Stay In The Question: The Secret to Soul Whispering
I can always tell where someone is at in their journey based on their question.
It’s like playing jeopardy where the question is the answer—
You’ve been agonizing over this feeling that you’re missing something in your life, but you can’t figure it out. It’s like you’re observing your life instead of living it and that spark you once had is an arms length away and you just can’t close the gap.
*click*
“What’s my purpose?”
Correct!
You feel discontent, but you don’t want to let go of what you have when you’re not sure what comes next. To make matters worse, nothing is making you starkly unhappy, plus you know there’s still a lot to be grateful for, so you stay.
*click*
“Should I quit my job?”
Correct!
You once felt so sure, but now not so much. Maybe you’re realizing you’ve been ignoring signs since the beginning, but you’ve gotten this far so why give up? Or maybe the noise of your mind is drowning out the wisdom of your heart.
*click*
“How do I know if they’re the one?”
Correct!
As The Soul Whisperer, let me tell you a secret:
There is a right answer, a right decision, and a right path.
Bet you didn’t expect that.
After all, I frequently tell people, “there is no right decision, only the one that you make right,” but that’s kind of the point.
There isn’t an objective right, and there is such a thing as what is right, for you.
But you won’t know what it is before you know what it is.
(yeah, you may need to read that again a few times…)
Here’s the truth that I’ve observed over the past 9 years of self-reflection and the thousands of hours of coaching, spiritual guidance, and teaching I’ve given professionally:
When you ask, “what,” you’re looking for clarity— but while anyone can give you an answer, you’re the only one who can discern what a true, “yes,” and, “no,” feel like in your body.
When you ask, “should I,”you’re looking for permission— but while anyone can give you their opinion, you’re the only one who can feel how genuine your desire is.
When you ask, “how,” you’re looking for direction— but while anyone can give you a blueprint, you’re the only one that can create the courage needed to choose a path.
What if instead of spending your energy trying to figure out what the right answer, decision, or path is, you focused on asking questions that lead to experiments, mining the wisdom from your past experiences, and shaping your life with the stories that you want to tell one day?
This is the discernment of ego and soul.
Not so that you can champion the soul and demonize the ego, or defend the ego and dismiss the soul (depending on your ratio of martyrdom to hedonism)— but so that you may integrate both into your being as simple fact that you operate from both.
The better your discernment skills, the better your decision making.
When your ego asks a question, it’s because it wants an answer.
When your soul asks a question, it's prompting you to explore.
I find that the quality of a decision is determined by how clear you know the why behind it, and how strongly you can stand behind it— regardless of what it leads to.
This is why one of the core tenants of my Soul Whispering modality is to always guide individuals to stay in the question, rather than trying to think their way to an answer.
Here’s the cheatsheet on how to listen and respond to your questions using the Soul Whispering modality.
The Answer To, “what?”: Fuck around and find out.
You discern what the right answer is by knowing what the wrong ones feel like.
When you want to ask, “what…” I challenge you to turn it into an experiment.
Because the core of, “what” questions, is desire and choice.
And the best part is that you can’t have a, “bad” desire or make a, “wrong” choice.
(Unless it’s to intentionally hurt someone else, yourself, or the earth— but barring those motives, I think your desires and choices are valid.)
Keep in mind, every desire you have and every choice you make may lead to some type of hurt.
Caught in a situationship?
You can choose the pain of ending it now accepting that it didn’t work out the way you wanted to, or the pain of going back repeatedly hoping things change.
Find yourself financially strained?
You can choose the pain of hustling day in and day out to make ends meet in the way you have been, or the pain or starting from zero again in a new career path with intentions of having greater financial stability.
Going through a health complication?
You can choose the pain of following the typical protocols and procedures even when you don’t want to, or the pain of finding an alternative route that you want even though it isn’t readily accepted as the norm nor seen as reliable.
In each of the scenarios above, there truly is no binary good/ bad, right/ wrong, better/ worse option when you are aware of your free-will.
But there is an underlying desire that you might not be able to identify right now, or perhaps a conflict of desire that’s creating uncertainty.
Perhaps you’re unsure of what you want romantically and each time you go back to your situationship, you’re feeling of longing, acceptance, or bitterness grows— helping you gain more clarity on what you actually want, are okay with, and don’t want moving forward.
Perhaps you’re highly passionate about your coaching business, but the financial pressure is putting your nervous system in hyperdrive and you’re burning out fast. Maybe it’s not that you’re not an incredible coach, but the entrepreneur lifestyle isn’t compatible with the lifestyle you want for yourself.
Perhaps you’re privy of the limitations of medicine and the research you’ve done for yourself don’t add up to what the doctors are telling you— so you take the risk and rely on your intuition to help you find the right healing modality instead.
Remember— clarity comes from doing, not from thinking.
The quicker you can make a choice and execute on it, the quicker you will get out of the mental gridlock you’re in and get emotional clarity.
The mistake people make here is thinking once you choose a path, you’re committed to it indefinitely, but that is not the case.
You can, in fact, be non-committal and intentional.
It starts with having the, “what are we” conversation where you lay your cards out on the table.
It starts with the job search, submitting applications, or researching what skills and education you need for a new career path.
It starts with having a consultation with the hypnotherapist you’ve been following for months so you can feel more at ease and trust your decision. (fyi, if you feel called out, you can book your consultation with me here)
Your true desire is going to speak to you clearly, maybe not at first, but through time and trial and error as well as releasing the mental resistance, you’ll be able to sharpen your discernment and identify your truest desires.
From there, you can apply your free-will and courage to make what you want happen.
It all starts with fucking around, and finding out.
The Answer To, “should I?”: Have a sobering conversation with yourself.
You decide what the right decision is, once you commit to one.
This is the conversation you have with yourself after the, “fuck around and find out” phase.
It’s in the moments where you’ve already gathered mental and emotional data points about your current situation.
You’ve listed out all the pros and cons.
You’ve done your research and gathered trust-worthy opinions.
You’ve ruminated in your mind and created hundreds of potential pathways forward.
But you’re still not sure what you should do.
Congratulations, you’ve arrived at the, “sobering conversation” part of your process.
These are perhaps the most challenging questions to navigate because it requires you to detox your mind of all the voices, desires, and beliefs you once thought were yours.
It requires you to enter the quiet stillness of your presence.
No distractions, no substances, no expectations.
You’ll hear the inner critic drowning out your intuition, you’ll see the inconspicuous glued edges of second-hand dreams stuck to your subconscious goal posts, and you’ll feel the incongruence created by the code of conduct that was given not chosen.
As you sit in the silence to prepare the space for this sobering conversation, there will be parts of others that reveal themselves to you. They are the parts that learned to survive within the shadows of your subconscious by learning to mimic your voice, by masking its face with yours, and by mirroring insecurity where you saw inspiration.
These parts went undetected for decades because life moved too fast around you.
The traumas you endured created perfect caves for fear to hide and crevices for doubt to breed. Over time, these fears and doubts could no longer be contained just in the mind— they grew to need more space, migrated to your heart, and cracked it open to move in. As such with invasive species, they disrupted the ecosystem: love became poisoned by the presence of fear, and trust became scarce as doubt chased it away.
It’s no wonder why you now feel stuck— paralyzed by the thought of choosing wrong because you were deluded to believe that there is an authority outside of you who has the blueprint on where you should or should not go, who you should or should not spend time with, and what activities you should or should not engage in.
Until these, “should"s and “should not”s are brought out of the shadow to be examined, they will be intoxicating your mind and heart, distorting the truth whispering from your soul.
To allow the truth to come forward, you simply need to allow.
Again, no distractions keeping you from entering your inner world, no substances to alter your perception, and no expectation of an answer or attachment to an outcome.
I want to note that this process of remembering your truth can be expedited with a spiritual guide, trained facilitator, or trusted advisor— someone who is compassionate and genuinely cares about you, but is not so attached to you, your happiness, or your success that they would fear for you, feel the need to protect you from disappointment, or dissuade you from following your intuition due to a conflict of interest.1
While your mother loves you, she may fear for you and project those onto you in hopes that it keeps you safe.
While your friends care for you, they may prioritize your happiness above the discomfort needed to grow.
While your board members support you, their stake in your material success may take precedent over your spiritual integrity.
It doesn’t make these people unhelpful, fake, or bad. On the contrary, they are all playing their designated role in your life as best as they can from the point of view that you are not the main character in their lives— they are. Which means their perspectives cannot provide you with the clean truth that your soul can.
It takes courage and complete transparency, but it is the only way to create true sovereignty in your life.
Once you can hear your voice, you can use it to empower you.
Once you identify your desires, you can determine what is required of you.
Once you clean up your beliefs, you can move forward with integrity.
Having the sobering conversation with yourself every so often as needed allows you to extract the lessons from the pain, distill the wisdom from the process, and alchemize the experience into your next experiment.
The Answer To, “how?”: Ask the question you actually need to ask.
You find out what the path was to get you there, once you’re there and you look back.
The practice of having sobering conversations with yourself will be incredibly helpful here as you learn to discern ego questions from soul questions.
For example:
“How do I get a girlfriend?” comes from ego.
“How do I make $100,000 in a month?” comes from ego.
“How do I find my purpose?” comes from ego.
These are all questions rooted in what you want and in fulfilling a need or dream that you have. It positions you in a place of lack or longing rather than of sufficiency and having. Like attracts like, and you need to be honest about how these questions make you feel because most of the time, the energy emitted from these questions is neediness, grasping for more, and desperation.
Contrasted with:
“How can I confidently signal to a woman that I’m interested in her?”
“How can I provide $100,000 in value to someone?”
“How can I make more space to explore my curiosities?
Instead of being rooted in the end result your ego wants, these questions are rooted in your soul knowing what it is that you really want. It create a bridge between where you are and where you want to go without making the distance feel impossible to cross. When you integrate ego and soul, you understand that the problem is not desire, but the limiting beliefs and outdated paradigms that are keeping you from being the person who can have what they want, and keeps it.
Now, what if you just can’t seem to reframe your question from a soul-oriented way?
Realize that not all your desires are valid, meant to be fulfilled right now, or even ever.
You may want to be married and have a family, but if you don’t want to grow into the type of person who can handle the duties, responsibilities, and challenges of being a husband and a father, then you need to be asking yourself if a relationship is what you’re wanting or if it’s love.
You may want to make $100,000 a month, but if you don’t have the skillset to sell, the consistency to show up for what is required of you, or the dedication to developing your expertise, then you need to be asking yourself if it’s big money that you’re after or if it’s financial security.
You may want to live a purposeful life, but if you don’t want to make trade-offs in the way you’re living, you want to center your life around what you want to do and create rather than what your mission requires of you and what the world needs, then you need to be asking yourself if it’s a life of purpose you want or if it’s peace.
I know it’s unpopular to tell you that you may not be a fit for what you want right now or ever, but I’d rather be frank and let your ego be shattered than be nice and let you sacrifice your soul going down a path that isn’t for your highest and best.
So I hope you can see that sometimes the questions you want to ask others of, “how” can sometimes be misleading you to a path that is not yours.
Everything you want is available to you, and what is for you will not miss you— but have to be willing to ask:
"Why do I want this vision? What feeling am I really chasing here?”
“If this is what I want, and it’s important to me, am I willing to make this a priority?
“How will I show up differently? How do I need to think about this commitment so I can show up consistently for it?”
When you are clear in your intentions with yourself, that integrity translates outwards like a strong magnetic force pulling everything that matches those intentions towards you without chasing it, forcing it, or searching for it.
That is how you’ll receive more than what you could even imagine asking for in life.
1 Sidebar— this objectivity and ability to “stay out of the pool” with a client was a challenging skill to develop, In the industry, you’ll find coaches on the entire spectrum. One end being highly empathetic, validating everything you’re experiencing, and almost gentle parenting you towards the direction you want to go because they don’t want to upset you by calling you out. The other being the straight shooting mentors that may feel like they’re gaslighting you as they coach you because they most likely believe that the value of what they provide is solely based on you getting the result that they have, and they can only ever stand behind the process that worked for them, even though it’s not going to work for everyone else. It’s important to know that all healers, coaches, and mentors are humans as well with their own shadows, insecurities, and agendas— benevolent or not. The point is not to try to find someone who is holy and perfect, nor to dismiss the life-changing return on investment you may receive by working with a professional, but to remind you that one of the greatest hallmarks of a great advisor, coach, or mentor is their ability to speak to the integration of the shadow side and their own practice of doing so.