Developing Your Core Question

Everyone has a core question in which they filter their life. This can be conscious or subconscious…but it still acts as a filter.

And it filters the way in which you interact with your wife.

So, what is a core question and how does it relate to your marriage?

A core question is a primary pattern that shapes your life. It is the dominant question that constantly filters your thoughts both at a conscious and a subconscious level. Ultimately, your core question becomes the definitive filter for what you constantly notice, or fail to notice, as you experience life.

For example, if you continuously ask yourself, “Why do bad things always happen to me?”, then you’re going to constantly find, see, and experience negativity throughout your everyday life. In this instance, this damaging question is filtering and dictating your perception of life; ultimately bringing forth the destructive attributes of your activities, interactions, and experiences.

In order to determine your current core question, consider the following criteria questions:

• Is your current identity tied up within your question? If so, is it constructive or destructive to your life?
• Do you associate strong emotional attentiveness to it?
• Do you ask this question across all aspects of your life? Is it constructive or destructive?
• Do you feel that your question is leading you to your ultimate purpose, pleasure, success, and fulfillment?
• If you don’t live by this question, does it cause you pain? Does it mean life or death – meaning that it’s an instinctive survival question?
• What pain(s) are you avoiding by asking this question?
• What pleasure do you derive from asking this question?

WHAT’S YOUR CORE BELIEF(S) BEHIND YOUR QUESTION(S)?

The reason that you take action in any situation or on any thought is that you have a belief of its significance – you believe that it will have some sort of significant (either great or small) outcome and/or result. That belief has anchored itself deep within your subconscious and your physiology. You have unconsciously associated that belief with either massive pain or great pleasure…sometimes doing so many, many years prior and have therefore solidified itself within your unconscious identity.

AT THIS MOMENT, WHAT’S THE DRIVING MOTIVATION BEHIND YOUR CORE QUESTION?

You must now determine the driving motivation behind your core question. In order to do so, you must recall a significant and/or emotional event that occurred in your life that gave you certainty about the meaning of that event.

There is value in becoming aware of the unconscious meaning of this past experience because when you determine this meaning on a conscious level, you can then explore other perspectives on how to act, and therefore influence your future decision-making processes.

Keep in mind that when a significant and/or highly emotionally charged event has occurred in your life, your emotions, perspective, and physiology is anchored in that experience. When your physiology and emotions are heightened, your focus narrows which further solidifies the meaning and beliefs that you have attached to that event.

When your focus is narrowed, your ability to explore other perspectives becomes limited, less important, and less noticeable. That narrowed perspective is where and what you spend time focusing on…because it’s all that you can foresee.

So don’t allow your perspective to limit you now.

Welcome to the big picture.