When you first start engaging with sincere questioning, it can be challenging to remember what it's all for and find the motivation to keep going. After all, as Robert and Dave discuss in this episode, being aware of your feelings, thoughts, and emotions and actively engaging with them to become better is not something we're taught. In fact, it's almost counter-cultural. So then, why is it vital that we cultivate the art of asking questions?

Integrating inquiry into our daily lives helps us access our wisdom guidance. This happens when we take the time and energy to ask questions from our hearts and make an honest attempt to respond to the guidance we receive. Awareness about our challenging feelings and emotions coupled with an intention to heal propels us towards wisdom guidance, and the questions we ask to support ourselves aid us in this quest.

The root of sincere questioning lies in self-compassion. It isn't easy to care for yourself if the questions are intertwined with self-rejection or moralistic judgments. One of the ways to truly tap into your wisdom guidance and move forward with clarity and honesty is to start to really enjoy asking questions. This makes asking questions natural, and you are motivated to work towards being your best self. Once again, you may not get all the answers when you ask questions, and that is okay. It's asking questions with the clear intention to support yourself that's most important. When you are sincere about asking questions, you will become more capable of listening and responding to your wisdom guidance.

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It's always a great idea to ask how to help. Whether the person you're asking is yourself or a loved one, asking shows your awareness that there's a need. The art of asking questions can improve and expand our quality of life — inquiry is one of the best and clearest ways to find and shape your best self.

Today, as you listen to this episode, take a moment to ask yourself — "What is the challenging emotion that's most frequent in my life?"

Inquiry only works when the questions aren't veiled judgment toward yourself or self-rejection. If you're worried about taking the first step, know that almost everyone who is motivated is also just learning how to be an active questioner. Those who have developed this capability more are still evolving. It takes practice, repetition, and commitment to ask questions aimed at taking care of both the mind and the heart.

In this episode, Robert and Dave also explore how sincere questioning can help you deal with conflict with others. Pausing to ask questions makes you less reflexive and reactive. Instead, you remember to prioritize well-being. Being aware of your feelings helps you take a moment to check your tone, to increase the chances of you articulating your needs in a non-judgemental way.

But when everyone at the table doesn't share the same interest in taking care of others, what can you do? How can you continue to care for yourself and others when you realize that? Here, Robert takes a moment to express the importance of setting boundaries — something you can do when you're aware of how you feel and what you need to do to support yourself and those you care about.

Sincere, honest, and open questioning will guide you to embrace the least-developed essential qualities of your life. This will help you to expand your quality of life and keep you from repeatedly dealing with the same issues or difficulties over and over again in the same way.

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Sometimes, moments of strife can feel like you're drowning underwater. Unable to call for help, not sure if anyone, including yourself, can hear you. Learning how to ask questions that can help you support yourself is like equipping yourself with an oxygen tank. You're not out of the water yet, but you're able to breathe a little better.

The art of sincere questioning is an experience of love. It's being able to take a breather in those difficult moments, pause, and ask yourself — how can I best take care of myself through this?

Awareness of your challenging emotions and situations is a critical aspect of learning how to ask questions that will lead you to guidance. Knowing what you feel, being honest about it, and committing to taking care of yourself to support yourself with those feelings is a big step of conscious awareness. This helps you connect better — with the situation, people, and, most importantly, yourself. As Robert Strock puts it, this awareness can "slow down the ongoing stuckness" in those feelings.

Why ask guiding questions at all, you may think. It's so you know what you'll need to get through this specific situation. Do you need physical support? To feel the presence of another? Do you need emotional or heart support? Inquiry or asking questions doesn't mean that you'll get answers. Sometimes you may just know that you need something, but instead of being frustrated at yourself or others for not having all the answers, you will be able to care for yourself through this moment of confusion. When you practice asking guiding questions, whether to take care of yourself and/or your loved ones, the sincerity of asking is just as potent as any answer you may or may not receive.

Asking questions to take care of yourself can be an everyday thing too. It's at the nexus of traditional psychology and spirituality. It can help you reach the full potential of your capabilities at work, improve relationships, and help you become the best version of yourself.

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When it comes to forging your best self, inquiry and wisdom guidance are two key facilitators. Inquiry is sincere questioning that sparks awareness with simple suggestions of support and direction. Wisdom guidance involves giving yourself and others the space to think, act, and develop qualities that are most beneficial without carrying any judgment. It's present inside us all—but can you access your wisdom?

Robert Strock takes listeners through what it means to communicate with wisdom guidance. It's asking for help and offering support through clarity in your words, actions, and essential qualities. It's taking time to practice becoming aware of and asking for what you need, over and over again. It's also mastering your tone to express yourself clearly and with sensitivity. In moments where you're stuck, wisdom guidance helps you embrace yourself, others, and the situation you're engaged with, even if you cannot get beyond your feelings right away.

Transparency and honesty are critical to help you access your wisdom guidance and deepen your understanding of yourself and those around you. Tapping into your wisdom guidance isn't going to be immediately natural but if you consistently review and learn from your experiences, you will expand your ability to be more caring and live a more fulfilling life.

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Host Robert Strock begins by acknowledging that many of us reach a point where we realize that life is not as fulfilling, enjoyable, or satisfying as we had hoped or imagined. We all have patterns of behavior and thinking that we were taught early in our lives. Almost all of us have patterns that prevent the peace and happiness we desire. Strock asks listeners to identify a pattern or patterns that may be reversed to develop a deeper sense of wellbeing. The more honest and aware of our patterns we are and we become, the greater the likelihood that we'll be able to lessen or eliminate the harm they cause. Little changes in our daily lives can make big differences if we are open to inquiring and listening and responding to our own needs and wisdom.

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Host Robert Strock discusses and uses examples of how developing our self-inquiry can help move us beyond the conditioning of our past. Many of us get caught in the emotions and the experience of our challenges. We may try to give it our best efforts but often aren't aware of our essential needs, actions, or qualities that are necessary to guide us. It is very helpful to download the free The Introspective Guides at AwarenessThatHeals.org to more clearly see what is needed to develop. Strock uses examples from his personal life and years as a psychotherapist to show that when people discover their most essential needs, access their self-wisdom, and seek for ways to emotionally support and show kindness to themselves and others, they are able to accept challenging feelings and persevere to core needs.

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Robert Strock explores the continuing path to our own wisdom, a path that does not come cheap and leads us to become our ever-changing best selves. There's a need for sincerity as we learn how to access our inner wisdom without imposition. We access our wisdom by leaving behind moral pressure established from previous relationships or societal expectations and revering our own genuine state of asking for guidance. We find our sincere questions when we find our purest intentions to care, to be kind and inclusive. Once we find these sincere questions and respond with the guidance suggested, we will be connected to ourselves in intimacy and greater capacity to give and receive.

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Host Robert Strock moves deeper into the practice of self-inquiry and how it leads us to examine our quality of life. We return to the question of what is our repeating challenging emotion? As we move through the process of inquiry, we can start looking at whether or not our decisions help take care of everyone at the proverbial table or only a small group of people. It's a process of looking at our answers without judgment. This forward-moving practice involves identifying the qualities that we need to develop in ourselves, which are often the opposite of our conditioned tendencies.

Where are each of us, individually, in the process of inquiry and questioning? We can continue to ask questions and as we do, we can bring ourselves less suffering by finding and activating the place inside of us that wants to care for ourselves.

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Self-inquiry and guiding questions lead us toward our unique and deeper truths. We learn more and more who we truly aspire to be, and not dominated by our conditioning. We can start with questions like, "What do I need to do for my quality of life? What do I need to let go of to open the door to a greater experience of purpose, a priority for me?" Through a pattern of questioning, we can readjust our behavior and thinking to develop our best selves. We can use inquiry in all aspects of our lives. For example, the question "How can we be closer to love in our intimate relationships and friendships?" helps us look at the patterns that could be standing in the way of true connection. If we learn to keep asking questions with sincere intention, we can move forward on a journey to be more connected to our awareness and our heart.

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Host Robert Strock leads listeners through the process of using friendly mind and our inner knowing to address difficult relationships in our lives. If we can approach them from a standpoint of causing the least damage and most understanding for both parties, we can have crucial conversations to support ourselves with challenging feelings and relationships. This same skill comes into play when inquiring into how do we find purpose, meaning, and a way to contribute in the world and not let feelings of helplessnes, skepticism, or habits lessen our potential. With time, we can narrow down our inquiry to the question that most matters in our life as a central part of who we are becoming. We can be enjoying asking ourselves a version of "What's the next step for me to care for what I am feeling and be taking the next small step into being inspired in the world at the same time.

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