Questions unlock the secret doors of your psyche

And turn your journal into a powerful tool for transformation

"Live the questions."  -- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open." 

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Questions are little keys to your inner thoughts and feelings. Here are some favorites I’ve collected over the years. When you feel like digging a little deeper, pick one from the list below that calls to you and see where it takes you.

Williams James said "The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated."

1. What makes me feel appreciated?

2. What is it hard to be grateful for?

3. What single life event most shaped who you are?

4. What is a tiny moment or synchronicity that changed your life?

5. "How can today feel like play?" -- James Clear

"The mind asks the questions; the heart has the answers."   -- Byron Katie

1. “The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?” – Tim Ferriss

2. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?" -- Gabrielle Roth

3. "The questions I want to be able to answer on my death bed: Did I share my light? Did I share all I had to give? Did I stretch my heart as far as it would go?" -- Joyce Wycoff

4. "How much overlap is there between what you say is important to you and how you spent your attention over the last month?" -- James Clear

5. From the evidence – why was I given this day? -- John O'Donohue

"Find the right questions. You don't invent the answers, you reveal the answers."  -- Jonas Salk

1. "What are seeds to tend? What are weeds to pull?" -- Joyce Wycoff

2. "What if my aloneness wasn't something to be fixed, but rather a gift to be used?" -- Joyce Wycoff

3. "What will you leave behind?" -- Seth Godin

4. "When people look back upon their lives, they ask three questions that determine their sense of whether it was meaningful: Did I give and receive love? Did I become all I can be? Did I leave the planet a little better?"  -- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

5. Questions from "I will not die an unlived life": What am I more curious about than afraid of? What is unfinished for me to learn, to experience? Am I leaving a legacy that enables others to live bigger lives than I have? What courageous conversations do I need to have ... with myself ... with others?   -- Dawna Markova

"Nothing shapes our lives so much as the questions we ask." 

-- Sam Keen

From: John O’Donohue

What dreams did I create last night?

Where did my eyes linger today?

Where was I blind?

Where was I hurt without anyone noticing?

What did I learn today?

What did I read?

What new thoughts visited me?

What differences did I notice in those closest to me?

Whom did I neglect?

Where did I neglect myself?

What did I begin today that might endure?

How were my conversations?

What did I do today for the poor and the excluded?

Did I remember the dead today?

When could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different?

Where did I allow myself to receive love?

With whom today did I feel most myself?

What reached me today? How did it imprint?

Who saw me today?

What visitations had I from the past and from the future?

What did I avoid today?

From the evidence – why was I given this day?

***

From: Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 in Letters to a Young Poet

I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear friend, 

to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart 

and to try to love the questions themselves 

like locked rooms and like books written 

in a very foreign tongue.  

Do not now seek the answers, 

which cannot be given you, 

because you would not be able to live them.  

And the point is, to live everything.  

Live the questions now.  

Perhaps you will then gradually, 

without noticing it, 

live along some distant day into the answer.   

***

From: Herman Hesse

Sometimes

Sometimes when a bird cries out,

or the wind sweeps through a tree,

or a dog howls in a far-off farm,

I hold still and listen a long time.

My world turns and goes back to the place

where, a thousand forgotten years ago,

the bird and the blowing wind

were like me, and were my brothers.

My soul turns into a tree,

and an animal, and a cloud bank.

Then changed and odd it came home

and asks me questions.  

 What should I reply?

***

Which question did you find helpful?

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