Steve Andreas: Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I

The fourth question directs your attention to the overall quality of the food at this restaurant. Whether you decide that the food here is likely to be good, bad, or indifferent, that is irrelevant to deciding which food to choose. However, this would be a good question to ask earlier in time, when you are deciding on a restaurant, or it might be useful if you are thinking that perhaps you made a poor choice, and you are considering moving to a different restaurant.

The fifth question directs your attention to the price, rather than to the food. While this may be a good choice if you have little money to spend, it will restrict your choices, and sometimes result in ordering something that is not enjoyable. You may feel some regret that you can't order the food that you would choose if you had more money to spend.

The sixth question directs your attention to a future feeling of the food in your stomach — a pleasant feeling of fullness or lightness — rather than the pleasure of tasting the food. You may choose a meal that isn't quite as pleasurable, but you will probably seldom overindulge or become overweight.

If you review your experience of these questions, you will find that each of them offers certain benefits and each of them also has certain drawbacks, and that will be true of any question that you could ask. Depending on the context, and your outcome at the moment, any of them could be useful, but each of them will also have certain disadvantages.

You may also discover that one or more of these questions seems very familiar or logical, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense," while others seem alien or nonsensical, "I'd never ask that!" That kind of response indicates that you would typically tend to ask one kind of question, rather than another.

Now return to the question that you first asked yourself at the beginning of this chapter. Find out what you can discover about how it directs your attention, you feeling as a result, and what the potential benefits and drawbacks of this question are… .

A core question is a fundamental question that someone continually asks throughout the day, unconsciously organizing and directing experience in ways that can be both enabling and limiting — a powerful determinant of our skills, attitudes, and limitations. When you discover your core question, that gives you an opportunity to examine it, and change it to something more useful to you.

Since this question is one that we typically ask, regardless of the context, it is so familiar that we tend presuppose it and take it for granted, as the fish does water. It is so much a part of part of who we are that it is unconscious, so it is difficult to identify what it is. The first step in this process is to become even more familiar with the impact of different questions. The instructions below are written as an exercise to do with two other people, because you can learn so much by comparing what you do with what someone else does. But you can also do the exercise by yourself. Another way to gain a wider experience is to then take a friend through the exercise, and notice how different some of their answers are.

1. Introduction: experimenting with examples Think of a context that is important to you that involves at least one other person. Keeping that context the same, experiment with several of the questions below, in order to discover how different questions alter your experience. Notice how your experience of the same event changes when you ask each question internally. Particularly notice how the scope of your attention shifts, and also any shifts in the three major sensory modalities — visual images, auditory sounds, and kinesthetic feelings.

What can I get here? What do you want? Aren't I clever?

What should I do?

Am I safe?

Do I have a place here?

What's wrong?

What do they want from me?

Have I done everything I could have?

Am I included?

How does it work?

What is my place here?

Am I well?

How else could it be?

Do I want this?

How am I doing?

What's most important?

What do I have to contribute?

Am I good enough?

Is this all there is?

Who's in charge?

How can I help?

Do they love me?

Is it right?

What's happening to me? If I survive this, what's next?

Do I belong?

How can this give me pleasure?

Will I survive this?

Am I being understood?

How could this be better?

What's missing?

What should I do next?

How can I make the most of this situation?

Pause to share your experience of a number of these questions, and compare what you noticed with what others noticed… .

2. Select a context Now think of an example of an important context in your life: "home," "work," "relationship," "children," etc. that includes at least one other person. Notice how you represent this example in all three major modalities (images, sounds, and feelings). Also notice the submodalities of your experience — the smaller elements within each modality. For instance, the brightness, size, color, distance, moving/still, 3–D/flat of the visual image, the loudness, tonality and tempo of any auditory words or sounds, and the intensity, extent and qualities — hardness, temperature, etc. — of any tactile kinesthetic feelings you have… .

3. Eliciting your core question

a. Method 1While thinking of your experience of this major life context, ask yourself, "Ifthere were a question, always in the back ofmy mind, that quietly

guided all my experience and behavior in this context, what would it be?" Imagine that this question is just underneath your conscious awareness, directing your attention, and guiding all your behavior.

Write this question down, and then think of your important life context again, and imagine asking it there. If this question changes your representation of this context, it's probably not quite the right one. Your core question will fit the context so well that it won't change your representation when you ask it. Try adjusting your question until you find one that fits better… .

Now think of the opposite of your core question — whatever "opposite" means to you. Write this question down, and then notice how it changes your experience of your important life context when you imagine asking it… .

Experimenting with the opposite of your question offers a vivid contrast for realizing the impact of a question, and it often clarifies what your question might be. You can also try the alternate method below for eliciting your core question:

3b. Method 2Think of a profoundly altered state you have experienced that was pleasant… .

Put yourself back into this state, experience it, and identify what makes it strikingly different from your usual experience. In an altered state the core question is either not asked or is completely answered, and this is one of the factors that makes this state altered. This altered state will be the opposite of your usual state.

For example, one man said, "When I was in that state I thought, 'What are people afraid of?' I was amazed that people could be scared of anything. I felt completely safe." This indicates a core question that might be something like, "Am I safe?" or "How safe am I?" Since he usually continually focused on safety, being completely safe and not needing to test for safety was a very altered state for him. Another person said, "In that state it was very clear that there was nothing to be done; everything was perfect as it was." The opposite of this might be something like "What shall I do next?" or "What needs to be done?"