Today I’m talking with Chana Mason, who coaches her clients in clarifying vision, shifting beliefs, and manifesting their dreams. Chana’s work turns complex ideas into easy, accessible tools for transformation. She’s an author, life coach, and businesswoman who challenges her students to question the beliefs that keep them locked in trauma. 

Chana was born in Bogota, Colombia. As a young child, she was unaware of just how dangerous a place it was, until--at 5 years old--multiple men broke into her house, held her mother at gunpoint, and threatened to kidnap her and her sisters. Within 48 hours, her family had fled to Miami, Florida, where Chana would grow up. 

What Chana didn’t realize was just how much trauma had been inflicted on her and her family. Chana’s trauma manifested in nightmares, hallucinations, and eventually anxiety and depression in her later years. It wasn’t until her 30s that she started to see a change, after years of therapy missing the mark. Chana moved to Israel to connect with her religion, but soon discovered the emotional baggage flying with her: “I’m not enough, God doesn’t love me enough.” She had to unlearn these beliefs, first.

Chana discovered the power of inquiry from a friend. Byron Katie’s book, “Loving What Is”, got passed from hand-to-hand of Chana’s friends, and soon they had a tight-knit, therapeutic circle of women who met weekly to apply the lessons they learned. This was the beginning of Chana’s coaching training--with her friends--and the beginning of a much happier life. 

To inquire is to ask questions, and inquiry is asking questions that make you think about your thinking. Chana says that we think so much we often don’t stop to consider our thoughts, and come to believe we are our thoughts. The faculty of thought, in Chana’s words, is meant to process things strategically, to be used rather than to use us. Inquiry allows us to uncover our underlying beliefs and question them. 

Chana’s technique of inquiry works by challenging clients’ thoughts with their opposite: rather than, ‘They should love me,’ for example, Chana suggests, ‘I should love me.’ This gives clients autonomy, as well as the ability to vocalize their needs. She teaches clients to replace belief with better beliefs, and in turn, get out of their own way. 

Chana explains that we have no control over others, or the world, and imposing our own beliefs on how things should be is fighting a losing battle. It’s a skill of accepting reality, in a way that allows students to unfreeze and meet life with curiosity and enjoyment, rather than with beliefs that underserve them and perpetuate their trauma.

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