It can be very helpful to look at what stops me from inquiring (or anything else that could be a support for me). Writing the list may in itself be helpful, and inquiring into it even more so. Here are two questions I used with a group yesterday:
What stops me from inquiring?
What am I afraid I will find?
Here is what comes to me:
What stops me from inquiring?
It will be uncomfortable.
It requires energy and effort.
It will require me to change my life.
It will require me to live from a higher standard. (Of truth, love, authenticity.) I’ll have to change my life. I’ll have to make uncomfortable changes.
I’ll have to feel something I have avoided most of my life.
I won’t like what I’ll find.
I won’t be able to deal with what I’ll find. I won’t know what to do with it.
I am not ready. I am not in the right state of mind.
It won’t work. It won’t make anything better.
What am I afraid I will find?
I may find I am unhealable. I am unfixable. I am broken beyond repair.
I may have to take responsibility for what I have blamed X for. (Blamed other people, life, God, my upbringing, patterns in me, wounds, trauma.)
I may find that what I feared about myself is true.
Some categories:
Discomfort. It will be uncomfortable. It will take effort. I’d rather do something easier or more enjoyable. It’s easier to do something easier. I may find something I don’t want to find.
Unworkable. It won’t work. It won’t make it better. (a) I don’t trust the process. I don’t trust the facilitator. I don’t trust that I’ll know how to work with it. (b) It won’t work for me. I am too messed up. I am broken beyond repair.
Changes. I’ll have to make changes in my life. I’ll have to take responsibility for what I have blamed X for.
Not ready. I am not ready. I am not in the right state of mind. I won’t know how to work with it.
Synchronicity: As I wrote the headline “discomfort” above, Kate Bush sang why did you make me have to feel that?