Karen Monroy

You can ask a question to get a quality answer. Or you can ask a question to get the answer you want.

What?

Survey’s come to mind. I was just asked to take a survey. It came from an elected official. I am not going to name any names. Okay, you twisted my arm; it was Senator Leonard Lance of New Jersey.

The Senator’s survey question was clearly designed such that he could say his opinion has support. I know that isn’t a surprise coming from the political arena. But in truth I see the same thing from business owners, within a family and within our internal relationship to self.

Business Owner: “Why is my competition doing that? I can’t compete with that”.

Wife: “you don’t really want to leave already do you?”

Senator: “You don’t really want to put our elder population at risk by a forced government health care plan do you?”

Parent: “Just tell me what you did and I won’t be mad”.

Self: “How can I (get over it, forgive, fill in the blank) when they (are so wrong, rotten, awful)

This mode of questioning is faulty because it acquiesces to a momentary agenda. This agenda is not in alignment to the over-all intention most folks carry.

Intentions like peace, respect, listening. Think about it: what if you said, “tell me more” as your first response to everything? It would mean: I really want to know how you think, how you feel.

At times you’d get an earful to be sure. And yes, there are times when it wouldn’t be appropriate. But just think about how much better you feel to be in a state of integrity having heard the  other person, the other opinion, the other idea.

We can tell how small minded we are becoming when our questions contain a premise and are designed to lead us from our intentions. Sometimes we have to say no. Sometimes it is painful to say, “no I do not agree with you”. But it is simpler, easier and creates less drama than the other options.

If you really want to know, ask open ended questions.

May I suggest you begin with, “tell me more”.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 19th, 2009 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Changing the Energy, Personal/Spiritual Growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.