Have you ever had moments when you realized that the question you were asking was the wrong one? Not that it was totally unreasonable, or out of context, but that it was just not focused enough? It didn’t take you were you needed to be.
Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey illustrate this in the book they co-authored together: What Happened to You? They observe a phenomenon that most of us have experienced even if we did not realize it until after the fact. We encounter someone, known or unknown to us, who is talking or acting in ways that seem really out of bounds to us: crazy, irrational, insane, unhinged–we say. That person could even be ourselves! What is the question that rises up within us, spoken or unspoken?
What’s wrong with you?!!!
It’s a loaded question because it not only utters our confusion mixed with curiosity and likely some fear. It lands on the other person with full on judgment: there is something wrong with you. You are broken. I can’t accept you. You are not welcome.
We might not intend to convey those extra messages, but they do communicate themselves when we ask “what is wrong with you?”
We have been asking the wrong question, and it’s not because we didn’t have reason and context for asking “what’s wrong with you?”
The better question is: what happened to you?
I read the Perry/Winfrey book years ago, but it’s message comes back to me often. It reminds me that this practice of deep listening is very much like asking questions and working on our questions until they become the one that takes us to the heart of things.
What happened to you? We can ask the question of anyone, including ourselves, without ever saying an audible word–and allow it to take us to the heart of the other person, or better, to our own hearts. We can stay there a long time and return there often, and open to deep understanding.
~Bob Patrick
