Spiritual Questions to Ask Yourself
Twenty questions for working through on your own, on paper, with a date at the top of the page. They start with what you actually do and end with what you would change, and several are uncomfortable on purpose.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What do I do that steadies me, and when did I last do it?
Why ask it
The second half is the whole question. Naming a practice you have not touched in eight months is more useful than describing a belief, because the date is a fact you can act on this week.
What do I believe now that I would not have said out loud ten years ago?
Why ask it
Asking for a change rather than a position gets past the account of yourself you usually give. If nothing comes, consider whether that is stability or simply a decade of not looking.
Which of my beliefs did I choose, and which did I inherit without checking?
Why ask it
Inherited convictions are not automatically wrong, but they behave differently under pressure. Write two columns; the items you cannot confidently place in either are the ones worth sitting with.
What am I afraid to question?
Why ask it
The flinch usually arrives before the answer does, so write down whatever you thought of first even if you then argue with it. Common answers are a relationship, a career decision and something a parent believed.
When did I last feel awe, and did I arrange it or stumble into it?
Why ask it
If every instance was accidental, the practical conclusion is that you have no route to it and could build one. Most people find their examples are all outdoors, at night, or involve music.
What happens to my Sunday morning, or whatever my equivalent is?
Why ask it
How you spend the least obligated hours of the week is a more honest account of your priorities than any list of values. Compare it against what you say matters, without softening the comparison.
Where does my sense of right and wrong actually come from?
Why ask it
Almost everyone traces it to a person and a small number of rules, often absorbed before they were twelve. Knowing the source tells you which of your instincts to trust and which to examine.
What do I do with anger, and where does it end up?
Why ask it
Anger has to go somewhere: at other drivers, at yourself, into work, into silence. The pattern is usually visible in the past month if you look for it rather than for a principle.
What do I hide from the people closest to me?
Why ask it
The answer is rarely dramatic; it is more often money, a health worry, or how much you dislike something you agreed to. Naming it does not commit you to disclosing it, but the list itself is informative.
What am I still carrying that I have never set down?
Why ask it
Old guilt tends to show up as harshness toward yourself rather than as a memory. If the same episode arrives whenever you are tired, that recurrence is the answer, and it is worth writing out in full once.
Who do I need to forgive, and what would that actually require of me?
Why ask it
The second clause stops this being a resolution. Note that forgiveness, reconciliation and resuming contact are three separate decisions, and you can make the first without the other two.
Who might need to forgive me, and have I ever asked?
Why ask it
Much harder than the previous question, and usually skipped. An honest answer often includes someone you no longer speak to, and the useful next step is a single sentence written down, not sent yet.
Am I generous with anything besides money?
Why ask it
Time, attention, credit at work and patience with strangers all count and none of them appear on a bank statement. This question tends to produce the largest gap between self-image and last week.
When something good happens, who or what do I thank?
Why ask it
The answer, whether it is God, luck, a person or nobody, reveals how you understand your own life without asking you to state a doctrine. Notice if the honest answer is that you take the credit.
Is there a group I belong to, and would anyone notice if I stopped turning up?
Why ask it
Belonging that nobody would miss is worth knowing about, in either direction: it may mean the group is loose, or that you have been holding yourself at a distance from it.
What do I do with the fear of dying when it arrives at three in the morning?
Why ask it
Everyone has a method, even if it is only distraction, and most people have never described theirs. Write it plainly; the point is not to solve the fear but to know what you currently do with it.
If I had one year, what would I stop doing this week?
Why ask it
Asking what you would stop is far more revealing than asking what you would do, because the answers are available immediately and usually already known to you. Pick the smallest one and stop it.
What would the person I was at twenty make of how I live now?
Why ask it
This produces both pride and discomfort, and both are useful. Be careful with it: a twenty-year-old's standards were not always wise, and the point is the comparison rather than the verdict.
Who do I want to be at seventy, and is this month pointed in that direction?
Why ask it
It turns belief into an audit of your calendar. The honest answer is usually part yes and part no, and the no is the only part worth writing more than a line about.
What one thing would I change if I believed it was possible?
Why ask it
End here, because it converts reflection into a single decision. If the answer has been the same for three sessions running, that repetition is the finding, and the next step is a conversation with someone rather than another page of notes.
Working through these on your own
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to do it
Write by hand, and date the page
Thinking about a question and answering it on paper produce different results, because writing forces you to finish the sentence. The date matters more than the handwriting: it lets you read the same answer back in six months and see what moved.
Three questions at a time, not twenty
Working through the whole list in one sitting produces a summary of your beliefs, which you already had. Three questions with ten minutes each gives you something you did not know when you sat down.
Write the first answer before the considered one
The reply that arrives in the first two seconds is usually the informative one, and the version you compose afterwards is often a defence of yourself. Keep both on the page and note which is which.
Finish with one action
Reflection with no next step becomes a habit of its own. Close each session by naming one thing you will do within a week: a phone call, an hour blocked out, an appointment made, something stopped.
Sets for particular moments
Start of a year, or a birthday
- 1What do I believe now that I would not have said ten years ago?
- 2What happens to my Sunday morning?
- 3Who do I want to be at seventy, and is this month pointed that way?
- 4What one thing would I change if I believed it was possible?
After a loss or a bad diagnosis
- 1What do I do that steadies me, and when did I last do it?
- 2What do I do with the fear of dying when it arrives at three in the morning?
- 3If I had one year, what would I stop doing this week?
- 4Then stop and be with someone; these are not questions to sit alone with for long.
When something feels off but you cannot name it
- 1What am I afraid to question?
- 2What do I hide from the people closest to me?
- 3What do I do with anger, and where does it end up?
- 4Read the three answers together rather than separately.
What goes wrong
- Reflection turning into a list of charges against yourself. If the page reads as an indictment, stop writing; that is rumination, and it produces nothing you can act on.
- Doing this last thing at night, when tiredness makes every answer bleaker than it is. Morning answers to the same questions are often noticeably different.
- Answering as the person you would like to be, which wastes the exercise. Nobody else is reading it, so there is no audience to perform for.
- Measuring your inner life against other people's accounts of theirs, which are edited. Compare yourself against your own page from last year instead.
- Repeating the same question every week because you dislike the answer. Change what you do, or accept the answer, but a third round of asking is avoidance.
- Staying alone with it when the answers turn to persistent hopelessness or thoughts of harming yourself. That is the point to speak to a doctor or someone you trust, not to write another page.
A simple structure for a session
Thirty minutes, once a month
- 1Date the page and write the question at the top, in full.
- 2Write for ten minutes without stopping to judge what came out.
- 3Underline one sentence that surprised you.
- 4Write the one action it points to, with a day attached.
- 5Close the notebook and do not reread it until next month.
Reviewing your own answers later
- 1Read the same question's answers side by side, oldest first.
- 2Mark what has actually changed rather than what you intended to change.
- 3Note any answer that has stayed identical for a year.
- 4Decide whether that constancy is a value or a stuck point, and say which on the page.