1.
LIVE THE QUESTIONS
In the spirit of Rilke, we would like to finish this book by inviting you to consider questions to live by and experiments to try. We would like to encourage you not to search for answers; not yet anyway. Instead, we encourage you to create the space for stillness, inquiry and reflection; to further build your capacity to become more present to the uncertainties and doubts that face you in your life and work; to build your tolerance to the uncomfortable feelings that arise at the edge of your competence; to create a new way, your way, of positively engaging with Not Knowing. As Rilke says, “the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Questions are a powerful way to uncover new possibilities. They help us tap into our own wisdom and approach our lives with curiosity and wonder. Questions help us develop a positive orientation towards the unknown.
We offer the questions below as a starting point in your own journey, a portal to finding your own way forward. Allow yourself to live the questions that you feel most drawn to. If the temptation to think too deeply arises and you find yourself compelled to work out an answer in your head, try instead to hold each question a bit longer than you normally would. This may result in you expressing what you already know with a little freshness or newness, or it may create the space for new insights.
Alternatively, you could answer the questions without thinking deeply, going with your first response and following whatever comes up. Go with that, even if it doesn’t seem to be what you “intended” to respond with, what you “should” say or what makes “sense.” Also check in with your body. What sensations and somatic experiences do you notice? Whatever your answer, assume it is not the final answer, just like in a game show. You can continue to live the question and reflect on the question in your daily life.
To work with questions more effectively it helps to limit the time you have to respond. For example, you could begin writing as soon as you read the question. If somebody is reading the question to you, you could respond immediately with your thoughts. The key is not to “over think” but to limit the response time to one or two minutes maximum. Detailed plans are not needed from the outset. The point here is that you are not analyzing the question but allowing a response to emerge naturally. You allow the genesis of new thinking to emerge, from a place of Not Knowing.
You might also choose to live a question for a day, for a week, or for a longer period of time as a practice of inquiry. Some questions such as “What is my purpose?” are often revisited many times during our lives and the answer can change as often as we do.
Allowing a period for incubation can provide the opportunity to engage with what is happening around and within you as further data to draw on. For example, going into nature with your question and perhaps picking up an object that draws your attention may give you surprising insights into the question. Metaphors, drawing, music and other nonverbal ways to play with the question are all suitable. Sharing your thoughts with others close to you: friends, family, a book group, or on social media can provide support and add further wisdom. Find a way that works best for you.
No matter what you do, the most important part of the practice is for the question to remain alive and for your whole body and mind to become a question, suggests Zen teacher Martine Batchelor. “In Zen they say that you have to ask with the pores of your skin and the marrow of your bones.”
On Knowledge
What is your relationship to knowledge? How important is it for you to be seen as competent in what you do? How does your specialty/expertise help or hinder you?
Have you experienced pressure in your role at work or at home to provide direction, clarity, certainty? How do you manage the expectations others have on you?
What is your own relationship to people in positions of authority? Do you feel comfortable questioning or saying “no” to authority?
How do volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity affect your role or context?
The Edge
What are some of your typical reactions when you arrive at the edge of your knowledge and expertise?
Where in your life do you employ a fixed mindset? What would you begin doing if you did not fear looking, or being, incompetent?
What are some of the ways your resistance shows up when you are at the edge?
What is it that you long for? Where do you feel discontent or the call for something new?
Empty your cup
What are your personal or organizational values and how could you use them as your foundation for venturing into the unknown?
What does “letting go” mean for you? Who are the people who hold your safety ropes and how will they know to support you?
When was the last time you said “I don’t know?” Where could you start adopting a “beginner’s mind?”
What would be a safe context in which you could practise expressing “decent doubt?”
Close Your Eyes to See
What might you “close” to enable new possible ways of “seeing” to emerge?
How do you find space to listen to your inner voice?
What do you need to do to see something familiar and look at it with fresh eyes?
How might you work more explicitly with the assumptions you hold and test whether they are true?
Leap in the Dark
What are the structures you need to put in place to create the space for improvisation?
What are some of the complex issues you are facing that would benefit from generating multiple hypotheses?
How might you draw upon what you already have at your disposal to “tinker” or experiment with?
What role do mistakes play in your life? Are there contexts where you could embrace mistakes and failures as opportunities for learning and growth?
Delight in the unknown
When in your life have you taken a “leap of faith?”
What are some ways for you to increase your sense of levity and lightness?
Where in your life can vulnerability become a strength? What would make it safer for others to disclose vulnerability in your workplace?
How might you show more compassion to yourself and others when facing the unknown?