What are you waiting for?

A better answer — the right one? The perfect moment. The answer?

The question came out of meditation, rising into my consciousness as my body stirred into wakefulness.

What am I waiting for?

I like questions. I like how they can lead my thinking into areas, thoughts, spaces I’ve never before imagined. I like how they open me up to new ways of doing, being, seeing the world and everyone in it. I like how they keep me stepping through the limits of my ‘knowing’ into those places where I never imagined I could ever step.

I also like how questions can keep me stuck, keep me from powering through my resistance because of their constant presence.

Asking questions I know the answer to, or asking questions that I know there are no answers to is one of my self-defeating games. As Thelma Box, the found of Choices once said to me during a process at Super Choices (a follow-on program to the foundational Choices week) that really opened me up to possibility, “I experience you as a woman who will never find an answer good enough for her.”

It’s true. 

I like asking questions. It’s how I learn and understand and grow.

It can also be how I stay stuck. Sometimes, I like to keep asking questions so I don’t have to change. If I’m constantly asking questions, there’s no need to hear the answer now is there?

And that’s the epitome of a self-defeating game. To ask a question, and not heed, listen to or acknowledge the presence of what I know to be true. To ask a question and not stop and breathe into the answer to see if now is the time, now is good enough, now is the moment for me to take action.

See, here’s the deal. Sometimes, my asking questions isn’t because I’m interested in the answer. Nope. Sometimes, it’s because I’m more interested in staying stuck, continuing the dance, fixated on going in circles – all while looking like I’m actively engaged in finding the ‘truth’. Taking the spotlight off of me and putting it on someone else, something else, somewhere else outside of my locus of control is a good way to appear interested in what’s going on around me, without ever having to take responsibility for what is going on around me.

Take the question ‘Why?‘

It came up this weekend when a film crew was here to interview me for a documentary for a program on Investigation Discover, “Who the bleep…?” It is the story of how I fell into the arms of Prince Charming only to awaken to the Prince of Darkness dancing before my eyes — and, how I survived.

“Why do you think he did it?” the director asked me at one point during filming.

Because he could, I replied. Because it’s what he does. What he’s always known to do to get what he wants. Because it gets him what he wants. Because every time he did something that pushed one of my boundaries and I didn’t hold firm or push back, it gave him permission to push a little harder, a little deeper into my psyche. And, the further he went, the deeper I fell.

To heal, I had to quit asking ‘why did he do it?’. The why of what he did doesn’t really matter to my life today. What matters is, what am I going to do with my life? How am I going to live?

It is so easy to get caught up in wondering why? about someone else. It’s so easy to base my life on how I feel, think, see, or perceive what someone else is doing in my life — and the impact their actions are having on my life. It’s easy, but it’s not particularly healthy, or life-giving.

To truly live my life I have to let go of wondering why someone else is doing what they do, and focus on the things I do and get accountable. 

If I say I want to be happier, and I’m miserable, I have to quit asking ‘why am I so unhappy’ and start asking, ‘what can I do to create happiness in my life in this moment?’ — and then DO IT!

Because, while there might be a better question out there, the only answer worth living is right here, right now in this moment. It’s right here when I commit to creating the ‘more’ I want in my life because knowing what I want more of in my life is the first step to living my life on my terms, alive and in love, celebrating each step I take that brings me to life in the rapture of now.

What am I waiting for? 

Nothing.

Now is my time. Now is the time, the only time I have to turn up and live. Because, there is no better time than now to live it up and shine bright!