“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.” The point is to live everything. Live the questions now.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
What is happening right now?
Can I be with it?
These two questions, deceptively simple, make up the entire process. They are a proven, effective way to break through whatever resistance is keeping us from complete presence and acceptance. They can be asked as a stand-alone activity, or, with practice, amid virtually any other activity as a way to heighten our vitality and effectiveness.
As important as the questions themselves is the way we ask them. With the first question, we turn our attention to the body. We’re not interested for the moment in what’s happening “out there,” but rather “in here.”
Whatever draws our attention is the correct answer. There’s never a need to strain for the information, or to figure it out. Usually, if we’re in resistance, our attention will land quickly on an area of tension. That’s the perfect place to begin.
With the second question, we let ourselves sink gently and fully into the reality of our current experience. This causes the tension (or contraction) to release, putting us in touch directly with whatever we’re resisting, which is almost always an unpleasant physical and/or emotional sensation.
At this point, we continue cycling through the questions until reaching a state of expansion and well being.
Though simple, this process is often not easy. It requires patience, practice, and above all self-compassion.
To delve deeper into Living the Questions, click the right column links and visit the Articles page to read “Two Questions That Can Change Your Life.”
