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StressBytes Newsletter    November 2004     Volume 2, Issue 2              

In This Issue: "Living with Good Questions"
Announcement:  Stress Buster's Workbook available soon as an E-book!

Article: "Living with Good Questions"

People generally come to me when they are suffering, stressed out, and
looking for answers.  Therefore, I see you, my clients, as "seekers."
Whether you know it or not, you are living with questions and seeking
answers to such universal questions as:

-Why am I in such pain?
-What I can do to make my life more satisfying?
-Who can I love?
-What is the direction I should take in my life?
-Why have bad things happened to me?
-How can I conquer my fears?

Rather than providing answers, I challenge you to live with good questions
and let life provide the answers.  To use another metaphor, rather than feed
you, I teach you to fish, i.e. to find your own answers.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke once said, ""...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. Do not now
seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to
live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now."  I
agree, and as a counselor, I urge you to live with good questions instead of
poor questions.

When we live with a question, we naturally set our mind to find an answer.
We search our environment. We attend to certain things. We seem to heighten
our alertness for answers.  If we live with poor questions, we get poor
answers; answers that are either inaccurate, that do not satisfy nor move us
forward. Answers to poor questions maintain suffering. Good questions draw
answers that move us forward, that resolve things, that alleviate suffering.

I believe that there is a difference between pain and suffering.  I agree
with Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living, who says, "Pain
happens. Suffering is optional."  Suffering is the cognitive overlay, the
thoughts and interpretations we put on the experience of pain.  It's what we
tell ourselves about the inevitable pain life brings us that can cause us to
suffer.  We ask ourselves poor questions, such as:

-Why me?
-What did I do to deserve this?
-Am I being punished?
-When will this go away?

To change these poor questions a to good questions is a matter of
reframing...of asking the question a different way.

Instead of asking, "Why me?" try asking, "How can I grow from this
experience?"  or "How can I live more effectively with these circumstances?"

Instead of asking, "What did I do to deserve this?" try asking, "What am I
doing or not doing to contribute to or maintain this problem?"

Instead of asking, "Am I being punished?" try asking, "What is the best way
to integrate this experience into my life?"

Instead of asking, "When will this pain go away?" try asking, "When is this
pain absent?" or "What am I doing when I don't feel or notice this pain?"

CHALLENGE:
-What questions are you currently living with?
-Are the answers you are finding creating or alleviating suffering?
-What better questions can you ask yourself that will move you forward and
help you find better answers?

ANNOUNCEMENT:  Stress Busters Workbook will soon be available online for
purchase and download.
Keep an eye on Dr. Vaillancourt's website at http://www.GotStressGetHelp.com

You may contact Dr. Vaillancourt for an appointment at (618) 549-5935
Email address: DrAnnette@hughes.net
231 W. Main, 2W
Carbondale, IL 62901

If you found this newsletter helpful, please pass it on to other business or
professional people you care about who wish to have balanced, purposeful, and satisfying lives.

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Copyright © 2004 Annette Vaillancourt, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.                >>Next Issue>>