My new primary question

We talked about the Primary Question and the influence it can have on our lives in this blog before. The primary question is like an immediate unconscious reaction to things happening in your environment. Some questions are serving us and help us feel presence, love and gratitude, others remind us about our fear that we might not be enough and therefore not be lovable. Even a question which might look very innocent from the outside like “How can I make this better?“ could drive a person into a vicious cycle of desperately looking for “the perfect solution“ which in most cases does not exist.

The good news is that by using NLP we can change an unwanted primary question to one which suits us better, so we do not have to suffer.  We actually can change it any time we want. That relieves a lot of pressure about making “the right choice“ and allows us to try things out. My previous primary question was “How can I enjoy this moment even more?“. What I liked about it was the fact that it presupposed that I was focused on the here and now and that I was enjoying the moment already. It did not put me under any pressure to take action – just feel and enjoy. Of course, that were moments which were not enjoyable by definition and then the question invited me to take a different perspective. 

In business situations where sometimes politics come into play, this question nevertheless put me from time to time into a confused state. A bit more than a week ago I reflected on this and found my new primary question:

“What is the gift in this moment?“

Here is what I like about my new primary question: it presupposes that there is a gift in any moment and as we all know, problems are gifts that make us grow when we solve them. The word “gift“ puts me into a state of positive anticipation – almost like at Christmas and most importantly, it makes me refrain from retaliation which used to be my default reaction when I rated something as an attack. The positive effect now is that my response is a lot better thought out and in many cases it prevents me from getting into an argument with others. I’m excited about how this primary question will support me in the future.