Powerful questions drive directly to the core of our way of being and if treated with respect show us the aspects of who we are that we have so very expertly hidden from ourselves.
Somewhere in my past I’ve learnt that the amount of success I deserve is limited.
Perhaps it’s the story that we must first suffer before success (“rags to riches”) or that we must come to know rock bottom before we can begin climbing. Judy Barber asks, “How good can you stand it?”, which for me has become a way to break the constrictive hold the stories of my life have been having. Although these stories are designed to be motivational and to show us we can overcome the odds, they can also set us up to fail when we don’t see the situation as conducive to success. When we are in such a situation, it’s easier to answer Judy’s question as “How bad can I stand it?” Our cultural stories inform us that bad is better because then we will have greater success. But when?…
My initial answer to, “How good can you stand it?”, was, “Not very”, because of the reasons I’ve already mentioned. I found a way forward by asking, “Could you stand it this good?”, and then, “If you can stand that, could you stand this?”, and so on until I found a level that I was comfortable with, devoid of all should.
For more on this question of Judy’s and other great questions, check out her book “Good Questions! The art of asking questions to bring about positive change”.