Alyss Thomas - The 1000 Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask Yourself: That Make Life Work for You

...be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

He who overcomes himself is strong.

Knowing helps being. Being self-aware helps us develop ourselves, improve the art of living and feel connection with others. It helps us improve the quality of our lives and those of the people around us. This book will help you develop certain types of self-awareness. By answering the questions you will open up your awareness, make connections, push beyond some of your current limitations, and make new discoveries about who you are and who you can be.

Dont make yourself work through the book from beginning to end, but choose the parts that seem to talk to you now. On the other hand, if there is a section that you really dont want to look at, it might be interesting to explore your resistance. If you have a strong reaction against some of the topics, there might be a good reason. This could be part of the story you have told yourself about who you are and what you can and cannot do based on the past. This book is interested in bringing you up to date with the here and now of your life. Once upon a time we all had certain limits placed on us, and we learned to work within a belief system that told us what we could or could not do, dare or believe. The fun and challenge of this book is that it gives you ideas and tools to open up your personal Pandoras box of attitudes, behaviours, emotions, thoughts and beliefs. You can choose the ones you want to keep, change or discard. You can challenge yourself, grow, change, develop all at your own pace. You can gain reassurance, confidence and enhanced self-esteem. There is a wealth of information here for your use, in a straightforward and accessible format.

Overcoming yourself is more than half the battle with any problem. We are very clever at creating problems that then take us decades to figure out. Sometimes other people cause us problems, especially when we are children, and it takes a long time to climb out of the particular trap we find ourselves in. As a psychotherapist I have had privileged access into the inner worlds of many hundreds of people. They have shared their problems, joys and secrets with me, and instead of blaming others, have been especially interested in what it is they might be doing to keep making things go wrong. This book is the result of some persistent questions I have asked myself over years of listening to people who were in some way dissatisfied or unhappy.

How and why do people mess their lives up, and how can we all stop doing it? Why cant we be happy and fulfilled? What is preventing us having what we truly desire? Of course there are all kinds of external reasons why things go wrong and maybe the world is a bad, dangerous and difficult place. At some point, difficult or even impossible things happen to all of us; the only choice you have about this is what kind of attitude to take when something challenging does happen. But the fact that bad stuff happens isnt what this book is about. The book is here to help you make the most of your life whatever happens. It is about developing yourself as a resource that will not fail you however tough things get and that will enable you to have joy and happiness as well.

Many times we turn to various different ways of trying to read the future. The old oracles, such as the I Ching or tarot, help us obtain some perspective on difficult and perplexing problems and questions. These ancient oracles are still highly popular. However, they evolved in cultures very different from our own, and represent values, such as the depiction of the fixed roles of women, that may no longer be helpful to us. This book offers a fresh look at our need to ask questions and find the right answers for ourselves. While respecting and appreciating traditional wisdom, it also offers a straightforward contemporary approach based on consistent, logical principles. Asking ourselves questions is a powerful way to drive our lives forward.

It is easy to feel vulnerable and insecure, and to feel that someone else out there must have the answers for you. It is not particularly difficult to train as a counsellor, a life coach, or a seminar leader, and to offer people solutions, models and advice as to how they can tweak their life into shape. Are these people really better experts on you than you are yourself? Sometimes it can be reassuring and comforting to enlist professional help, and there are times when therapy of various kinds can really help you address stuck issues and move ahead. Sometimes another persons feedback is essential to help you see yourself more accurately and clearly. However, it is unhelpful to assume that there is something wrong with you that needs fixing. Many people are trying to sell you something you cant really get from anyone else: a good attitude, and the ability to ask yourself the right questions. This is what this book is about.

The 1000 Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask Yourself takes a different approach to psychology than those you may find in many other popular psychology and self-help books and programmes. It doesnt focus solely on changing your behaviour or challenging outmoded negative beliefs although this is included. The quiz format is designed to help you bring new awareness to your underlying values, attitudes and emotions. Awareness itself is transformative. You will find the questions continue to work on you long after you have put the book down. Thus, the quizzes have a soft format and do not have routine psychological profile answers. They are designed to help you refresh your mind.

Sometimes it is amazing that we ever get out of bed at all. Why bother? Overcoming yourself is more than half the battle. It can take tremendous work to create the right attitude in yourself so you are ready for the good things to happen. Often it isnt the problem itself that is the problem, but the attitudes we insist on hanging on to. It will not be possible to read this book without shifting your attitude at least a little! If you are not ready yet, creep back into bed, but remember this persistently cheerful and determined book will be waiting for you.

Why should you bother with all the questions in this book? It seems like a lot of work, and how do you know it will make any difference? Try it and see. Try applying the process to one small area of your life. Try something that seems relatively easy and unthreatening. Then build on your success. Dont start with a huge issue you have been fighting with for decades.