These are the questions I ask clients, and the ones I ask myself. They are not a quiz and there is no order you have to keep to. Read down the list until one of them catches, then stop there and stay with it.

Awareness is the beginning of healing. Most of what you need to know is already inside you — it just has not been asked for out loud.

Before you start

Ask one question, then stop. Count silently to ten before you move on. The answer that arrives after the silence is usually the true one; the first answer is often the rehearsed one.

Write longhand. Something about the slowness of handwriting gets underneath the part of you that argues.

Avoid the word why. “Why do I do that?” invites you to build a defense. What, when, where, who and how go around it.

Ask “and what else?” after every answer, until nothing more comes. The third or fourth answer is where the real material lives.

Notice which question you least want to answer. That is usually the interesting one.

Where you are now

Start here, before anything else. You cannot work with a problem you have not described plainly.

• What would you most like help with? Say it in your own words.
• What limiting beliefs hold you back, or keep you from reaching your goal?
• How does having this problem make you feel?
• When, or where, or with whom does it happen worst?
• What do you have to think about to feel like that?
• What have you already tried, and what happened?
• Why now? What made you decide to deal with this at this point?
• Where do you feel stuck?
• What are you most scared of losing?
• Do you trust yourself?

What you want instead

Nothing here matters more than these. A problem you can describe but cannot imagine the end of has not yet given you anywhere to go.

• What do you want instead of this?
• If this were completely resolved, what would you be doing differently on an ordinary Tuesday?
• How will you know it has worked? What is the first small sign you would notice?
• Who else will notice, and what will they see?
• Zero to ten, where is this right now? What would take it down by one point?
• If you had a magic wand, what are the positive results you want?
• If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be — and what would the benefit be?

Where it began

• When did this start? What were you feeling just beforehand?
• When was the first time you remember feeling this way?
• What was happening in your life in the year it began?
• If you had to guess at the age you were when this started, what number comes to mind first?
• Is there anything in your childhood you needed but did not get — physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually?
• What was the hardest time in your life, and what did you learn from it?

What it is doing for you

Every behavior that persists is doing a job. Until you know the job, the behavior will not leave — and if it does, something else arrives to do the same work.

• What is the benefit of keeping this? What does it give you?
• What keeps you from changing it?
• What would you lose if this changed tomorrow?
• Who wants you to get better? Who does not?
• If the part of you that does this could speak, what would it say it is trying to do for you?
• How long has it been doing that job? Is it still working?
• If there were a reason not to get well, what would it be?
• Is it safe for you to heal now?

Underneath the feeling

• If there were an emotional component to the pain or symptom, what would it be?
• If there were a deeper emotion underlying this, what might it be?
• What does that feel like in your body, and where exactly?
• If that feeling had a shape, a color, a weight, a temperature, what would it be?
• Is there a message this pain is telling you?
• If a friend had this, what would you say it symbolized?
• Do you have feelings of guilt? If so, about what?
• Do you have feelings of shame? If so, about what?
• Have you ever felt humiliated?
• Is there anything you do not think you could possibly get over?

When it is not a problem

You will describe this as constant. It never is, and the gaps are where the change is already living.

• When is it not a problem? What is different about those times?
• Has there ever been a time you expected this to happen and it did not?
• When was the last time you handled something like this well?
• What is the best quality about you?
• What is an area that is not as developed — intellectually, physically, spiritually, emotionally?

When you get stuck

• What is still bothering you about this right now?
• If there were another issue you have not yet identified, what would it be?
• What are you not yet understanding about this situation?
• What core belief is keeping this stuck?
• Is there any part of you that objects to letting this go?
• Would you be willing to change a core belief if it made your life better?
• And what else?

The larger questions

These belong at the end, or on a different day altogether. They are the ones that turn a symptom into a piece of a life.

• What part of you that is asleep is this situation trying to awaken?
• What are you being invited to learn here? How are you being invited to grow?
• What self-concept is this mirroring back to you?
• Is there anything inside you that, if it healed, would let you feel lighter about your life?
• How do you heal?
• Do you have a sense of purpose?
• Do you have a sense of inner guidance? How does it guide you?
• What values matter most to you?
• What is your perspective on God?
• What do you think and feel about death?
• What are you looking forward to?
• What do you want to create? If you could do anything, what would it be?
• Who has loved you best in this lifetime?
• Do you feel safe sharing about yourself? Do you feel important?
• Do you feel you are at the creative center of your life, and in control of it?
• Do you feel supported by the universe?
• What do you feel more often — fearful, or peaceful?
• What is the most important lesson you have learned so far?
• If life were a school, what did you come here to learn?
• What do you feel the theme of this lifetime is for you?
• What is the best part of your life right now? What is missing from it?
• If you came to the end of your life and looked back, what would make it a good life lived?