I struggled with reactivity. The inquiry process revealed what was happening in my thinking, feelings and body responses – what is needed when I am triggered. Seeing more clearly offers me more choices and dissolves much of my reactivity.
— Padma, G
 
 
 

Living questions shape our lives. The process begins with retrieving awareness from the abstract soup of thought and concept, returning it to the body — to the immediacy of now.

Living Inquiry 

Inquiry is a process of investigation to understand what something is, or how it works, or what it is for. The mind is a magnificent tool. It learns, thinks, analyzes and develops theories to address our questions.

Our inquiring mind also moves to track patterns and shift perspectives. Questions like, “Where am I on my journey?” “Where have I been?” “What does it mean to experience not knowing?” “What Now?” can open us to fresh seeing.

In today’s climate of world change and challenge, we all need to be able to navigate uncertainty, and live into new questions centered in wholeness instead of relying upon individual points of view because no separate mind can know the whole. 

Perhaps, consider the question “how could we shift humanity’s consciousness from a “me” centered view to a “we” centered view? The living of this question would change our world paradigms and open a new path forward.

So, here we turn toward living inquiry. Living questions want living answers and take us on a path of discovery. Curiosity navigates as we venture into life. We experiment. We move. Something happens. Insight flashes and our question expands to include more as the process begins again. 

Benefits of the Inquiry Tool:

·      Shifts emotional triggers & stuck patterns  

·      Identifies motives that drive actions

·      Reveals patterns of thought 

·      Increases emotional intelligence

·      Tracks sensory awareness

· Teaches us what we need

· Shows patterns within states of being

Every state of being is a portal to a living moment. The ability to access living inquiry takes practice. We drop the mind that evaluates or analyzes experience. We open the heart that sees, knows and meets experience with love. Inquiry opens the door. 

With greater consciousness of choice, we experience a wide range of states of being, and grow our capacity for experience itself.

 
Inquiry is a tool that increases my awareness. I then have greater choice about what to do or how to attend to the situation with grounded practical, heart-based intelligence.
— Mike, S

Living Inquiry Tool 

Life is a matrix of inner states and outer events. Inquiry into the states we experience is a necessary exploration — for a choice about our state of being is perhaps the key factor affecting our moment-by-moment experience.

Kristen has developed a very precise inquiry tool designed to open a living experience with fresh eyes. Perhaps you feel a recurring emotional trigger – anxiety or sadness – and want to understand it, so you can free yourself from reactivity.  Perhaps you had a moment of empowerment, confidence or high performance and want to find out more about how this happened.  Cognitive inquiry tries to figure it out, see how it works, analyze why it happened etc. The mind looks for answers and solutions. Living inquiry is different.

Curiosity is key. When genuinely curious, we let go of the thinking mind that tries to figure things out or analyze them. Instead, curiosity wants to see what is really going on.

The living inquiry tool first turns attention inward to open and directly perceive experience. We notice thoughts, feelings, body sensations and more.

Another key element to living inquiry is to explore experience from the precise context in which it arose, i.e. the living moment, event or interaction that triggered our response. The aim is to clearly see the dynamic — both inwardly and in the world.

We then ask, “What does this state want?” and “What is truly needed?” Inquiry unveils hidden motivations, and unmet needs, as well as what was actually needed at the time.

The process is simple but not easy to understand or do without guidance, because living inquiry is not centered in thought nor the analytical mind — and mind so wants to engage! 

My use of the inquiry tool has become almost natural. I am able to stop, check my mind, check my heart, and check my body to determine what is wanted and what is needed in any situation.
— Leigh, W

Settling

Grounding Peace

In the beginning of most counseling sessions, I guide a settling exercise that grounds and opens your physical and energetic bodies, releases thinking, stress, tensions, unwanted feelings and energies and helps us to fully arrive.

I share this now as an invitation for you to move inward and more deeply experience yourself.

Meditation is mind training. It’s about self improvement and requires focus. There’s a goal, an expectation, a doing, a purpose. Settling is letting go. Relaxing. Dropping in. Being in. I don’t have to do, to achieve… Both are good for me but I’d rather settle.
— Dory, L