That Big Question that Haunts You

How many big questions do you have in your head right now?

I’d like to dwell on that adjective, big, for a moment. What makes a question a big question? In my view, it’s any question with a considerable impact on our life for which we can’t find a straightforward answer. Our current values, beliefs, mental maps, emotional and intellectual tools, while helping us magnificently in our past and in our ordinary life today, seem to be inadequate for that question.

We then resort to looking for more information and data, playing out an endless number of different scenarios and possible outcomes, calculating probabilities… but we still can’t find a straightforward answer.

Should I accept that senior job offer that will inevitably make my personal life suffer? Should I stay with my partner? I love him so much but, time and time again, we don’t seem to be happy together. My parents are getting old and perhaps I should move and live closer to them, but that would disrupt my life entirely, what should I do?

We then talk to friends, family, colleagues, mentors, and for some of them, mystically, our question is a “no brainer”. They absolutely know what they would do if they were in our shoes. And perhaps they’re right: if we had their brain, we would make the same decision.

But we have ours and, for some reason, our mental maps, our tools, our values and beliefs, with our views of the world and our role in it, don’t seem to help us find an answer to our big question.

A dear friend moved to Spain with his partner over a year ago. While he’s beyond any doubt tried his best, he hasn’t found a sustainable job there and is struggling to settle in. He’s just received a good job offer back in the UK. What should he do?

I suggested he should do a question meditation. He had chills when I mentioned the word meditation because he’s “not that type of guy” but I reassured him that this is a super hands-on practice with unexpected, very practical outcomes.

“Plus,” I told him, “if your usual ways of dealing with your life were adequate for your current dilemma, you’d have already found an answer.”

The Question Meditation

A question meditation helps you resolve big questions that you’re confronting in your life. It helps you have the patience and create the space (and time) to allow the question to solve itself inside you.

When was the last time you actually set away some quiet time to reflect on a big question that has been occupying your mind space for a while? (All the times you think about it with panic, anxiety and frustration don’t count, the question meditation is quite the opposite.)

So, to begin with, take a moment to think of all the big questions that you’ve been pondering recently. Pick one that you’d like to tackle in a different way from all the attempts you’ve already given it.

During a question meditation, you are the observer. The question and all the thoughts, emotions, scenarios, outcomes, etc. arising during the meditation are the objects of your observation.

While you're meditating, release any mental maps and mindsets you hold. Let ideas and images flow unrestrained by pre-existing mental maps.

This is an important point: if the mental maps that you already hold were fully adequate for this moment, you’d have found an answer to your big question already. If you still don’t have an answer, it means that your current mental maps are not serving you entirely well for this big question.

So, try not to manipulate what happens in your head. Allow thoughts, ideas, images, emotions, to manifest themselves inside you and just observe them. Be the observer, with curiosity.

Let yourself be surprised by what you’ll see happen.

Pick a question that you're confronting in your life and do a number of question meditations on it for a few days. We recommend reserving at least ten minutes each time. Once you're in the flow of this meditation, you may want to do it for longer.

Do it every day, until the question has been resolved, has disappeared or has turned into something else. In fact, don't look for an answer; just be open to anything that will come up during the meditation.

The objective of the Question Meditation is not to find an answer.

You may find an answer, but the real objective is to create the space for new thoughts, ideas, emotions, new mental maps to emerge… something that you hadn’t thought of, you hadn’t considered, something that will surprise you. The final outcome may be an answer, a different question, or a completely different scenario where the original big question actually vanishes. You don’t know yet.

Do the Question Meditation once a day for several days. It’s a very dynamic exercise and, each time, it’ll be a different experience that will deliver different insights.

As we’re going into the end-of-the-year break, set aside some time for reflection on the important decisions that await you in the new year. This is an amazing opportunity to approach them in a different, very creative way.

Have a recharging Christmas holiday and a sparkling beginning of the New Year!

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