trail it leaves. That energy trail sets off a whole slew of events; neurochemicals releasing, which, in turn, cause hormonal releases, which trigger other physiological events like elevated or quieted heart beat, faster, or slower breathing, butterflies in our tums, clenched jaw muscles, and so on.

The physiological response often relates to a specific body part: Shoulders when we feel burdened, backs around support issues, throat around speaking, or holding back, words. Our language is filled with these connections. We use the phrase, “carrying the weight of the world” to indicate that we have shouldered too much responsibility. Oh, yeah, that’s another one. So if your shoulders ache, or are full of muscle spasms, look to the responsibilities you have taken on and see about letting some go, or changing your attitude about them.

So when we ask that lovely “Why else am I grateful?” we set up the gratitude string of events in our brains, and our bodies respond and we feel nice. Practicing our favorite Creative Questions creates new thoughts, which create new pathways in our brains, which can relieve a lot of our physical discomfort.

How have I changed from releasing stress chemicals into my body to releasing nurturing, healing chemicals through my Creative Questions?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 03012013