Questions to Ask the Universe
Questions for journaling, prayer, or a long walk alone, ordered from what you could notice today to what you would regret never attempting, with a note on what each one tends to surface.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What do you want me to notice today?
Why ask it
A small opening question, and the only one here you can answer by bedtime. Anything you find yourself noticing repeatedly across a week is usually the real subject of the season you are in.
What am I refusing to see right now?
Why ask it
The uncomfortable twin of the first question. Most people can answer it in under ten seconds, and that speed is the point; a long pause here usually means you have started editing.
Why does this keep happening to me?
Why ask it
Sounds like a complaint and works like a diagnosis, because it makes you describe the pattern instead of the latest instance. Write down three occasions before you conclude anything, and the common factor is rarely the other people.
What is this difficulty asking me to change?
Why ask it
Turns a hardship into a question that has an answer. If the only answer available is that someone else should behave differently, the question has not landed yet.
Where should I put my attention this year?
Why ask it
Attention, not intention, is what a year is made of. An answer that lists five areas is worth cutting to one, because the list is usually a way of avoiding the choice.
Who am I meant to be spending time with?
Why ask it
Asks for names rather than qualities, which is harder and more useful. Notice if the honest answer includes someone you have been avoiding out of embarrassment rather than dislike.
What am I holding on to that is already finished?
Why ask it
Holds up grief and sunk cost at the same time. What people list is usually a role, a version of themselves, or a relationship that ended some while before they admitted it.
What would I do if I stopped waiting for a sign?
Why ask it
Cuts through the habit of asking for confirmation of something already decided. If you can answer immediately, the waiting was never about information.
Is this the right door, or am I knocking out of habit?
Why ask it
Separates persistence from inertia, which look identical from inside. A useful answer includes the date you last checked whether you still wanted what is behind the door.
What have I been given that I have not used?
Why ask it
Gratitude questions tend to stay abstract; this one asks for an inventory. The unused items are usually a skill, an offer of help you declined, or time you claim not to have.
How much of my fear is mine, and how much did I inherit?
Why ask it
Fear that came from your own experience responds to evidence. Fear absorbed from a parent or a culture generally does not, and needs a different approach, so sorting the two is the work.
What does enough look like for me?
Why ask it
Without a number, a date, or a description, enough moves every time you get near it. People who cannot answer this tend to answer by acquiring more.
Where am I already being helped without noticing?
Why ask it
A counterweight to the feeling of carrying everything alone. Naming three specific people who made this week easier changes the tone of the whole exercise, and often the next conversation you have.
What am I being prepared for?
Why ask it
Risks grandiosity, so answer it small: a skill being handed to you, patience being taught, a conversation you keep rehearsing. The modest answers are the ones that turn out to be true.
What do I owe the people who come after me?
Why ask it
Widens the frame past your own lifespan, and the answers tend to get more concrete rather than less: someone to teach, something to maintain, a debt to settle.
If nothing outside me changes, what still can?
Why ask it
The most practical question in the set. It moves attention from circumstances to the part you hold, and the answer is usually something you could begin this week.
What would I ask for if I believed I would be answered?
Why ask it
Asking is a skill, and most people ask well below their actual wish. Write the larger version down first and decide afterwards whether it is unreasonable.
What am I meant to forgive?
Why ask it
Forgiveness questions fail when they demand a feeling on command. Ask instead what you would stop doing, rehearsing the argument or checking their profile, if the account were closed.
What will I regret not having attempted?
Why ask it
Regret is a better guide than ambition because it does not flatter you. Keep the answer to attempts rather than outcomes, which makes it much harder to dodge.
Am I willing to be changed by the answer?
Why ask it
Closes the set with the question that decides whether any of the others mattered. If you already know which answers you intend to ignore, start there instead.
How to sit with these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting up the practice
One question per sitting
Working through the list in an evening produces twenty tidy sentences and no change. One question, written out by hand, gets further than five thought about in the car.
Write before you think
Give yourself ten minutes of writing without stopping to assess. The first honest sentence usually arrives after the third paragraph, once the presentable answers are used up.
Date everything and come back
Put the date on the page and reread it in a month. Questions like the one about patterns only become useful when you can see what you wrote before the pattern repeated again.
Ask outdoors when you are stuck
Walking loosens answers that a desk does not, partly because there is nothing to correct and nobody reading. Carry one question rather than the list.
When nothing comes
Answer the smaller version
If the question about purpose produces silence, answer what would make tomorrow slightly less wasted instead. Small true answers accumulate into the larger one.
Look at the week rather than the feeling
Your calendar and your bank statement answer questions about values faster than introspection does, because they record what you actually chose.
Say it out loud to one person
Some questions only open when spoken. Reading the question and your written answer to a friend, without asking for advice, often does the rest.
Where this practice goes wrong
Using reflection to postpone a decision
Asking a question a fourth time can feel like diligence and function as delay. If you already know the answer and are asking again, that is the finding.
Reading confirmation into coincidence
Once you are looking for a sign, everything qualifies, including whatever you already wanted. Write down in advance what you would accept as an answer, and keep the note.
Grading your own answers
The instinct to phrase reflections well is the instinct that keeps them shallow. Nobody is reading the page, and the ugly sentences are the useful ones.
Doing hard work alone
Questions about inherited fear, forgiveness, and repeated patterns can open more than a notebook can hold. If one of them keeps you awake for a week, that is a reason to talk to someone rather than to write harder.